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Not too long ago South Africa unwillingly held the media spotlight, harangued for its
archaic policies and embargoed as a result. Little Steven and Tracey Chapman sang in
protest of the country's long-existing Apartheid administration, and high school students
--- like myself --- wrote vehement term papers lambasting one of Africa's most prosperous
countries for having race specific shantytowns. Then, the old regime resigned and Nelson
Mandela was released from prison to lead the country. The controversy seemingly ceased,
and the newsreel ended.
But South Africa's upheaval and unraveling still perpetuate, and it is this volatile and
desperate state that is so expertly captured by novelist Andre Brink in his newest book,
THE RIGHTS OF DESIRE. A three time recipient of South Africa's prestigious CNA award and
finalist for the internationally recognized Booker Prize, Brink nimbly employs Cape Town's
restless state --- fueled by confusion, rage, and ignorance --- as a backdrop to DESIRE.
Essentially, the story is that of widower Ruben Olivier, a writer long-suffering from
loneliness and stifling guilt. Surprisingly, Ruben's loneliness does not stem from the
loss of his wife, but from a visceral, more complicated pain cultivated by a loveless
childhood in the stark, near-arctic countryside. Ruben is awakened by the arrival of
Tessa, a young woman he take's in as a boarder. He almost immediately becomes infatuated
with Tessa's youth and beauty, and his feelings for her sadly and sickeningly fluctuate
from fatherly to incestuously sexual.
Ruben's loyal maid Magrieta is the harbinger of all of Cape Town's chaos, retelling
stories of murder, rape, and persecution, which never seem to penetrate Meneer's (as she
likes to call Ruben) secured life of wealth and isolation, a life devoted to Tessa's every
move. Magrieta has a unique link to the specter of a slave girl called Antje of Bengal,
who haunts the house. Antje had an obsessive and passionate relationship with the house's
original owner. She's officious and trapped in some sort of purgatory, stirring trouble as
a spying watchdog. Antje's discontent permeates THE RIGHTS OF DESIRE, and her lingering
ghost, a reminder of a jaded love affair, is just one of many parallels saturating this
novel. Ruben's desire for Tessa mimics Antje's or that of her master (we never find out
who actually was pursuing whom in the subplot), and his pain is no less hurtful than the
cruelties Cape Town residents inflict on each other as the pigment of the hand of power
changes.
Brink's newest is an engrossing lesson in life's fragile dynamics and an interior view of
an exotic culture rank with metamorphosis.
--- Reviewed by Laura Donnelly
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