{"id":282846,"date":"2011-03-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2011\/03\/23\/agaat-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T15:20:12","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:20:12","slug":"agaat-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2011\/03\/23\/agaat-why-this-book-should-win-the-btba\/","title":{"rendered":"Agaat [Why This Book Should Win the BTBA]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA<\/span> Fiction Longlist<\/a> over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, some more serious, some very funny, a lot written by people who normally don\u2019t contribute to Three Percent. Overall, the point is to have some fun and give you a bunch of reasons as to why you should read at least a few of the BTBA<\/span> titles.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for all past and future posts.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Agaat<\/em><\/b> by Marlene Van Niekerk, translated by Michiel Heyns<\/p>\n

Language:<\/b> Afrikaans
\nCountry:<\/b> South Africa
\nPublisher:<\/b> Tin House
\nPages:<\/b> 579<\/p>\n

Why This Book Should Win:<\/b> It explores a complex web of human relationships at a familial and national level without ever leaving a single room; and because, as Liesl Schillinger says in her review of the novel published in the NYT<\/span> Book Review<\/em>, \u201cBooks like Agaat<\/em> . . . are the reason people read novels, and the reason authors write them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s entry is from Gwen Dawson, who runs the always excellent Literary License<\/a> blog. And who will be joining the BTBA<\/span> judging panel for 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the beginning of this epic novel, seventy-year-old Milla de Wet is confined to her bed. Once the strong and competent owner of a successful farm inherited from her mother, Milla suffers from A.L.S. and now is left with only the ability to blink her eyes and, after a while, not even that. Milla is entirely dependent on the ministrations of Agaat, her devoted house servant, who wordlessly promises Milla \u201cthe best-managed death in history.\u201d It is 1996 in South Africa, just two years after the demise of apartheid.<\/p>\n

From this confined vantage point, Milla narrates her adult life story, beginning with her troubled marriage to the dashing, if agriculturally-challenged, Jak de Wet in 1947. Soon after she and Jak settle on her farm, Milla decides to take in and raise the abused young daughter of a farm laborer, renaming the girl Agaat. Long unable to have a child of her own, Milla eventually gives birth to a son named Jakkie, marginalizing Agaat\u2019s position in the family. Over time, Milla and Agaat develop a complex co-dependency, as do Jakkie and Agaat, while Jak becomes jealous of Agaat\u2019s hold over both his wife and his son. Agaat forms the center of a decades-long, multi-dimensional game of tug-o-war: \u201ca pivot she was, a kingpin, you\u2019d felt for a while now how the parts gyrated around her, faster and faster, even though she was the least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agaat<\/em> is about many things, including marriage, parenting, friendship, sickness, and death. Politically-minded readers will find plenty of support for interpreting the novel as an allegory for apartheid, while those with more domestic interests will appreciate the details on embroidery, ecologically-sensitive farming practices, and home-based nursing procedures. Perhaps _Agaat_\u2019s most important lesson concerns the importance of communication to achieving lasting change. The best education and carefully constructed systems cannot bridge the gap between master and servant, between white and black. Rather, true understanding is possible only after years of empathetic communication. As Milla nears death, she and Agaat have finally approached this kind of understanding:<\/p>\n

[The doctor\u2019s] face looms above mine. He looks at my eyes as if they were the eyes of an octopus, as if he\u2019s not quite sure where an octopus\u2019s eyes are located, as if he doesn\u2019t know what an octopus sees. He shines a little light into my face, he swings it from side to side. I look at him hard, but seeing, he cannot see.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Agaat catches my eye. Wait, let me see, she says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[The doctor] stands aside. He shakes his head.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Agaat\u2019s face is above me, her cap shines white, she looks into my eyes. I blink them for her so that she can see what I think. The effrontery! They think that if you don\u2019t stride around on your two legs and make small talk about the weather, then you\u2019re a muscle mass with reflexes and they come and flash lights in your face. Tell the man he must clear out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A small flicker ripples across Agtaat\u2019s face. Ho now hopalong! it means. Her apron creaks as she straightens up. Her translation is impeccable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She says thank you doctor. She says doctor is welcome to leave now, she\u2019s feeling better. She says thank you for the help, thank you for the oxygen, we can carry on here by ourselves again now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I close my eyes. He must think she\u2019s crazy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again the fingers snapping in front of my face.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She\u2019s conscious, really, doctor, you can leave her alone now, she\u2019s just tired, when she shuts her eyes like that then I know. Everything\u2019s in order, she says, she just wants to sleep now. I know, I know her ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Milla\u2019s disease has the potential to reduce this nearly 600-page novel into an exercise in claustrophobia, but, instead, Van Niekerk has created a work of stunning breadth and emotional potency. Milla\u2019s second-person narration is liberally broken up by her diary entries, which Agaat has decided to read to Milla during her last days, and by italicized paragraphs of Milla\u2019s stream-of-consciousness musings. Van Niekerk is a poet as well as a novelist, and her considerable poetic abilities are on display throughout the novel. Likewise, Michiel Heyns\u2019s masterful work yields an English translation with all the elegant power of the original language. These various elements come together in Agaat to create an unforgettable reading experience that transcends the lives of its four primary characters to implicate the broader world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Similar to years past, we\u2019re going to be featuring each of the 25 titles on the BTBA Fiction Longlist over the next month plus, but in contrast to previous editions, this year we\u2019re going to try an experiment and frame all write-ups as \u201cwhy this book should win.\u201d Some of these entries will be absurd, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[39166,39156,37866,37856,39146,39136,24196,1646,39176,26056,37876],"class_list":["post-282846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-afrikaans-literature","tag-agaat","tag-best-translated-book","tag-btba-2011","tag-gwendolyn-dawson","tag-marlene-van-niekerk","tag-michiel-heyns","tag-review","tag-south-african-literature","tag-tin-house","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282846"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397352,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282846\/revisions\/397352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}