I found David
Ralph Vivier’s novel eminently readable (as long as one keeps up one’s
levels of concentration), and kept me guessing right through. Highly
recommended. (Review by Barry Meehan)
“The world is coming undone. There are holes in its fabric. I have been certain for a while now, especially reading the kind of books I find in the Linnaeus Room, that if there was a passageway to another realm, a chink in the world’s make-up, it would be located here, between the fossils and crassulae. That if one only knew where to look, it would be possible to discover fissures in time and space.” (Quotation from the book Mirage, written by Elizabeth Tenant in 1899)
Mankind has long been fascinated by the idea of alternate or concurrent universes to ours. Quantum physics makes a fine case for their reality. A dissertation on the subject is beyond the understanding of most of us mere mortals, though. David Ralph Viviers makes a fine case for alternate universes/realms in his novel Mirage, which is intriguing reading, even if you don’t have a degree in cosmology or quantum physics. You do need to keep your wits about you, though, and I’m sure there might be times when a wandering imagination might make you stop in your tracks and say “What did I just read?”
University student Michael, the leading man in the novel, is recovering from a serious break-up, but has managed to get his hands on the journal of Victorian author Elizabeth Tenant, which was discovered in a trunk dug up on a koppie near the Karoo village of Sterfontein. The trunk also contains what might be the remains of a baby’s body. Believing that further investigation is required, he sets off for the village, thinking it should be a simple enough quest.
Unfortunately, simplicity soon gives way to a complex web of interconnection between him and the author, even though they lived over 100 years apart. So many questions arise:
-Is he the Michael referred to in
Elizabeth’s Tennant’s book and diary?
-Was there actually a baby?
-If so, who was the father?
-Will the omens in the sky re-appear?
-Do they signify that the end of the world
is near?
-Where does Michael’s deceased mother fit
in?
-Is Renata actually a medium able to look
into the future?
-What is Oom Sarel’s secret?
-In essence, what is real and what isn’t?
I found David Ralph Vivier’s novel
eminently readable (as long as one keeps up one’s levels of concentration), and
kept me guessing right through. Highly recommended.
Mirage is published by Umuzi, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4859-0497-7 – Barry Meehan
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