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A review by arirang
The Folly by Ivan Vladislavić
4.0
Published originally in 1993 in South Africa, The Folly, Vladislavic's debut novel, was originally read as an allegory for the creation and collapse of the apartheid system. Bought out in the UK in 2015 by And Other Stories, and read by me on a plane flight to South Africa, I have to admit I struggled to see the specific allegory, but the novel worked for me as a comment on any absurd system or construction (as well as a critical comment on those lacking imagination and vision).
A stranger, Nieuwenhuizen, arrives one day and occupies the vacant plot next to the house of Mr and Mrs Malpas, who address each other simply as Mr and Mrs.
Mr, a hardware retailer ("Mr Hardware - a world of materials under one roof"), is intrigued by the newcomer:
"Just look at the head he's got on him! When I behold that head I must say it gives me a good feeling about him, here, in the pit of my stomach."
But Mrs is immediately suspicious:
"'Is he one of those squatters we've been hearing so much about? Will he put up a shack and bring hundreds of cronies to do the same? 'Extended families.' What do you think? Will they hammer together tomato boxes and rubbish bags, bits of supermarket trolleys and motor cars, noticeboards and yield signs, gunny sacks and jungle gyms, plastic, paper, polystyrene ... '
'Enough.'
'...brass, bronze and beaverboard. Fine. We'll be forced out of our home. They'll play their radios loud. They'll go in the streets like dogs. They'll tear up our parquet for firewood.'"
Nieuwenhuizen turns out to be there to build a new house - his coincidentally convenient name further rousing Mrs's suspicions but his task exciting Mr Malpas.
Except his building methods and tools are somewhat unorthodox. This description of him banging in a nail is typical:
"He stepped off with his right foot and took six stiff paces. The earth felt unusually firm and steady. When his left foot came down for the third time, in the middle of IE, he flung the hammer in his right hand forward with all his might, pivoted on his heel, toppled sideways, flew into the air, flapped after the hammer like a broken wing, went rigid as a statue in mid-air, hung motionless for a long, oblique instant, and crashed to earth with a cry of triumph. He levered himself up and located the impression of his heel on the ground; then the starch went out of him and flopped down on all fours to get a good look at the mark. It was shaped like a comma, with a bloated head and a short, limp, tail. He took a nail from the bandoleer and pressed its points into the comma. Then, swinging his right arm like a piece of broken furniture, he hammered the nail into the ground."
Indeed he doesn't really build at all. The nail is hammered into the ground simply as an anchor point for an elaborate construction of strings which seem to constitute the, unorthodox, plan of the house, or rather folly.
Mr gets increasingly engaged in the project and bewildered by the lack of concrete (pun intended) progress. He tries to ply Nieuwenhuizen with helpful supplies from his store only to be told:
"You've got hardware on the brain, my friend, and it leaves no room for speculation."
"You can't rush the building of a new house. You've got to get the whole thing clear in the mind's eye."
Mr Malpas admits he can not yet envision the house:
"Plans aren't my thing, I admit. I'm a supplier at heart."
Allegorical novels are often written in sparse prose, lacking in detail, so as to increase the universality of the story. Here, the opposite applies. The novel is perhaps most distinctive for it's use of language, particularly lists of commonplace but evocative terms.
Mrs watches Nieuwenhuizen, through the window, refusing to enter the plot, and mutters inventories of her household knick knacks as defensive invocation against the intruder, trying to keep herself grounded in reality as Mr loses interest in his business as he tries to enter into Nieuwenhuizen's vision:
"Copper ashtray. Welteverden coat of arms (wildebeest rampant). Wicker basket, yellow, a-tisket. Figurines viz. cobbler, gypsy,ballerina, plumber, horologist, Smurf. Paperweight, guineafowl feather. Paperweight, rose. Paperweight, Merry Pebbles Holiday Chalets. Cake-lifter, Continental China, coronation centenary crockery, crenate, crumbs. However. Spatula. Just as things were starting to become interesting. Mug. As day followed day. Doll. As day follows night. Puppy-dog. As night follows day, sure enough, she found herself drawn back to the window."
Nieuwenhuizen, in contrast, mentally categorises the house that lives largely in his imagination.
And Mr Malpas tries his hardest to follow, eventually reaching an epiphany when he suddenly sees and enters the new house as a physical reality, triumphantly proclaiming:
"I must say: Bakelite, yes, balusters, bay windows, breastsummers, bricks of course, and, I almost forgot, braai-spots. Please insert, I do declare."
Except the moment can not last. Nieuwenhuizen himself literally disentangles the edifice, as if his work is now done, leaving Mr and Mrs alone again in their house.
"Mr sat down at the table and sighed heavily, 'I'm sorry Mrs. There, I've said it.'
'There's no need to apologise. I'm just grateful you've come to your senses while we've still got a roof over our heads and food on the table. Thank heavens everything's back to normal.
'We're back where we started ... but let's not pretend that things are the same.
