EVERY week I send Vrye Weekblad's art director, Angela Tuck, a summary in English about the person with whom I have had an informal conversation. She can then prepare a visual approach to my interview.
I let her know that I had spoken with Louise Viljoen, retired professor of Afrikaans and Dutch at Stellenbosch University. Usually I describe the person's spirit, feeling, their “vibe", broadly speaking.
I described Louise thus: “The vibe: Intellectual, without pretence, naughty sense of humour, knows much more about the world than just Stellenbosch and literature. Not parochial, not pleased with herself, a mix of a young Brigitte Bardot, Colette and Françoise Hardy, sensual, classy, but without bells and whistles. She might be hesitant about pics, shy I suspect."
Lees hierdie artikel in Afrikaans
***
In my conversation with Louise, she starts right away telling me how happy she feels about her retirement, because she is no longer subject to a routine and administration. She is still pulling out all the stops working, though.
“It's wonderful to work for free," she says. “It's as if a space has opened up in my head."
She continues to write her brilliant reviews and is busy with many academic projects. The other day she sat in front of her computer and thought – this is my thing now, research, writing, I like this, I am happy.
Louise began teaching in Stellenbosch in the late 1970s and over the decades has built up a formidable reputation as an academic. A former student, Suzaan Steyn, who attended her class in the 1980s, says: “I remember how accessibly she opened up difficult literary concepts for us. There was no towering academic wall between her and us. I still remember the smell of her freshly washed hair, which entered the class with her."
***
In 2023, the South African Academy of Science and Art awarded her the Jan H. Marais Prize in recognition of her contribution to Afrikaans literature. They wrote: “[She] boasts a formidable publication record as a scholar of literature and has published around 60 articles in specialist journals, 30 chapters in books and more than 50 papers delivered at national and international congresses, many as keynote speaker."
The literary website Litnet adds that she is the author of a collection of views on the work of Antjie Krog, a short biography of Ingrid Jonker and Die mond vol vuur (The mouth full of fire), views on the work of Breyten Breytenbach.
There are others, but her selection of poems by Barend Toerien with the title Om te onthou (To remember, 2006) remains one of my favourite books. I attended the opening night and that was where I first saw and met Louise.
It made me happy that someone who is knowledgeable about literature was reacquainting the public with Toerien's work. He is one of the most underrated poets in Afrikaans and it didn't help either that all his life the establishment figure and fellow poet T.T. Cloete had been trying to cast suspicion on his poetry.
On why she thinks Toerien was treated so harshly, she says: “Barend left South Africa in 1948 to live abroad. His cosmopolitan spirit, his enormous reading, his outspokenness and irreverence, his critical and satirical view of South African conditions probably ran counter to the conservatism and narrow-mindedness in certain circles.
“I was particularly charmed by the sensitivity to the defenceless that was hiding under that rough exterior. Just look at ‘Raccoon in 'n slagyster' (Raccoon in a spring trap) in Plek op die land (Place on the land)." (See the poem below).
***
Louise was one of two children, her brother was Adriaan. They were born and raised in Vredenburg. Her mother was Gerrie, an accountant. Appie van Zyl, her father, was a chartered accountant.
What she remembers about the landscape of her youth was the drastic difference between the seasons. The summers bare, dry, windy, a harsh landscape. The winters generous, green, soft. During spring all the flowers, the colours. “It makes you sensitive to the landscape," she says.
Thinking about those times she harks back to a line in the Dutch poet J.C. Bloem's poem De Dapperstraat: “Alles is veel voor wie niet veel verwacht." (Everything is a lot for those who don't expect much).
“It was just a typical small town, but there was a great library and a drive-in theatre. At the library you could also take out prints of paintings. In addition, my parents read an awful lot, books about architecture, you name it," she says.
She was a good tennis player and when she had matches in the Boland, afterwards the whole family would drive through the old villages in the car and look at all the beautiful old houses.
At the time, with the regional arts councils in place, actors toured with plays and also performed in Saldanha Bay. The Van Zyls would be there. They saw people like Jannie Gildenhuys on stage, plays like Charlie se tante (Charlie's Aunt) and plays by Eugène Ionesco.
“Ionesco in Saldanha!" she laughs. “We were hungry for entertainment, information, books, events. Great fun was to be had when people [came down from the interior] to the sea over the Christmas season, and we would take to the road for Johannesburg. My mother had three sisters there."
It was exciting for her and her brother, they came from this small town and then the drama of the big city, the tall buildings, all the people on the street, buses and cars, the noise.
“There was a big CNA, my dad bought me loads of Penguin books," she says.
“When you became a teenager, did you go busting it on the dance floors of Hillbrow?" I ask.
“No," she says, “remember, I was from Vredenburg!"
***
After school, Louise went to Stellenbosch University where she studied literature, later taught, lived for decades and also met her husband, Willie Viljoen.
Adv Willie Viljoen was a respected senior public prosecutor for many years at the National Prosecuting Authority in Cape Town. They lived in the Mother City for 11 years before deciding to move to Stellenbosch.
“We have been living there for 30 years. You know, Stellenbosch was still a town then, and look at it now," she says. They have two children, Carel, who lives in London, and Suzanne, who lives in Tamboerskloof.
Her son, she says, among other things, is a film fundi and educates her. She mentions Shoplifters and The Zone of Interest. The latter is loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis.
It focuses on the life of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, who lives with his wife, Hedwig, and their five children in an idyllic house next to the camp. Höss takes the children out swimming and fishing, and Hedwig spends her time tending the garden.
