Philida by André Brink
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A book I probably would not have read if I’d merely come across it, but plowed through anyway since it was Booker longlist nominee. I suppose that’s why we make lists and force ourselves, sometimes: to get outside our comfort zone. I don’t know if I can say I “enjoyed” the book, for who can say they enjoy slavery? Nevertheless, I can see why people praise Brink.
It got me to thinking about slavery. About how we say that slavery is evil, but those same people who were treated as if they were less than human beings, are, in our minds today, still a faceless mass, bodies that died on ships or screamed under the lash, a tragic period in our history that we are ashamed of.. And aren’t some of us proud of that shame, and how hard we work to make amends?
But it’s not about us. It’s the individuals, like Philida, with a unique story. And so this is NOT, after all, a novel about slavery. It’s about a woman who struggles to find her place in the world, to live with what’s been done to her and to live with what’s she’s done to herself. Her existence isn’t simply binary, she’s not just enslaved or free, she’s a force of wills, someone who yearns, in her own way.
And so the issue of slavery can’t be “solved” by calling it evil and then making amends. The only thing we can do, really is to listen to this stories, listen to these individuals tells about who they are.