Novel
A Burgher Quixote
Douglas Blackburn · 1903
Synopsis
Sarel Erasmus, a soft-hearted burgher of the Transvaal, tells his own misadventures during the Boer War. Having crossed into Natal just before the conflict to escape it, he is drafted into Ben Viljoen's commando, which haunts him throughout the narrative; his first task is to translate the mail looted at the Newcastle post office. He keeps dodging combat and always ends up, whichever camp he is pushed into, on the wrong side.
Context
Published in Edinburgh by Blackwood in 1903, the novel is the second of a satirical trilogy around Sarel Erasmus, between a narrative of 1899 and a sequel of 1908. The title places it in the shadow of Cervantes: Sarel is a new Don Quixote, duped at every step, and the English of the narrative takes on the cadence and vocabulary of Afrikaans. For Stephen Gray, Sarel is the comic reverse of General Ben Viljoen, and the book a great farce as well as an elegy for a pastoral world; Michael Rice reads in it the corruption of a rural republic by capitalist imperialism.
Who it is for
A novel in English, studded with tricks and Afrikaans words, carried by a naive narrator; it presupposes knowing the broad outlines of this conflict.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by Stephen Gray as the masterpiece of Sarel Erasmus's trilogy; Michael Rice sees it as an important stage in South African literature.