Embrace

This was initially a Journalism (Writing and Editing) assignment I had to do earlier this year. But since I have loved this novel since the first time I read it, I had to post the assignment-turned-blog. And you have to read not only the blog, but the novel as well. It is amazing. The novel, that is.

 The gripping Embrace

Creative writing professor and author of The Smell of Apples, Mark Behr, explores the notions of sexuality, identity and politics in the complex and disturbing character of 13-year-old Karl De Man.

Embrace by Mark Behr

Published by Abacus

Reviewed by Lonwabo Nodada

                                                              “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read, you begin with a, b, c. When you sing you begin with do, re, mi”.

This is the sentence that introduces the reader to 13-year-old Karl De Man’s journey in Mark Behr’s Embrace. Karl and his family move from Tanzania (then Tanganyika) to South Africa’s Kwa-Zulu Natal and immediately define themselves as an Afrikaans family. Set in 1976, the book documents a white boy’s childhood in a time when black South African learners revolted against Bantu Education, a policy that forced them to learn in Afrikaans. To keep Karl away from the uprisings, his parents send him to the Drakensburg Boys’ Choir School, an elite boys’ music school in South Africa. It is in this school that Karl discovers his sexuality. He falls in love with his best friend Dominic and goes as far as successfully seducing Mr Cilliers, his choir master. Throughout the novel, we see Karl develop as a homosexual boy in a homophobic school and as both an artist and a writer.

When one considers the parallels between Behr and his leading character, it is easy to see the novel as autobiographical. A current professor of creative writing at Rhodes College in Memphis and a former professor of world literature and fiction writing, Behr was raised in Tanzania. He and his family had to move to South Africa after the nationalisation of white farms took effect in parts of East Africa. They classified themselves as Afrikaners and his father became a game ranger in Kwa-Zulu Natal (in the same way that Karl’s father does). Behr attended, as Karl does, the Drakensburg Boys’ Choir School and later went to Port Natal High School. Upon graduating from Port Natal, he joined the South African Defence Force. The final pages of Embrace explore this concept of young Afrikaans boys having to join the defence force. We see Karl abandon his love for art and literature and rebuke his sexuality in an attempt to appease his traditionally Afrikaans father and do what is expected of him.

It is only in the last part of the novel that Behr brings the novel into one linear story. The novel is divided into five parts, each named after the five movements of Beethoven’s “Solemn Mass”. This five part division is arguably the only thing that assists the reader in reading the book coherently. The rest of the novel combines structures in a way that could only be understood as postmodern. It is a complex read that shifts between stream of consciousness, poetry, diary entries and a linear narrative without warning. Behr has lengthy passages of Afrikaans, isiXhosa and a language that Karl and Dominic formulate that he never translates. As initially confusing as it is, the novel’s structure serves as a mirror of Karl’s complex and troubled mind and. It takes one a while to get used to the seemingly haphazard structure of the novel, but once one reads the final part it becomes clear that there is indeed method to the madness.

Embrace is a novel that could easily serve as a point of reference for every writer and journalist. The 724-page long novel is an amalgamation of writing styles and an integration of universal themes. What Behr does is document not only the life of his lead character Karl De Man but that of South African history and colonisation. He finds a way to mirror Karl’s mind through his choice of writing styles. As the novel follows Karl’s development as a writer, it becomes an impromptu lecture on the process of creative writing. We see Karl struggle to write Dominic a poem throughout the novel and as the poem eventually comes to life in the final pages, it is revealed as a lesson in the documentation of thoughts and concepts. Embrace can be considered to be both a piece of creative writing and a form of long from journalism. It is an investigation of the life of a homosexual boy in a boys’ school and a recording of a partially liberal Afrikaans boy in a South Africa ruled by racial discrimination.

Behr shows the modern journalist and writer how to use personal anecdotes as forms of commentary on political and controversial subjects. His exploration of language as a tool for identity construction and exploration encourages aspiring writers like me to find comfort in their own voices and writing styles. I commend him for that.