Long Silence of Mario Salviati: A Novel Book

When I first joined GR and starting rating and reviewing books, I vacillated whether to assess books by my personal enjoyment of them or by their literary merit. After a while I settled on rating them by personal enjoyment, since I'm not a professional reviewer and needn't pretend to be. This is one of those books where there was a gap between the two.

This ambitious novel is set in South Africa in the late 90s and written in the magic realist style. It was originally published in Afrikaans and I read the English language translation. That may be important as most reviewers who read the original seem to have rated it more highly than me, so possibly the translation was a bit flat.

Ingi Friedlander, the Director of an art gallery in Cape Town, journeys to the remote (fictional) Karoo town of Yearsonend to check out reports of an outstanding sculpture produced by a local artist, Jonty Jack Bergh. Yearsonend turns out to be a place with a lot of secrets, and Ingi finds her planned stay lengthening as she delves into the town's stories. We are taken back through the generations to the ancestors of the present-day inhabitants, and especially those of the town's two dominant families. The edition I read includes a family tree and I found myself resorting to it frequently to understand all the connections.

The magic realism is strong in this one, and all sorts of fantastical events take place. I don't think there's any point trying to rationalise any of them. The reader just needs to accept it's that sort of book and "go with the flow." The ancestors of the modern townsfolk continue as spirits within the town, as if hidden behind a veil, but their presence can sometimes be sensed. There's also a strong theme around art and creativity, especially things fashioned by hand. Painting, sculpture, stonemasonry, and fashion design all feature prominently.

At 435 pages this is a longish novel and I found it slow paced. That combination meant it took me 5 weeks to finish the book. There are some good points but overall this one wasn't for me.