Terror Terroir: Building Disruptive Possibilities in Ivan Vladislavic’s The Folly

Abstract

Ivan Vladislavic’s 1993 novel The Folly has received less critical attention than his other writing. The novel was republished recently and, in this article, I read The Folly as a text that, from the vantage point of 1993, stages white South African suburbia as a site fraught with tensions. In the novel, the appearance of a drifter on a terrain vague dissolves the certainties of a suburban neighbourhood, creating an inchoate but gnawing sense of threat that finds expression in the Malgas family. I argue that white suburbs are underexamined cultural sites whose mundanity disguises their disci­plining principles. I draw on experiences of inhabiting "white space" as a Black person to read Vladislavic’s novel as parodying white unease towards spaces that disrupt the taut or smoothed surfaces of suburbia. This unease is reflected most visibly in the post apartheid evolution of such suburbs into lifestyle clusters, security estates and other configurations of life that are arranged around the alleviation of white middle class anxieties.

Opsomming

Die kritiese resepsie van Ivan Vladislavic se 1993 roman The Folly is opmerklik  meer beperk as die van sy ander romans. Onlangs verskyn ’n heruitgawe van The Folly, en in hierdie artikel lees ek die roman as ’n teks wat, vanuit die oogpunt van 1993, wit voorstedelike Suid Afrika voorstel as deurspek met spanning. In die roman laat die verskyning van ’n swerwer op ’n terrain vague die sekerhede van ’n voorstedelike woonbuurt verdwyn en skep dit ’n onvolledige, maar knaende, sin van bedreiging wat deur die Malgas-familie voorgestel word. Ek voer aan dat wit woonbuurte kulturele terreine voorstel wat nog nie na behore ondersoek is nie en waarin alledaagsheid hul dissiplinere beginsels verbloem. Ek steun op my eie ervarings as swartmens wat in ’n “wit ruimte” woon om Vladislavic se roman te lees in terme van hoe dit wit ongemak teenoor ruimtes wat die strak of egalige oppervlakte van die voorstede versteur, parodieer. Hierdie ongemak word die duidelikste weerspieel in die post apartheid evolusie van sulke woonbuurte. Dit sluit in leefstylgroeperinge, veiligheidskomplekse en ander vorme van die menslike bestaan wat in diens van die opheffing van die wit middelklas se vrese georden is.