THE LATER FICTION OF NADINE GORDIMER Also by Bruce King THREE INDIAN POETS: Ezekiel, Ramanujan and Moraes MODERN INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH THE NEW ENGLISH LITERATURES: Cultural nationalism in achanging world CORIOLANUS HISTORY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE MARVELL'S ALLEGORICAL POETRY DRYDEN'S MAJOR PLAYS Books edited by Bruce King POST- COLONIAL ENGLISH DRAMA: Commonwealth drama since 1960 THE COMMONWEALTH NOVEL SINCE 1960 WEST INDIAN LITERATURE A CELEBRAT ION OF BLACK AND AFRICAN WRITING LITERATURES OF THE WORLD IN ENGLISH INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATRE DRYDEN'S MIND AND ART TWENTIETH-CENTURY INTERPRETAT IONS OF ALL FOR LOVE: A colleetion of critical essays Series editor MODERN DRAMATISTS ENGLISH DRAMATISTS The Later Fiction of Nadine Gorditner Edited by Bruce King Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-22684-9 ISBN 978-1-349-22682-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22682-5 © The Maemillan Press Ltd 1993 Editorial matter, seleetion and Introduetion © Bruee King 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1993 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Referenee Division, St. Martin's Press, Ine., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First published in the United States of Ameriea in 1993 ISBN 978-0-312-08534-6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data The Later fietion of Nadine Gordimer / edited by Bruee King. p. em. Inc1udes index. ISBN 978-0-312-08534-6 1. Gordimer, Nadine-Criticism and interpretation. 2. South Africa in literature. I. King, Bruee Alvin. PR9369.3.G6G76 1993 823---de20 92-13518 CIP This book is dedicated to the memory of Michael Wade who died, an exile from South Africa, in Jerusalem, September 1990. He was an excellent critic, author of three books about South African literature, a revolutionary and a friend. The essay included here was edited, with his wife' spermission, from a longer version. B. K. Contents Notes on the Contributors ix Introduction: AChanging Face 1 Bruce King Part I General Essays 1 'Nobody's Children': Families in Gordimer's Later Novels 21 John Cooke 2 Collector' s Art, Collective Action: The Search for Commitment in Nadine Gordimer's Fiction 33 Graham Huggan 3 Black and White in Grey: Irony and Judgement in Gordimer' s Fiction 45 Rowland Smith 4 Placing Spaces: Style and Ideology in Gordimer's Later Fiction 59 Brian Macaskill 5 Landscape Iconography in the Novels of Nadine Gordimer 74 Kathrin M. Wagner Part 11 The Novels 6 The Conservationist and the Political Uncanny 91 Lars Engle 7 The Interregnum of Ownership in July's People 108 Rosemarie Bodenheimer 8 The Politics of Place in Burger's Daughter 121 Daphne Read 9 Making Metaphors/Moving On: Burger's Daughter and ASport o[ Nature 140 Susan Winnett vii viii Contents 10 ASport of Nature: Identity and Repression of the Jewish Subject 155 Michael Wade 11 ASport of Nature and the Boundaries of Fiction 173 Stephen Clingman 12 My Son's Story: Drenching the Censors - the Dilemma of White Writing 191 Susan M. Greenstein Part III The Shorter Fiction 13 Feminism as 'Piffling'? Ambiguities in Gordimer's Short Stories 213 Karen Lazar 14 Once More into the Burrows: Gordimer's Later Short Fiction 228 Alan R. Lomberg 15 Archive of Apartheid: Nadine Gordirner's Short Fiction at the End of the Interregnum 237 Jeanne Colleran Index 246 Notes on the Contributors Rosemarie Bodenheimer is Professor of English at Boston College and author of The Politics 01 Story in Victorian Social Fiction. Stephen Clingman, a South African, is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His publications inc1ude The Novels 01 Nadine Gordimer: History from the Inside and the editing of Gordimer' s The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places Jeanne Colleran teaches English at John Carroll University, Cleve land, Ohio. Her interests inc1ude drama, 50uth African and Renais sance literature. John Cooke is Professor of English at the University of New Or leans, author of The Novels of Nadine Gordimer: Private Lives/Public Landscapes and editor of the four volumes of New Orleans Ethnic Cultures. Lars Engle is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of the forthcorning Shakespearean Pragmatism (Chicago, 1993), and numerous articles on Early English and recent 50uth African literature. Susan M. Greenstein taught English at Western Washington Uni versity and 5t Mary' s College of Maryland, and currently is an administrator with the National Endowment for the Humanities. 5he often writes about 50uth African and women authors. Graham Huggan is English, studied for his doctorate in Canada and teaches English at Harvard University. He is editing a collection of essays on J. M. Coetzee to be published by Macmillan. Bruce King is the author of New English Literatures, Modern Indian Poetry in English, Three Indian Poets, Coriolanus and other books. Among the books he has edited are The Commonwealth Novel since 1960 and Contemporary American Theatre. He is editor of the English Dramatists series and co-editor of the Modern Dramatists series. ix x Notes on the Contributors Karen Lazar is a South African who teaches English at the Univer sity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Alan R. Lomberg is from South Africa, has taught at the University of Malawi and now teaches English at Algoma University College in Canada. Brian Macaskill, from South Africa, teaches English at John Carroll University in Ohio. His interests are South African literature, the novel and theory. Daphne Read wrote her doctoral thesis on Gordimer' s Burger' s Daugh ter. She teaches English at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Rowland Smith is McCulloch Professor in English at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Dean of Arts and Sodal Sci ences. His publications include The Literary Personality of Roy Campbell and the editing of Critical Essays on Nadine Gordimer and Exile and Tradition: Essays in African and Caribbean Literature. Michael Wade was Professor of English and African Studies at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. He wrote the first books on Gordimer and Peter Abrahams. He lived in exile from South Africa after his involvement in revolutionary activities; he was wanted by the South African police and banned from entry into his native land. Kathrin Wagner writes regularly on South African fiction. She is from Gerrnany and Senior Lecturer in English at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Susan Winnett teaches English and Comparative Literature at Co lumbia University, New York. Her Terrible Sociability: The Text of Manners in Laclos, Goethe, and Henry James was published by Stanford University Press.