My Son's Story

A brilliant book -- perhaps her best. As usual Gordimer is all about human relationships -- not just blacks vs. whites, but dark blacks vs. lighter skinned blacks; fathers with their sons and daughters and their wives and their mistresses; old,veteran revolutionaries relationships with young, new revoltionaries and on and on. Her syntax is always complicated, and sometimes frustrating, but well worth the effort.

Gordimer's intricate tale of an educated black family struggling with the evils of apartheid is most noteworthy for its rich characterization. The story is told primarily by Will, the teenage son of anti-apartheid activist Sonny. Will acknowledges the horrors of the political situation around him but is painfully affected by the domestic consequences of social change (first his father's affair with white activist Hannah, and later his mother's imprisonment). The complexity of the writing is necessary for conveying the emotional weight of the story. The chapters alternate (roughly) between the first person narration of Will and a third person account of the unfolding situation. This allows the reader to experience the pain and ambivalence Will feels, while also making the reader aware of the secrets that the family members keep from each other. I disagree with the other reviewers that Gordimer's work is overly cerebral (if you want to see pretentious, dry, and overintellectualized, check out fellow African author J. M. Coetzee... yawn). My Son's Story is brilliantly realized in terms of both form and content. Without its complexity, the book would not be as believable, heartfelt, or utterly tragic... although I probably wouldn't have appreciated it in the ninth grade either.

Now that I'm finished with My Son's Story I feel that my older review of this book was mostly wrong. This is a very difficult book to read, the writing is very complicated chocked full of allusion, metaphor, allusion, simile, allusion, and, you guessed it, allusion! It is a wonderfully elegant, rich book which makes the struggle against apartheid in South Africa real and personal to the reader.What I love about this book is that the "heroes" of the movement are shown to be multi-dimensional, flawed, people, who are doing their best in their lives, as well as to further the interests of the liberation movement.My Son's Story is an inspiring, moving book. As difficult as it is to read(it made me feel kind of stupid!) I know that I am a better, richer person for having read it.

This was an extremely well-written story of the effect of apartheid on one black family in SA. The writing is not fast-reading but well-done. It adds to he impressive oevre dealing with conditions in SA but personalizes the problems there.