Representasie as tekstuele ideologie in 'n Ander Land van Karel Schoeman: Lees as dissent

Abstract

Reading as dissent refers to the literary phenomenon that fiction is dependent on meaning productive mechanisms. These mechanisms can be described more closely with reference to deconstructive procedures: they are those textual formulae which produce autonomous units of meaning in a text. The following meaning units in 'n Ander Land are being scrutinized: a historical time and place (Bloemfontein); the observation and experience of landscape; the implicit narrative voice; focalisation; subjective experience as the actual medium of textual focalisation. Fiction is not simply the other side of textual meaning productive mechanics or textualisation, but works in alliance with textual mechanisms to create a double reading practice in which one reading is suppressed to allow for the other. Therefore the reader can interpret 'n Ander Land as stating that the white experience of Africa can only be relayed in the form and by means of the white experience itself. Following not the fiction, but fiction's dependence on textual mechanisms he may read that subjec­tive experience has to exclude the "otherness" of the "Other" in order to come across as natural. This allows for a reading of 'n Ander Land as justification of subjectivity as such. This can be proved with reference to the deconstruction of textual mechanisms. Each fictive unit of meaning proves to be a metaphor which technically implies closed and natural meaning. However, if subjectivity and the experience of the "ander land" are meaning productive metaphors, then they can also be termed ideological since they aim at maintaining illusionary meaning. In this sense, the representation of the "ander land" by means of Versluis' subjective experience can be termed ideological. Finally, if fiction can neither avoid nor deny its own ideologisation, then the place is cleared for dissentative reading since the latter expresses a sensitivity for illusionary meaning creation in the present socio-political situation. 

Opsomming
Lees as dissent hang saam met die verskynsel dat fiksie berus op betekenisskeppende meganismes. Hierdie meganismes kan met behulp van dekonstruksie beskryf word as enige formule wat geslote betekenisse in die teks skep. In 'n Ander Land word die volgende meganismes ontleed: 'n historiese plek en tyd (Bloemfontein); die landskap wat waargeneem en ervaar word; die implisiete vertellerstem; die fokalisasie; subjektiewe ervaring as eintlike fokalisasie van die vertelling. Daar word aangetoon dat "fiksie" nie die keerkant van tekstualisering is nie, maar dat fiksie en tekstualiseringsmeganismes twee verskillende leeswyses aan die gang sit waarby die een leeswyse die ander een onder­druk. As gevolg daarvan lees die leser van 'n Ander Land saam met die verhaal ook dat die blanke ervaring van Afrika net as blanke ervaring oorvertel kan word. Hy lees onbewustelik dat subjektiewe en,aring noodwendig die "andersheid" van die "Ander" uitsluit om subjek­tiewe ervaring te kan wees. Daarom kan 'n Ander Land gelees word as stelling oor die geldigheid van geslote subjektiwiteit as sodanig. Die dekonstruksie van teksualiseringme­ganismes maak so 'n afleiding moontlik. Elke fiktiewe betekeniseenheid word ontleed om sy metaforiese aard aan le dui. As subjektiwiteit en die ervaring van die "ander land" metafore van betekeniseenheid is, dan is hulle terselfdertyd ideologies omdat hulle pro­beer om bepaalde illusionere betekenisse in stand te hou. In hierdie sin is die represen­tasie van die "ander land" d.m.v. die subjektiewe ervaring van Versluis ideologies. As fiksie sy eie gerdeologiseerdheid nie kan ontwyk of ontken nie, dan regverdig di! 'n dissentatiewe lees deur lesers wat bewus is van valse betekenisskeppings in heersende sosiopolitiese omstandighede.