The Other Side of Silence

Rating:
Summary: "Vengeance is mine" saith Hanna X.
Review: And she says it in a big way.
This novel takes place in the early years of the 20th Century, among the German-occupied colonies of South-West Africa. From her earliest years as an orphan, Hanna X, the main character in Brink's novel, suffers incredible amounts of abuse. First off, there is the unreasonable strictness of Frau Agathe to deal with. Beatings are a regular thing at the orphanage "because it is a Christian place where evil will not be tolerated." Then there is the lecherous priest, Pastor Ulrich, who violates her physically and spiritually. Then, a series of transitional periods where the young Hanna is shipped from one place to another, and these experiences always result in trauma, disappointment, disillusionment. Her life becomes characterized by alienation, loneliness, pain, loss, and denigration.
Throughout all of this, Hanna hangs on to a fleeting childhood memory, something she refers to as "The Time Before"... in which she remembers meeting an Irish girl named Susan at the beach of the Weser in Bremen. Susan gave Hanna a shell, and told her to listen to its inner sounds. Hanna keeps this shell, and for her it comes to represent the "silence which she carries deep within her, from the lost time before she ever arrived at the orphanage..."
When Hanna hears that hundreds of women are regularly being shipped from Hamburg to the remote African colonies to serve as wives for the men stationed there... she signs up. What could be worse than what she is presently experiencing?
She arrives at Swakopmund, and ends up at an extremely remote secular nunnery known as Frauenstein.
Here (and on the way here) she will learn that there are places worse than the orphanage. Much worse.

What follows is a very dark story. Do not be mistaken, this is a story difficult to read for its brutal depictions of torture and violence, but written in a style and with an imagery that is evocative, unmistakingly vivid, even beautiful.
However, this is in no way a beautiful story where all is resolved at the end. Where justice has its day, where all is made right. One ought to be prepared for this fact.

It shows the most absolutely horrid aspects of human nature, and always face-up, in the full light of the hot sun. Not only are the perpetrators of crimes against Hanna (the heroine) shown in all of their shameless ghastliness, but she herself becomes nearly as brutal in the latter half of the book. There comes a time when Hanna says "No more" and understandably, we want her to succeed in her plans for vengeance against the greatest of crimes that have been commited against her. She assembles a ragtag band of vigilantes, those who have suffered injustices of their own, and together they set out on a quest to reclaim dignity, with Hanna as their (mute) leader.

This is a difficult book, but only because of its subject matter. The way it is written makes me want to read more by this wonderful author.

Rating:
Summary: compelling ...
Review: As a student of South Africa, I found The Other Side of Silence a fascinating addition to my understanding of the country's early colonization. The language is spare, important when mutilation is central to the storyline. I read it twice, the second revealed nuances missed during the first. On my recommendation, my book club will read this ...

Rating:
Summary: cruel fairytale-poetic novel
Review: For people who are not familiar with the work of Andre Brink, this is a good novel to start with. The historical background of the novel is the German colonial regime in South-West Africa. (almost forgotten period of the genocide of the Herero people 1904-1907). In 'The other side of Silence' Brink revives this period with an extraordinary talent for depicting fragile beauty and all consuming cruelty in human nature. The German orphan Hanna X is shipped to South West Africa in order to serve the needs of soldiers and colonials. The exotic adventure she expects turns out to be a nightmare. Locked up in the darkness of 'Frauenstein' she undergoes torture and rape. Throughout the first part of the book, the narrator takes us back to Hanna's youth in Germany; a youth dominated by injustice and humiliation. This first part of the book is the most fascinating, although it is obvious that Brink focuses too one-sided on crulety and humiliation.
In the second part of the novel Hanna X reaches the deepest point in the destruction of her identity and somehow this gives her the courage to stand up for herself. Inspired by her heroine Joan of Arc, she rises up against her oppressors.
As a historical novel this book has everything you may expect. Those who have read Brink's 'A Chain of Voices' may be a little disappointed, for the latter is a more balanced and refined novel.

Rating:
Summary: Written by a man
Review: No, I'm not a raging feminist who critiques all books on this subject but this does reasonably explain this one's faults. It's always a risk writing from a character's perspective who is of the opposite sex. Even an accomplished writer like André Brink can't make it float.

Now that I've stated this, I admit that it would be hard to give examples without giving away the whole story line. For those who read the book, what happens to Gisela bothers me. These are not the actions a mother would take. Also, what was Hanna looking for in Africa? What did she really want? She never ponders marriage, children, pursuits of women in her age. At least say why or why not and what alternatives were offered to her in those days (not many, I expect).

The only sympathetic male character was introduced in the last few pages. Otherwise, they're all evil.

It's true that the book gets so gory that you stop caring. It numbs you after intially being so shockingly horrible. With the holes in the plot, it starts to ring very untrue and unbeliveable. That was pretty compicated surgery, preformed on a train?? What happens with her little band bother me (only Katja and Hanna left?). How were they able to eat in the desert? The first fort takeover was almost silly. You'd think the German soldiers were the dumbist on the planet. I could go on and on...

He's still a great writer but "A Dry White Season" was much better. My South African cousin gave it to me, saying that it could describe the situation in her country better than she could. I couldn't bring myself to watch the film. The injustice that Brink pulled off there was so real. He lost that with this book.

Am I a hypocryte if I go out and buy the sequel? He says he'll write about Katja's child. I think it's a testiment to his writing. Too bad his talent is wasted on a feeble plot.