Compelling story focusing on an unusual
subject will definitely make you want to read it over again. (Review by
Caroline Smart)
Marguerite Poland’s latest novel, The Keeper, will be welcomed by her
thousands of fans as another gem of this author’s rich vocabulary and extensive
grasp of characterisation, emotions and environment.
The
Keeper features the story of two generations of
lighthouse keepers – and moves between the two time frames.
Set in 1957, it offers the poignant but
fascinating story of a father and son, both lighthouse keepers, and their wives
as well as the inhabitants of an isolated island with its cold winds and sea
battered rocks off the south-eastern coast of South Africa. While reading the
book, I connected so strongly with the island’s setting, that I often felt I needed
to grab a jersey!
The
Keeper’s main characters are keenly drawn. There’s father
Karel and his wife Louisa, son Hannes and his wife Aletta, friends Maisie and
Cecil Beukes, guano worker Misklip and Rika du Pre, the senior sister at the
hospital where Hannes recovers from a serious fall.
At the time this novel is set, keepers are
bound by stringent rules: Never leave the light and never cross the line
(social structures). For the women, this lonely life means that they become of
secondary importance in their husband’s lives. The lighthouse is a demanding
mistress.
Poland’s descriptive skills are so strong
that if this becomes a film, as I hope it will, most of the Director of Photography’s
work will have been done in terms of cutaways, scene establishments, mood
moments and more. She is master of the nuance, the thought process and the
frailties of the human spirit as well as its strengths.
Apart from reviewing this book, I am reading
it for Tape Aids for the Blind and, as with her Recessional for Grace which I
also read, find that it transfers smoothly to the spoken word. Every pause,
every nuance and every single line – even those with no more than four or five
words - resonate with imagery.
Poland’s understanding of the environment
seems so strong it is almost as if she has lived on such an island herself. Interestingly
enough, she wasn’t influenced by The Snow
Goose although it is a favourite book of hers.
However, she has always been fascinated
by great machines. As she says: “Ships, trains, those with presence and
gravitas. Lighthouses have that. I have also always been drawn to isolated
places - islands in the deep southern seas which are the haunt of sea birds. I
am not a tropical island girl - I love the wild and remote. I know I would love
the Hebrides and Shetlands.”
A girl in her class at school was the daughter of the lighthouse keeper
on Bird Island off Port Elizabeth and once gave a talk on her life there. “This
experience haunted me,” explains Poland. “I researched lighthouses with great
care before I wrote. I have explored one - a most magnificent place but aloof
and grave and solemn.”
This compelling story focusing on an unusual
subject will definitely make you want to read it over again to gain its full
value.
The
Keeper is published in paperback by Penguin Books.
Recommended
Price R235. ISBN: 9780143539032 It is also available in Afrikaans – Caroline
Smart
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