On the plane coming home I read and finished "The Quarry" by Damon Galgut, a South African author. This book is not as well known as "The good doctor", by the same author, which was even on the shelf of the second hand bookstore I went to today here in Calgary, but if you have nothing else to do it is worth the read. From my point of view this is not a book worth hunting second hand bookstores for, and not worth buying new.It is an easy quick read which will teach you nothing at all about South Africa what so ever.... apart maybe, if you happen to pay attention, the fact that pick up trucks are called "backies".
The story is not meant to be anything like a true story. It starts with a man who is walking...apparently he has been walking for days and has no end in sight, no aim, no target that we are made aware of. But we do know that he hides from the car traffic...so possibly he is hiding and running away from something. Along the way he is picked up by a priest going to his new "posting" in the township (black neighborhood - this IS South Africa) of a small town where neither one of them has ever been. And from this encounter the story takes a new turn. The main character, who remains nameless through the entire book, stops walking endlessly at least temporarily, until the situation forces him to start again. And this time he is running, running away from something.
I really can't say more without spoiling it though truly it is a "mood book" and no a "plot book". Knowing the plot before hand would only slightly spoil the reading the book.
This is how the book starts:
"Then he came out of the grass at the side of the road and stood without moving. He rocked very gently on his heels. There were blisters on his feet that had come from walking and blisters in his mouth that had come from nothing, except his silence perhaps, and bristles like glass on his chin.
He crossed to a stone that was next to the road and sat. He was there for a while until, apparently without emotions, he bowed his head and wept into his hands. Then he stopped. He looked around. The road was a curve of dust. On either side of it the grasslands stretched flatly away and there wasn't a solitary tree."
The main critic from me would be that once the book was finished I felt that I would keep nothing from it. The only difference was that I had passed a few hours reading... But I can't say that I was entertained for a few hours, both the mood and the plot were too flat to give a sense of entertainment.
