News from Parched Mountain

News from Parched Mountain PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595146120
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
In these stories, which make an important contribution to the literary heritage of South Africa, we have a kind of marriage between P G du Plessis and Herman Charles Bosman. The style is eloquent, the picaresque characters unique and typical at the same time. The writer manages, within the limited space of a short story, to print a picture of his characters' physical attributes as well as their personality traits. There are a number of stories that tell why certain people are the way they are. The content and the style of writing give the stories a delightful South African flavour in the evocative use of appropriate figurative language and symbolism. There is a good balance between narration and dialogue. Settings, where necessary, are vividly described, especially the arid landscape, the farms and the vegetation. The stories are all the more interesting and topical for their pithy comment on the ills of modern society and the allusions to problems in the New South Africa. They make compelling reading, for the outcome of each is invariably unexpected. The author has written a quartette of stories, the other three titles of the quartette being Pivot of Violence: Tales of the New South Africa, Flakes of Dark and Light: Tales From Southern Africa and Elsewhere; and Just a Bit Touched: Tales of Perspective. All make a very vivid and lasting impression.

News from Parched Mountain

News from Parched Mountain PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595146120
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
In these stories, which make an important contribution to the literary heritage of South Africa, we have a kind of marriage between P G du Plessis and Herman Charles Bosman. The style is eloquent, the picaresque characters unique and typical at the same time. The writer manages, within the limited space of a short story, to print a picture of his characters' physical attributes as well as their personality traits. There are a number of stories that tell why certain people are the way they are. The content and the style of writing give the stories a delightful South African flavour in the evocative use of appropriate figurative language and symbolism. There is a good balance between narration and dialogue. Settings, where necessary, are vividly described, especially the arid landscape, the farms and the vegetation. The stories are all the more interesting and topical for their pithy comment on the ills of modern society and the allusions to problems in the New South Africa. They make compelling reading, for the outcome of each is invariably unexpected. The author has written a quartette of stories, the other three titles of the quartette being Pivot of Violence: Tales of the New South Africa, Flakes of Dark and Light: Tales From Southern Africa and Elsewhere; and Just a Bit Touched: Tales of Perspective. All make a very vivid and lasting impression.

Just a Bit Touched

Just a Bit Touched PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595158749
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 118

Get Book Here

Book Description
The title for this volume was suggested by a remark of the narrator in the opening paragraph of the first story, 'The Arcadian': "They're just a bit touched, bonkers-like." While the characters might appear 'a bit touched,' each tale is touched by its own perspective, since each reflects the point of view of its unique narrator. So often the England of the Thirties or Forties is seen through the eyes of a child so that, Dickens-like, the foibles and characteristics of the adult world appear larger than life. These early stories are interesting, too, for the historical perspective they give us — of an Andy Capp industrial society long since gone. There are other stories written from the perspective of the Fifties: the two stories dealing with motor cars ('The Efelant' and 'Egging-on') add a more amusing perspective — of a time when petrol was dear and neighbours more than a bit touched by curiosity! The stories written in Africa with its latent social change — 'Victims,' for instance — add a more violent perspective, though hilarity is introduced by the expatriot (in 'It Was A Very Sad Case') who seems more than a bit touched by his paranoia. The author has written a quartette of stories, the other three titles of the quartette being News from Parched Mountain: Tales from the Karoo in the new South Africa, Flakes of Dark and Light: Tales From Southern Africa and Elsewhere; and Pivot of Violence: Tales from the new South Africa. All make a very vivid and lasting impression.

Pivot of Violence

Pivot of Violence PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595158218
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Get Book Here

Book Description
In these stories, which make an important contribution to the literary heritage of South Africa, the author brings together the atmosphere of violence and change that broods over the harsh world of the old Apartheid South Africa and which still threatens the stability of the New South Africa. Perspectives of both white and black are explored — perspectives of the victims rather than the oppressors where the victims are from both sides of the cultural divide. But the harsh realities are ameliorated by a vein of sympathetic insight, sometimes by a gentle comedy such as that which portrays a pipe-smoking priest, or by a tongue-in-cheek satire as is found in the tale of a well-to-do white woman who is methodically and meticulously covered by her lover’s semen. The author has written a quartette of stories, the other three titles of the quartette being News from Parched Mountain: Tales from the Karoo in the new South Africa, Flakes of Dark and Light: Tales From Southern Africa and Elsewhere; and Just a Bit Touched: Tales of Perspective. All make a very vivid and lasting impression.

The Nowhere Man

The Nowhere Man PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0955974100
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
A young man in Birmingham, in the sixties, escapes the humdrum mundanity of life through fantasies, tries to find himself, and finally escapes his dead-end lifestyle by gaining a place at a university.

Journey Towards Himself

Journey Towards Himself PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0955974119
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
A hilarious evocation of life as a student at Cambridge University in the sixties, shortly after the time of such notable figures as F. R. Leavis, C.S. Lewis and E.M. Forster.

Flakes of Dark and Light

Flakes of Dark and Light PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1462080979
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
The title Flakes of Dark and Light is evocative of the sharp flakes of insight and colour which characterise these tales. The tales in the first part mostly depict an African setting and, in fact, are more recent, often suggesting the climate of change and violence that has gripped southern Africa in the last two decades. The stories in the second part were inspired by a more English tradition and, in fact, capture the climate of change that brooded over life during the Thirties and the war years. A contemporary of Ted Hughes, and with many of his stories set in the depressed, sometimes seedy England of the Thirties and Forties which Graham Greene depicted in his early novels, its not surprising that Roy Hollands images and sentences are like flakes that cut like broken glass. A true artist, he does not take sides, but holds up a mirror to show life as it isorwaswhether in a pre-war England or an Africa ravaged by drought and violence. His tales are snapshots, truthful, sometimes startling, of two quite distinct cultures. However disparate they may seem, one is invariably aware of an underlying tenderness and sympathetic vision in the portrayal of character, regardless of race or background, that binds them together.

Now Lead Me Home

Now Lead Me Home PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0955974127
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this third book of the 'Jonathan Three', the experiences conveyed by the protagonist's stream-of-consciousness place the reader in the mind of the young man who eventually finds real love and meaning in a fulfilling relationship.

The Waking & Making of Paul Gauguin

The Waking & Making of Paul Gauguin PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0955974135
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Get Book Here

Book Description
It was during his illness, in 1887, when Gauguin was 39 years old, that the battle dramatised in this play - a battle imagined in his body, and in his mind, and in his moral nature - could have taken place.

Alan Paton Speaking

Alan Paton Speaking PDF Author: Roy Holland
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0955974143
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 116

Get Book Here

Book Description
This interview with Alan Paton by Roy Holland has never, until now, been published. The interview took place on June 19 and June 20, 1973, when Holland was a guest in Paton's home, Lintrose, at Bothas Hill, Kloof, Natal. It provides many insights into Paton's life, his political involvement as the founder of the Liberal party in South Africa, and his writings.

Fur News and Outdoor World

Fur News and Outdoor World PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fur trade
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book Here

Book Description