Philida by Andre Brink

When I realized that the Man Booker 2013 long list had been announced and I had yet to come close to finishing up the Man Booker 2012 long list, I panicked.  In a good way, I think.  I really enjoy these 12-13 books each year.  The Man Booker comes the closest to my taste in fiction as any other prize that I have made an effort to read the finalists for--and I am not a huge reader, mind you--but I do always make an effort to look at the short list for the National Book Award, the PEN Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, the New York Times Best Books, and so on.  For me, this is the best.

So, back to the task at hand--to finish the 7 books I have yet to read.  'Philida' is my first success in that endeavor.  It is a very tough read, in that Philida is a South African slave who has been taken in by promises from a white master.  Worse yet, the master's son.  She was first raped and then the willing mistress to Frans.  Frans has promised her and her children their freedom, and when she catches wind of a rumor that Frans is to be married to a white woman and she is to be sold to a farm far away, she exercises one of the very few rights that were afforded black slaves in South Africa in the early part of the 19th century--she goes to court.

What Philida has failed to understand is the dynamics of slavery and sadism, and then how that mingles with sexual brutality.  Beating women and then raping them is an ugly but much recognized pattern of behavior that is played out here.  Frans is nothing compared to his father Cornelis.  Cornelis is a small man made big by his power over his slaves and his family.  Ironically, his mother was a slave that his father raped when his wife stopped having sex with him--Cornelis is a mulatto, but that does not soften him--he is a cruel man who is sexually aroused by violence, and that is a very bad thing indeed, both for Frans and for Philida.  Slavery has left everyone dehumanized--blacks, whites, and those in between.

The strongest part of the story is the first half--after Philida is sold to a kinder gentler owner, who is not at all keen to free his slaves when the time comes, but who treats them as skilled workers.  She begins to process her life and to look beyond getting her freedom to look at what she actually wants in life.  She starts to get an education.  She also becomes more angry about what has happened to her and other slaves--seeking freedom is not a crime, in her book.  But the emotional force of this story is far less powerful.

The book is well written--a hallmark of all Booker nominees--but the end of the story kind of peters out rather than getting wrapped up.  It captures South Africa at a time and place, and gives a context for what the future holds for the Cape of Good Hope.