The Smell of Apples

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Summary: "The Smell of Apples" an enthralling novel by Mark Behr
Review: "Memorable for the eye-opening authenticity with which Behr catches the Afrikaner mentality at home ... Behr's novel offers a disturbing confirmation that sincere and kindly people can still be the walking representation of evil" (Sunday Times)

Mark Behr's first time novel "The Smell of Apples" won the prestigious CNA Literary Debut Award and the Eugene Marais Prize. It was a wordlwide success, because it contains one of the most expelling themes in South Africa of the last 30 years.

Behr tells the story through the eyes of the 11-year old Marnus Erasmus who lives with his sister and parents in Cape Town of 1973.Behr links many aspects throughout the story so that the reader gets to know about Marnus's story of initiation, the apartheid system, the sexual mischiefs of his parents and Marnus being a 26-year old soldier in the Angolan Civil War.
But mainly the reader is led through the week of Marnus's life becoming more smart and grown up.He and his sister Ilse especially try to behave like adults when a Chilean general visits the family. This so called Mr.Smith has a symbolic function in the novel, because he is the one(the snake)who steels the apples out the families Garden of Eden.

All in all the novel by Mark Behr is a good introduction for readers who want to inform theirselves and who are interested in the apartheid system and the life of blacks and whites in this period of time.

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Summary: The Smell of Apples
Review: "The Smell of Apples" takes place in the South Africa of the 1970s and tells the story of a boy named Marnus Erasmus. You get to know many details of the family life, but this is not the only theme of the novel.
It also deals with the Apartheid system and its effect on people. The best example is Marnus's mother Leonore, whose attitude towards black people is very conservative.The only one she likes is their servant Doreen, but just because she is so obedient.
Another topic is the sexual abuse of Marnus's best friend Frikkie by General Erasmus, Marnus's father.
This shows that even seemingly well-working families can have their hidden bad sides.
The author shows these problems in connection with the normal life of the Erasmus family. We mainly learn something about the Apartheid system by the characters' statements or examples of violence (e.g. the incident with Little Neville).
Despite all these negative influences on Marnus's development into an adult, he does not change his attitude towards his family, especially towards his father.
After reading the end of the novel, the reader is at first really shocked how Marnus's life can go on so normally when he knows about what his father has done. But when you reconsider his former good relationship to his father, which was visible in most of their previous conjoint activities, one could say that Marnus seems to feel a real, deep love for his father which lets him forget what he has done to Frikkie.
This could also be an explanation why Marnus follows his father's advice to join the army, which is described in the sub-plot of the novel.

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Summary: "The Smell of Apples" - flop or top?
Review: "The Smell of Apples" written by Mark Behr - flop or top?
As to the content you should know that the story is made up of two plots. The first one is about eleven year-old Marnus who loves and worships his father, a general in South Africa during the Apartheid. Living in a "perfect world" Marnus shares all secrets with his best friend Frikkie. The visit of a Chilean destroys Marnus`s illusion of the perfect world. The second plot is about Marnus being a soldier in the Civil War in Angola.
When reading the book, I sometimes had the impression that the plot is quite long-winded, especially at the beginning when the reader is informed about Frikkie who copies Marnus`s homework. In addition you need some background information about the Apartheid and the war between Blacks and Whites in Africa in order to understand the content.
But on the other hand the behaviour between Blacks and Whites during the Apartheid is shown realistically. With the help of the book, it is easier to imagine the situation. Moreover, the novel is quite exciting. Two aspects lead to this impression. The first one are the two plots because only after a while you get to know that it is Marnus who writes down the experience he makes during the war. The second one is the discovery Marnus makes at the end of the novel.The very last lines are very frightening. Although Marnus makes such a terrible discovery he goes on with his life as if nothing has happened.
If you want to be informed about the discovery, buy the novel. It`s worth reading.

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Summary: feedback
Review: After Mark Behr has earned good international critics from papers like the "Financial Time", "The Independent", and "The Times", I decided to get an personal impression of his first novel "The Smell of Apples" and to read this highly praised book.
As the book only got best critics, I started to read with high expectations - and they were fulfilled.
The author suceeds in presenting different aspects in only one book. As a reader you gain a deep insight into South African society, as into the Angolan War. Besides that, the author also reveals a story of initiation, which describes the development of Marnus Erasmus from child to adult.