'Words, words, words,' said Mrs, misunderstanding him. 'Let's not pretend at all. It doesn't suit us. Let's just get on with our lives. One day we'll look back on all this and discover that we can laugh about it."
Overall, a beautifully written tale, rich in language, but rather, wonderfully, baffling in its absurdity.
A stranger, Nieuwenhuizen, arrives one day and occupies the vacant plot next to the house of Mr and Mrs Malpas, who address each other simply as Mr and Mrs.
Mr, a hardware retailer ("Mr Hardware - a world of materials under one roof"), is intrigued by the newcomer:
"Just look at the head he's got on him! When I behold that head I must say it gives me a good feeling about him, here, in the pit of my stomach."
But Mrs is immediately suspicious:
"'Is he one of those squatters we've been hearing so much about? Will he put up a shack and bring hundreds of cronies to do the same? 'Extended families.' What do you think? Will they hammer together tomato boxes and rubbish bags, bits of supermarket trolleys and motor cars, noticeboards and yield signs, gunny sacks and jungle gyms, plastic, paper, polystyrene ... '
'Enough.'
'...brass, bronze and beaverboard. Fine. We'll be forced out of our home. They'll play their radios loud. They'll go in the streets like dogs. They'll tear up our parquet for firewood.'"
Nieuwenhuizen turns out to be there to build a new house - his coincidentally convenient name further rousing Mrs's suspicions but his task exciting Mr Malpas.
Except his building methods and tools are somewhat unorthodox. This description of him banging in a nail is typical:
"He stepped off with his right foot and took six stiff paces. The earth felt unusually firm and steady. When his left foot came down for the third time, in the middle of IE, he flung the hammer in his right hand forward with all his might, pivoted on his heel, toppled sideways, flew into the air, flapped after the hammer like a broken wing, went rigid as a statue in mid-air, hung motionless for a long, oblique instant, and crashed to earth with a cry of triumph. He levered himself up and located the impression of his heel on the ground; then the starch went out of him and flopped down on all fours to get a good look at the mark. It was shaped like a comma, with a bloated head and a short, limp, tail. He took a nail from the bandoleer and pressed its points into the comma. Then, swinging his right arm like a piece of broken furniture, he hammered the nail into the ground."
Indeed he doesn't really build at all. The nail is hammered into the ground simply as an anchor point for an elaborate construction of strings which seem to constitute the, unorthodox, plan of the house, or rather folly.
Mr gets increasingly engaged in the project and bewildered by the lack of concrete (pun intended) progress. He tries to ply Nieuwenhuizen with helpful supplies from his store only to be told:
"You've got hardware on the brain, my friend, and it leaves no room for speculation."
"You can't rush the building of a new house. You've got to get the whole thing clear in the mind's eye."
Mr Malpas admits he can not yet envision the house:
"Plans aren't my thing, I admit. I'm a supplier at heart."
Allegorical novels are often written in sparse prose, lacking in detail, so as to increase the universality of the story. Here, the opposite applies. The novel is perhaps most distinctive for it's use of language, particularly lists of commonplace but evocative terms.
Mrs watches Nieuwenhuizen, through the window, refusing to enter the plot, and mutters inventories of her household knick knacks as defensive invocation against the intruder, trying to keep herself grounded in reality as Mr loses interest in his business as he tries to enter into Nieuwenhuizen's vision:
"Copper ashtray. Welteverden coat of arms (wildebeest rampant). Wicker basket, yellow, a-tisket. Figurines viz. cobbler, gypsy,ballerina, plumber, horologist, Smurf. Paperweight, guineafowl feather. Paperweight, rose. Paperweight, Merry Pebbles Holiday Chalets. Cake-lifter, Continental China, coronation centenary crockery, crenate, crumbs. However. Spatula. Just as things were starting to become interesting. Mug. As day followed day. Doll. As day follows night. Puppy-dog. As night follows day, sure enough, she found herself drawn back to the window."
Nieuwenhuizen, in contrast, mentally categorises the house that lives largely in his imagination.
And Mr Malpas tries his hardest to follow, eventually reaching an epiphany when he suddenly sees and enters the new house as a physical reality, triumphantly proclaiming:
"I must say: Bakelite, yes, balusters, bay windows, breastsummers, bricks of course, and, I almost forgot, braai-spots. Please insert, I do declare."
Except the moment can not last. Nieuwenhuizen himself literally disentangles the edifice, as if his work is now done, leaving Mr and Mrs alone again in their house.
"Mr sat down at the table and sighed heavily, 'I'm sorry Mrs. There, I've said it.'
'There's no need to apologise. I'm just grateful you've come to your senses while we've still got a roof over our heads and food on the table. Thank heavens everything's back to normal.
'We're back where we started ... but let's not pretend that things are the same.
'Words, words, words,' said Mrs, misunderstanding him. 'Let's not pretend at all. It doesn't suit us. Let's just get on with our lives. One day we'll look back on all this and discover that we can laugh about it."
Overall, a beautifully written tale, rich in language, but rather, wonderfully, baffling in its absurdity.