“Dit is sterk doepa daai” maar is dit al wat ons het?

Abstract

The realisation of the effects of the so-called “linguistic turn” and differential thought associated with deconstruction and postmodernism has been an important presence in Brink’s oeuvre since On the Contrary (1993). In Praying Mantis (2005) there is an important shift away from the kind of awareness that the world is constituted in language (as in Devil’s Valley (1998)). An uneasiness with the postmodern celebration of the idea that “the universe is made of stories, not of atoms” and that retelling and reinvention open up new possibilities of being lead to the problematisation of the idea that all narratives are equal and of the total rejection of the notion of truth. In Praying Mantis there are attempts to reach “past language” and to escape from the malaise caused by a certain reaction to the linguistic turn.

Opsomming

Die besef van die effek van die sogenaamde “talige wending” en die differensiedenke kenmerkend van die postmodernisme, het op verskeie maniere in André Brink se oeuvre, veral sedert Inteendeel (1993), neerslag gevind. In Bidsprinkaan (2005) sluit Brink steeds hierby aan maar daar is tóg ’n belangrike klemverskuiwing wat Bidsprinkaan in ’n sekere sin teenoor byvoorbeeld Duiwelskloof (1998) stel. In hierdie artikel word geredeneer dat die implikasies van die besef dat ons in ’n taalgekonstrueerde werklikheid leef, wat sentraal in Duiwelskloof (en in ander van Brink se romans) staan, in Bidsprinkaan verder ondersoek word en dat ’n onvergenoegdheid met ’n bepaalde postmodernistiese viering van alles as verhaal en alle verhale as gelykwaardig, in laasgenoemde roman teenwoordig is. In hierdie roman word gereik na “iets anderkant die woord” om aan die malaise van die talige wending te probeer ontsnap.