Book Watch

"And the attribute of all true art, the highest and the lowest, is this – that it says more than it says, and takes you away from itself. It is a little door that opens into an infinite hall where you may find what you please."

Today I would like to talk about The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner. Set in colonial Boer South Africa, this magnificent novel presents a small, extraordinarily isolated farm as a microcosmic set for questions concerning race, feminism, religion, colonialism, and the nature of creativity itself. It is historically significant for introducing the “New Woman” - brilliant, independent, yet clauterphobically constrained. Olive Schreiner herself was an early feminist, socialist, and activist who grew up in a troubled missionary family in South Africa. The narrative descriptions in the book are breathtaking, and the book’s subtle consciousness of the beauty and meaning of narrative clinched the deal for me. I highly recommend this book to all. It is an immensely readable, beautifully written, and influential novel.