No Time Like the Present

SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2012 65 Binnie Brennan A Certain Grace Quattro Books In this collection of short fiction, Canadian author Brennan measures out tales of the ordinary. Focusing on the quiet distance that can grow between brother and sister, parent and child, family and friend, Brennan writes with an honest simplicity that discovers the extraordinary and beautiful in the small events of daily life. Mario Benedetti Witness: The Selected Poems Louise B. Popkin, tr. White Pine Benedetti was of one of Uruguay’s most beloved poets and activists. This anthology of his work, lovingly translated by one of Benedetti’s close associates, spans his career and demonstrates both his profound understanding of his fellow Uruguayans and unwavering devotion to the advancement of human rights. Nota Bene to geometry; his backgrounds, suggestive rather than descriptive. This strategy might work against his ability to deliver a story of sufficient complexity in fewer than one hundred pages, but Gauld’s appropriation of a myth that is fundamental to Western culture pays rich dividends. By taking the David and Goliath story and reversing its narrative point of view, Gauld acquires a rich tapestry to draw from and upon without having to burn countless panels establishing place and character. The result is an affecting tale filled with dry humor and just the right amount of pathos to give its foregone conclusion suitable weight to propel the reader from cover to cover. While Gauld’s subversion of Goliath’s story is light-handed, it does offer a moment’s pause to remember that history is written by the victor and that histories of those wars are driven by narratives that may not be descriptive of the experience of those fighting it. Whatever gravity one assigns to the book’s meaning, Goliath is an outstanding introduction to Gauld’s work and a graphic novel that will linger in the imagination well after its conclusion. Rob Vollmar University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma Nadine Gordimer. No Time Like the Present. New York. Farrar , Straus & Giroux. 2012. isbn 9780374222642 Nadine Gordimer’s latest novel adds to the growing body of literature expressing discontent with the social, economic, and political conditions in post-Apartheid South Africa. In Gordimer’s greatest novels—The Conservationist, Burger’s Daughter, My Son’s Story—she brilliantly combines richly textured topicality (the stifling of dissent in the 1960s, the cataclysmic upheaval of Soweto in 1976, the explosion of resistance in the 1980s) with universal themes of identity, loyalty , betrayal, and the need to find balance between a life dedicated to the self and a life dedicated to the struggle for freedom. This novel’s topical concerns include a dysfunctional educational system, growing xenophobia, emigration, and political misconduct, with frequent references to current president Jacob Zuma’s corruption, cronyism, and trials. The novel’s main characters, Steve, a white man, and Jabu, a Zulu woman, met as young members of the armed resistance to Apartheid and married once mixed-race marriages were legal. Working respectively as a university professor and a constitutional rights lawyer, Steve and Jabu have negotiated the transition to what the novel calls “normal life” in which “everything is after,” defined in relation to the end of Apartheid. Able now to justify a life in which personal achievement, and not only total commitment to political struggle, is worthwhile, Steve and Jabu raise their two children in a suburb of Johannesburg, mindful in all of their actions of the social conditions of both privilege and its lack. Much of the novel revolves around Steve and Jabu’s decision, seen by some of their friends as disloyal, to immigrate to Australia. The decision to immigrate is, in effect, judgment on the failed aftermath of the Struggle . “What is the difference between not doing anything, and having arrived, while desperately opposing yourself, at recognition that what 66 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY reviews had been believed, fought for . . . every day degenerates.” As a great admirer of Gordimer’s fiction and the high standards she sets for her art and her intellect, I am saddened to report that this latest novel disappoints. Gordimer’s fiction typically challenges and rewards with its crisp, taut style, elliptical expressions , and nuanced meditations

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