The book contains two time-levels. In the first one 12-year-old Marnus describes events which happened in December 1973 and which influence his later development from child to adult.
This time-level gives the reader a detailed insight into South African society where blacks are still discriminated against. At first sight the Erasmus family seems to be a harmonious family, but during the development of the story, the reader realizes that this is not the case. Especially Marnus's father is not such an ideal as the reader is made to believe in the beginning. Outwardly he is a succesful and honourable general who fights for his ideals, but at a closer look he reveals perversion and cruelty.
In addition to that, the reader notices how condescendingly the family behave towards blacks and how blacks in general are regarded by whites in South Africa.
The second time-level deals with 26-year-old Marnus who fights in the Angolan War for South African troups. This sub-plot shows to what extent Marnus's childhood and especially the events in December 1973 influenced his later development and his behaviour in war.
Although his father has revealed his face of evil to him when he was young, the reader realizes that he is still Marnus's idol. Moreover, the second time-level deals with the cruelty of war, with Apartheid and racism.

The Smell of Apples is a very interesting book. The reader gains a general idea of different aspects. After reading only a few pages, he is interested in the development. The Smell of Apples is not only a book for those who are interested in Apartheid and South African history. Once you have started to read, you cannot stop.

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Summary: A closed look at South AmericaÂ's society
Review: After Mark BehrÂ's "The Smell of Apples" had earned best critics by famous newspapers like "The Sunday Times" or "The Daily Telegraph", I decided to get a personal impression of this book.
Indeed the story seemed to be quite interesting from begin on: Behr describes a harmonious family. He writes with with a sense for details and creates a perfect illusion, in which the eleven year-old protagonist lives.
This idyllic picture is first disturbed by the second time-level, which appears always suddenly without connection and ends the same way. Here Marnus is a 26 year-old soldier, who fights in Angola and finally dies.
The contrast of these two levels makes the reader soonly mistrust the harmony of MarnusÂ's life and his family.
Little incidents engross this feeling time after time, although the really tragic end is very surprising anyway.
Mark Behr succeeds in showingthe former or maybe still actual conflict between South African Blacks and Whitesby analyzing the Afrikaner-mentality in an apparently normal Afrikaner-family.
The change of society (military) is told in a detailed and really understandable way. So you can experience the younger South African history by identifying with Marnus, who has to face bad things, but doesnÂ't seem to learn from it anyway.
For the interested reader a real duty!

Rating:
Summary: The Smell of Apples
Review: In his novel "The Smell of Apples" Mark Behr deals with problems of Apartheid by telling the story of a white South-African boy called Marnus Erasmus.
Throughout the book the strong relation to his father becomes obvious. Although Mr. Erasmus is really strict and authoritarian, Marnus regards him as a hero, especially because he is a general in the South African Army. Nevertheless the reader believes that Marnus's father is very considerate concerning his family, but this illusion gets destroyed when Marnus observes that his best friend Frikkie is raped.
The end of the novel is really shocking, but exactly that makes the book so interesting and readable. Telling the story through the eyes of a 10-year old boy makes the story even more dramatic.
I like the story and the characters, although the parts of the novel concerning Marnus's time in war are sometimes hard to understand

Rating:
Summary: The Smell of Apples
Review: In his novel "The Smell of Apples" Mark Behr deals with problems of Apartheid by telling the story of a white South-African boy called Marnus Erasmus.
Throughout the book the strong relation to his father becomes obvious. Although Mr. Erasmus is really strict and authoritarian, Marnus regards him as a hero, especially because he is a general in the South African Army. Nevertheless the reader believes that Marnus's father is very considerate concerning his family, but this illusion gets destroyed when Marnus observes that his best friend Frikkie is raped.
The end of the novel is really shocking, but exactly that makes the book so interesting and readable. Telling the story through the eyes of a 10-year old boy makes the story even more dramatic.
I like the story and the characters, although the parts of the novel concerning Marnus's time in war are sometimes hard to understand

