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Article: Nadine Gordimer plots the growing pains of South Africa
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- September 25, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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NONE TO ACCOMPANY ME
By Nadine Gordimer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 324 pp.
$22.
The political novel, like most artistic endeavors, depends greatly
upon the receptive possibilities of its audience; as George Orwell
once pointed out, when you are hungry or afraid, it is hard to see
much difference between "Peter Pan" and "King Lear." Such is one of
the paradoxes of radical literature: Generally produced by a
card-carrying elite, its lessons are most often appreciated with a
full belly and clean sheets.
Vera Stark, devoted activist and reluctant wife and mother,
would no doubt understand this conundrum, though irony is hardly one
of her long suits. A white civil rights lawyer in ...