The murdered Jews' belongings are given to the family. Beyond the garden wall, gunshots, screaming and the sounds of trains and ovens are often heard. The smells of the crematorium swirl in the air.
That a good story captivates her and that she is one of the country's leading reviewers is simply fact. What are the requirements for a good review? I ask.
“You have to have respect for the book you are dealing with, but also for the reader of the review. You must provide enough information about the book you are discussing without giving everything away, you must make it clear what your judgment is about the book – you can do this in many ways – and you must write in such a way that readers can understand you while staying true to who you are," she says.
***
We continue to talk about the unprecedented boom in poetry in Afrikaans. I can't help noticing, though, how she squeezes a lemon slice's juice on a single potato chip. (Louise has ordered juicy chicken with barbecue sauce and freshly fried potato chips.) She stares at it with intensity as she does so.
When she starts talking about the art of poetry, a tanned, topless man runs past the restaurant (we are in Mouille Point), a type of young Richard Gere, but she is talking poetry and there is no time for shooting the breeze.
“When I lectured in Belgium, about Antjie Krog and Ronelda Kamfer, people were surprised by the intensity of the poetry. It's not just about little clouds," she says.
“There is indeed an upsurge at the moment among the young poets in Afrikaans who are producing excellent work. I recently heard some of them saying in interviews that writing poetry is actually the greatest form of rebellion one can commit.
“You know, you are dealing with a genre that is read by few people and is not going to put money in your pocket. Still, it's a way to show that you will stay true to yourself artistically and do what you feel you have to, regardless of any other considerations.
“Poetry across the world is a niche market, but people remain captivated by what the genre can achieve, perhaps also by the stubbornness with which poets persist in doing what they do," she says.
When she was working on her doctorate, a man wanted to know what it was about. “About poetry," she replied.
She was at his house in a posh neighbourhood. “Poetry?" he asked in amazement. Then he turned to his wife and asked: “Do you know of one person in this whole street who reads poetry?"
***
Louise has written in depth about Breyten Breytenbach and I wonder how the Afrikaans literature of today differs from that of the Sestigers.
“I think the Sestigers brought a dramatic upsurge and renewal in Afrikaans literature, especially prose, by experimenting with new techniques and addressing the political problems of the time in their work," she says.
“However, with the exception of Adam Small, they were all white writers. I think there has been a great expansion in the latest literature in that we are now dealing with writers who also write about the problems of our time from a completely different framework of experience and do so with great skill."
***
What amazed me one day was a woman at a reading circle who told me she didn't read J.M. Coetzee's work because she didn't understand Afrikaans. Huh? I just kept my big white mouth shut.
However, this annoyed me because many English-speaking South Africans have no idea what is going on in the literatures of local languages (sometimes not even in their own). Colonialism had its way with them, to such an extent that native English writers' works sell much worse than Afrikaans books.
The reason? English speakers here believe anything coming from Britain or America is better than the local offering.
What are the biggest misconceptions that people have about Afrikaans literature? “As far as I'm concerned, uninformed people often have the misconception that Afrikaans literature would be parochial. In its best moments, however, it is as wide as the world and as intense as a blowtorch," she says.
***
More on parochialism. Now that she is “retired", Louise also reads more world literature. How does this broaden her insights and thinking?
“All my life I have read very widely, and undisciplined. Now that the world has opened up to us in all kinds of ways through streaming services that make films, television and music available to us in all languages and from all regions of the world, I once again feel that I want to venture beyond the corsets of Afrikaans and Anglo-American English.
“Then I search through the longlists of the International Booker Prize and read as much as I can of what is mentioned, in book form or on my Kindle (in English translation, of course). This year I have already been to Peru, Venezuela, Korea, East Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria in this way."
***
It's time to say goodbye, but first we talk about her brother, the artist Adriaan van Zyl, who died of cancer in 2006 at the age of 49. Among other things, Adriaan will be remembered for his atmospheric paintings (The Hospital series) about the freezing cold corridors of Tygerberg Hospital where he received treatment for cancer.
It is amazing that when you are sick or dying you are surrounded by a cruel lonely interior with no colour or warmth. These paintings appear as part of the narrative in Marlene van Niekerk's book Memorandum.
“I miss my brother every day," she says. “My brother's death was an incredibly big loss for me, but it eventually taught me to come to terms with mortality and the finitude of things.
“We were just two children: He taught me about art, about integrity, about humanity, about loyalty, about bravery, especially in the face of illness. I still miss his sense of humour, his ironic look and sensitivity every day."
She looks in Sea Point's direction. “In my younger days, I used to visit and stay here often. I remember the salty smell of the sea. It was the smell of hope."
***
Raccoon in a springtrap
You bare your teeth to me now, sharp
like a machine's gears! Bite into my hand
and spit on me with venom, will you!
Today is the day that I'll have you pat.
The snow is laid thick and laid white:
over everything laid. Your foot's furrow leads
right up to here, to that chicken coop
where two tamed sparrows are pecking for food.
You should have nipped them. Now you're in my trap.
Twinges ripple over your black fleece;
the mascara eyelets in your triangle face
show me where you – oh God! your little baby hand
with its limp white fingers half have bitten off,
bit off half to escape me;
you wanted to hop three-legged away.
Beautiful animal, the wholly other,
who stares at me starkly with spite,
me with my pedestrian hens
and my petty-bourgeois thoughts
and who sleeps badly, rolls around in the dark
and bites my nails in my sleep.
Do you want me to bite my wrists off tonight?
– Barend Toerien
Translated by Hans Pienaar
♦ VWB ♦
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