{"id":3778,"date":"2020-02-20T13:23:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T13:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=3778"},"modified":"2020-06-18T22:30:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T21:30:30","slug":"the-eternal-audience-of-one-looking-out-from-the-inside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=3778","title":{"rendered":"The Eternal Audience of One: Looking out from the inside"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Book:<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An essay on Windhoek titled The Last Ticket out of Town, clues us in. R\u00e9my Ngamije\u2019s writing is bold, witty, and incisive. Brash can be considered a further adjective, or, cocky might suit better, in both senses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is also good humoured, lashed with cynicism which, as his coming\nof age story unfolds we realise is a prerequisite for thinking while\nblack. Also while a refugee. A \u2018clever black\u2019 is what Jacob Zuma\ninfamously called people like R\u00e9my.\nExcept Ngamije is not South African and Zuma had no fear of his vote.\nThis cynicism and well developed sense of irony, which we encounter\nthrough the protaganist S\u00e9raphin\nTurihamwe, is not a self-protective measure; it is a means to move\nthrough this world with sass, which is basically dignity while young.\nIt is a natural result of being intelligent, using one\u2019s\nintelligence, and possessing a healthy amount of self-respect. This\nis not expounded in what is an entertaining story of coming-of-age\nbetween Cape Town and Windhoek with the weight of the Rwandan\ngenocide transferred through the experience of parents, it becomes\napparent as Ngamije provides the matter-of-fact experience of being\nyoung, gifted, and black in a place like Cape Town. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Of course there is conflict with place. Being an honest narrator, Ngamije does not avoid the love-hate relationship that bedevils probably anyone who has ever lived through four consecutive seasons in the Mother City. She\u2019s so sexy, so alluring, is so much fun. Until she\u2019s not, and turns aggressively bitchy. Yet you still don\u2019t want to leave, believing the sunny side must be just on the other side of a discrete and well-timed compliment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nS\u00e9raphin,\nyou see, is a student at UCT, and The Eternal Audience of One\n<\/em>largely narrates his adventures,\nexploits, conquests, challenges, and disappointments. And with\nWindhoek at his back, it\u2019s no wonder Cape Town\u2019s self-satisfied\npurr is so intoxicating. The novel also touches on Paris, spends some\ntime in Windhoek, and looks back at Rwanda, making it a rare tale of\nintra-African migration with a French twist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is hard not to like S\u00e9raphin.\nIt seems he is R\u00e9my\u2019s\nalter-ego \u2013 although it can be argued all protagonists are their\ncreator\u2019s alter-ego \u2013 but still. There\u2019s the feeling R\u00e9my\ntook himself, and bigged himself up. Whatever the case, it worked.\nSure S\u00e9raphin\ncan be an arsehole at times, but he\u2019s also got the last word, and\nit\u2019s almost always the best one. His motley crew alternatively\nprovide balance and provocation, and are almost as well-drawn as\nS\u00e9raphin.\nThe antagonist is The Sauce, which in its most basic form, is\nsentimentality, but S\u00e9raphin,\nsomewhat of a raconteur, does a much better job of explaining it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Eternal Audience of One <\/em>does not tackle large themes \u2013 not directly at least. It opens a door to a romp through the vicissitudes, challenges, and satisfactions not only of being black in Cape Town, but, ironically, in Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An essay on Windhoek titled The Last Ticket out of Town, clues us in. R\u00e9my Ngamije\u2019s writing is bold, witty, and incisive. Brash can be considered a further adjective, or, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[972,973],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3778"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3782,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778\/revisions\/3782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}