Rating:
Summary: The Smell of Apples
Review: Mark Behr's novel " The Smell of Apples" is a story of initiation told from the perspective of an eleven year-old boy called Marnus Erasmus. He and his family live in South Africa and enjoy a harmonic and idyllic life during the seventies, a time where only whites have political and social rights. His father, a major general, is Marnus's idol until he sees his dad molesting his best friend Frikkie.
The story has two plots. In the first plot, which is the longest one, Marnus retells his childhood. He starts the story in the year 1973 when he is eleven years old and from his point of view we get to know how the relationship between blacks and whites is. Because Marnus is still very young and innocent, he is forced to believe that blacks are the reason for criminality and for other social problems. He listens to this point of view in his school and even at home. Especially his father , who " became the youngest major-general ever in the history of the South African Defence Force", (p.14,l.3f.) says that you should "never forget what the Communists and the blacks did to Tanganyika, 8p.38,l.15f) and Marnus's mother, who is a former musician, has the opinion that you can't trust blacks only because she suspects that her black gardener has stolen a fishing kit. Marnus becomes a victim of the apartheid system and at first he doesn't even notice that his father wants him to follow in his footsteps.
it sounds like paradise whenever Marnus describes his home or the surrounding, but this paradise begins to be destroyed when Marnus has to see with his own eyes how Little-Neville, the servant's son, is lying in hospital because white men hurt him without a particular reason. The harmonious family life is totally destroyed when Marnus sees his beloved father molesting his best friend in their own house.Marnus tries to get out of the system by being disobedient towards his father but the result is a punishment by his dad.
The story of the first plot is intercut by a second one. This story takes place during the Angolan bush war in 1982 when Marnus is a grown up.Now he is a soldier and fights side by side with blacks and in the end he is shot dead. His last thoughts deal with his father because only next to him he feels safe. This plot shows what effects his childhood had and how different reality is from what he was told. Only to please his father he becomes a soldier, although he has other ideals and he has to pay with his life.
all in all " The Smell of Apples" is worth reading because it shows you a slice of African history from the point of view of an innocent person, so that we can easily identify with him and understand how complicated it is to grow up in a time where you are not only influenced by your parents but also by society. After eleven years a boy has to realize that his father isn't that kind of idol he wanted to have, but nevertheless the traces of his upbringing can't be covered and he becomes what his father wanted him to be.

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Summary: Smell Of Apples
Review: Mark Behr's novel "The Smell Of Apples" is in many ways an amazing and remarkable story about a young boy named Marnus Erasmus living with his typical Afrikaner upper-class family near the ocean on the coast of South Africa.
What is most striking about this story ist that most of the horrible incidents and tragedies within the Erasmus family are somehow hidden beneath the surface of harmonious normal life.
Again and again Behr implies the racism an militarism Marnus Erasmus has to face every day. He is raised by parents who love their children as long as they do what is expected from them. Marnus's life is limited to the views and so-called virtues he is taught especially by his father, a high-ranked South African army officer.
The relationship between father an son changes throughout the whole book that tells us a so-called "story of initiation".
Marnus experiences things like the struggle between his mother and his sister, the homosexuality of his father and maybe even his mother's affair with a Chilean general. The facade of his former life starts to crumble. Behr describes it with a wonderful sense fo details and little symbols that imply certain facts and plots.
But what is best about his book is its ending. Marnus still does not manage to turn away from his father. His fear and respect are deeper rooted than his common sense and need to be outraged. He obeys his father even after he saw him raping his best friend Frikkie.
The real tragedy is that just until his death in the Angolan civil war Marnus is not able to forget all the prejudices he was told about the black majority of the Apartheid state South Africa. The short interludes of Marnus fighting in this war as an officer are placed between the different parts that tell us his childhood. Behr connects these two levels of time so masterly that the reader almost feels how strong the influence of his father was and how much his parents are responsible for what happens to their son. Although Marnus appreciates some of the black soldiers in Angola his last words are "For in life there is no escape from history".
Marnus Erasmus and thousands of others of his generation were wasted, indoctrinated from the day of their birth and raised by hyppocrite parents causing psychic wounds Truth&Reconciliation will probably never heal properly.

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Summary: Apartheid as seen by a child
Review: The novel, set in South Africa during the 1970s, relates the story of an Afrikaans family through the eyes of the narrator, Marnus Erasmus. Marnus is a child of the white, brutal culture and the system of the apartheid. He lives a seemingly happy life, influenced by his father, who is a general in the South African army. Against a background of racial prejudices, the reader gets to know the reality of the Erasmus family, including the sexual molestation of Marnus's best friend (Frikkie) by his father and an love-affair between his mother and a visiting chilean general.
Although I found the novel's shocking ending less than credible, the gradual uncovering of of the enormous pressures on this family gives this novel a brooding tension.
Mark Behr has created a lyrical and memorable child narrator, along with a really great background-story.