Orgie by Andre P Brink (Afrikaans text)
Very scarce Signed, First edition.
Signed and dated by the author Andre P Brink on title page.
Orgie by Andre P Brink (Afrikaans text)
Hardcover
Publisher: John Malherbe Edms Bpk, 1965 First Edition.
Very Good/Good. White boards undamaged but lightly tanned at the margins. Some mild and scattered spotting on the cover and outer pages. DJ shelfworn and rubbed at the extremities. Previous owner name inscribed and name stamp on first page. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
- Contentious, experimental work arising out of the love affair between the author and Ingrid Jonker (although she is not credited, about a third of the content was either taken verbatim from her letters to Brink or actually contributed by her). Published shortly before Jonker's untimely death it is said that when Brink was informed of Jonker's drowning his first words were, "Nou is Orgie eers klaar!".
- " I borrowed the library's (autographed) copy, but definitely want to read it again sometime. I award five stars only to "life-changing" books. Orgie is a rather strange book: it is structured as a dialogue (of thoughts) between him and her; set simultaneously in the present, the past, and the eternal, and often modernistically switching between them mid-sentence; rich with allusions to literature and mythology and full of symbolism and metaphor.
What this changing between narrators allows, is that you get a really in-depth look into the internal dialogue of each of the two characters. They see and remember the same things from different perspective, and each also has his own memories and experiences to contend with. In one of my favourite parts, he thinks, "Jy sit so stil en kyk na my asof jy alles raai wat in my is..." and immediately afterwards follows her thought, "... en agter jou geslote oë al jou onbereikbare verhale." Each wants, desperately, to be happy, and neither knows how to get what they want. And you're left wondering whether they could be happy if only... or not?
Perhaps my favourite aspect of the book is the parallels with his and Ingrid Jonker's life (such as the references to his marriage, her grandmother and mother, the sea and seaweed in particular, as well as more obviously the book's dedication to her).
The characters' struggle with defining their relationship reflects Brink's own struggle with similar themes in real life. And the courage with which he explores this in writing - including the frightful resolution - is amazing. The book's title really comes into its own at the very end, in the last scene. Throughout the whole there is the drunken party, but it is only in the final act that the abandonment to lust suddenly and tragically crystallises."
- André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist. He wrote in Afrikaans and English and was until his retirement a Professor of English Literature at the University of Cape Town.
In the 1960s, he and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.
Brink's early novels were often concerned with the apartheid policy. His final works engaged new issues raised by life in postapartheid South Africa.
Signed and dated by the author Andre P Brink on title page.
Orgie by Andre P Brink (Afrikaans text)
Hardcover
Publisher: John Malherbe Edms Bpk, 1965 First Edition.
Very Good/Good. White boards undamaged but lightly tanned at the margins. Some mild and scattered spotting on the cover and outer pages. DJ shelfworn and rubbed at the extremities. Previous owner name inscribed and name stamp on first page. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
- Contentious, experimental work arising out of the love affair between the author and Ingrid Jonker (although she is not credited, about a third of the content was either taken verbatim from her letters to Brink or actually contributed by her). Published shortly before Jonker's untimely death it is said that when Brink was informed of Jonker's drowning his first words were, "Nou is Orgie eers klaar!".
- " I borrowed the library's (autographed) copy, but definitely want to read it again sometime. I award five stars only to "life-changing" books. Orgie is a rather strange book: it is structured as a dialogue (of thoughts) between him and her; set simultaneously in the present, the past, and the eternal, and often modernistically switching between them mid-sentence; rich with allusions to literature and mythology and full of symbolism and metaphor.
What this changing between narrators allows, is that you get a really in-depth look into the internal dialogue of each of the two characters. They see and remember the same things from different perspective, and each also has his own memories and experiences to contend with. In one of my favourite parts, he thinks, "Jy sit so stil en kyk na my asof jy alles raai wat in my is..." and immediately afterwards follows her thought, "... en agter jou geslote oë al jou onbereikbare verhale." Each wants, desperately, to be happy, and neither knows how to get what they want. And you're left wondering whether they could be happy if only... or not?
Perhaps my favourite aspect of the book is the parallels with his and Ingrid Jonker's life (such as the references to his marriage, her grandmother and mother, the sea and seaweed in particular, as well as more obviously the book's dedication to her).
The characters' struggle with defining their relationship reflects Brink's own struggle with similar themes in real life. And the courage with which he explores this in writing - including the frightful resolution - is amazing. The book's title really comes into its own at the very end, in the last scene. Throughout the whole there is the drunken party, but it is only in the final act that the abandonment to lust suddenly and tragically crystallises."
- André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist. He wrote in Afrikaans and English and was until his retirement a Professor of English Literature at the University of Cape Town.
In the 1960s, he and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.
Brink's early novels were often concerned with the apartheid policy. His final works engaged new issues raised by life in postapartheid South Africa.
