Category Archives: publishing

Nelson Mandela: The Print Version

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I actually heard about Nelson Mandela for the first time in a children’s book. I was perhaps nine, and reading Mary Stolz’s Who Wants Music on a Monday? In this novel of teen/family angst, the young hero says something about Nelson Mandela being under house arrest, testing his date’s knowledge of current events. She replies that she feels under house arrest herself, given the strictness of her parents; he decides she’s too vapid and self-centered, if she can apply the reason a South African leader is martyring himself to her personal circumstances.

And I thought, “Who?”

Back then we didn’t have Wikipedia; we walked uphill through the snow to and from school, summer and winter. But we did have the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in the back of the classroom. So I looked him up.

He wasn’t in there. I had to ask my teacher. She gave me a funny look and told me it was recess.

Years later at university, I was taking a photojournalism class and we were assigned to bring in a photo that outshone the headline from a major city newspaper. All eight of us brought in a picture of Nelson Mandela, freshly released from prison, arms raised in victory, Winnie at his side. By then I kinda had a clue; by then we could look stuff up online and whether somebody was an accepted hero (or really big villain) no longer dictated who got to hear about him or her. For better or worse, grass roots journalism had been born.

Through the Winnie saga, the DeKlerk years, the dignity of being a global statesman, and finally the failing health of Mandela, I lived respectively in Germany, Newfoundland, Scotland, England, and the States. Where I lived dictated what I heard, and in what tone of voice. I still remember the BBC radio report that celebrated Mandela’s life because he was receiving an international peacekeeping award, followed by a fairly breezy piece on diamond trading. (For those unaware, South Africa is unfortunately rich in diamonds, which has caused it no end of trouble and brought the country a string of fair-weather political friends, condemning Mandela in the ’70s and lauding him in the ’90s.)

News–and history, more than we like to think–are moving targets. Nelson Mandela’s life in print is probably nothing near what his actual impact has been; and it is a moving target. God Bless those who do what is in front of them because it is important, with no thought to how it will be told later. And God Save Us from pundits who take up a hero’s story for their own purposes. Rest in Peace, Nelson Mandela.

THE MONDAY BOOK: Caleb’s Crossing by Gwendolyn Brooks

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Caleb’s Crossing is, when pressed into a small nutshell, the novelization of what happened to the first two Indian scholars to attend in the late 1600s the college that would later be named Harvard. The ultimate fate of these two lads is true; how it happens is fleshed out in Brooks’ magical storytelling, through the eyes of Bethia, an English settler on the island that will become Martha’s Vineyard.

Let me start by saying Brooks had a 50-50 rating with me before Caleb’s Crossing. I LOVED her novels People of the Book and Year of Wonders, but couldn’t work my way through March (the Little Women father’s experiences in the Civil War) or, surprisingly enough Nine Parts of Desire, her ethnographic study of Muslim women. Which is weird because I’m an ethnographer and teach Islam and Women’s Studies, so I should have been able to get into that. I’m going to try again in a couple of years.

Sometimes books just have to hit their particular reader at a right time. And to my mind, Geraldine Brooks is a word wizard. I loved Caleb’s Crossing as much as her other two, and for similar reasons. When Brooks recreates a world, she does it with such authority, accuracy, authenticity that you can’t see the edges. Her characters aren’t anachronistic for their time.

Plus, her vocabulary rings true. She’s just pure dead brilliant at making ancient words tumble so gracefully from her characters’ mouths, and has the added artistry of being able to explain them without doing what my friend Mike Samerdyke calls “an information dump.” Try this paragraph, from when Bethia and Caleb (one of the two native scholars) meet:

“He walked through the woods like a young Adam, naming creation. I learned to shape my mouth to the words—sasumuneash for cranberry, tunockuquas for frog. So many things grew and lived here that were strange to us, because they had not been in England. We named the things of this place in reference to things that were not of this place—cat briar for the thickets of vine whose thorns were narrow and claw-like; lambskill for the low-growing laurel that had proved poisonous to some of our hard-got tegs. But there had been no cats or lambs here until we brought them. So when he named a plant or a creature, I felt that I heard the true name of the thing for the first time.”

See how fast she establishes background, setting, mood? You can hear birds, smell forest. And you get the tensions right away. She’s equally adept at the relationship between Puritans and Animists. Because the book is observed from one woman’s point of view, she can often discuss intense themes and cultural conflicts with a light touch, almost stepping sideways to hit them full on.

I look forward to rereading Nine Parts of Desire next year sometime, when my head is in better shape to take it in. And I thoroughly recommend, for those who like historic fiction, enjoy lyrical prose, or love a good armchair passport experience, Caleb’s Crossing. Make a cuppa, curl up, and plan to be gone about five hours.