Book of The Dead - Summary & Short Analysis PDF

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The Book of the Dead tells the story of Khutso who grows up poor in Masakeng. He eventually goes to university where he meets Pretty. The two fall in love, get married and have a son. However, there is no happily ever after for the pair. Pretty is jealous of the relationship between her son, Thapelo, and his father. It seems to her as though they have their own secrets from which she is necessarily excluded. Even though she is also a successful career woman, surrounded by beautiful things and a big house – she is utterly lonely. Due to this overwhelming loneliness she has an affair and contracts HIV. Ashamed and unable to deal with the grief, she commits suicide leaving behind her son and her husband – now also infected with HIV. The Book of the Dead can be read as an interruption of transition. Transition referring to a passage or a movement from one state into another which is what post-Apartheid literature is about. It is trying to talk about a new democracy now that Apartheid has fallen away and attempts to tell stories of the transition. In Post-Apartheid SA there was a growing sense of disappointment as insecurity grew due to the rise of crime and inflation. Other problems that didn’t receive attention during Apartheid becomes worse like HIV. The narrative theory is disrupted in this novel. Narrative theory is defined by its five stages 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Equilibrium Disruption Recognition Repair Restoration.

These stages allow for novels to go from one stage into another with a logical flow. However, The Book of the Dead completely disrupts this theory as it breaks the traditional romantic templates. The marriage template is as follows – 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Marriage solves all foundational issues Love and Sex as ultimate expression of love End of loneliness – uniting with another soul create complete unit Feelings – interested in true self and nature No practicalities – practicalities subverted in novels Accepting of all flaws and thoughts

The narrative theory as well as the marriage template are entirely disrupted by the author. Khutso and Pretty’s marriage falls apart, sex becomes an act of violence instead of love, loneliness arises through marriage, feelings of anger/loneliness intensifies, both parties involved in this doomed marriage does not accept flaws which leads to the death of Pretty and drives Khutso to seek revenge by infecting others with HIV. Pretty’s death opens up a chasm in the novel. Khutso unlocks her diary and reads everything she has written about – including her decision to have an affair and contracting HIV. Reading the diary turns his grief into anger. A sense of fatality and that life is no longer worth living takes possession of Khutso. Because no one talks about the unseen entity which is HIV, it can move around society easily because no one wants to acknowledge it. The author writes “girls like her were not for marriage but for show, so people believe” (33). Pretty is seen as a trophy which is a violent idea of women as possessions. This violence is

present throughout the novel. Pretty was a beautiful woman and used her beauty to her advantage. The novel asks us to look at Pretty in an ethical way and to be more sympathetic than society is. The novel leaves us with an unanswered question – where did Khutso contract aids from? He might not have gotten it from her, however, assumptions are made based on the life Pretty has lived – one where she enjoyed the company of many men due to her beauty. Khutso is unable to see he could have brought this on himself. He directs his rage at pretty. For a while after he ‘lives in the shadow of suicide’ as he is unable to come to terms with the fact that his wife has committed suicide and that he now has HIV. At first, he is overcome with grief and sadness, but this quickly turns into anger which turns into a lust for vengeance. In the second part of the novel the disease, HIV, takes over which has a destabilizing effect on the narrative. Khutso starts to disappear as a person and starts to fully embody the virus. The author, Kgebetli Moele, tries to change our way of thinking about the disease. People with HIV occupy a precarity space in society – they are seen as waste. The government doesn’t know what to do with them so they end up being marginalized. Necropolitics come into play when discussing HIV+ people. Necropolitics is the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and some people may die. This is to say some lives are worth more than others. SA society has become conditioned to HIV/AIDS. It has less shock value. The media reports on worsening conditions only to have the government say that everything is under control. The virus addresses the reader in the novel saying some people say its name like a nursery rhyme which creates the idea that it doesn’t even scare people anymore. HIV is described like a predator in the novel. Khutso becomes the physical body through which the predator can go about infecting others. The virus has an ambiguous identity – singular, plural and multiple as it lives in many people. The virus is both Khutso’s ally and enemy. It helps him carry out his plot for revenge, however, it will also kill him in the end. The virus is independent of and entirely dependent on Khutso as the host. The virus, in the novel, makes it clear that it doesn’t discriminate as it has no face. HIV is also depicted as demonic possession. This possession is only possible due to Khutso’s rage and anger. The virus refers to Khutso and others as soldiers. The virus uses words such a ‘forces’, ‘command’ and ‘battle’ which evoke metaphors of war in the mind of the reader. The medicine Khutso uses is merely meant to keep him alive to spread the disease as the virus wants Khutso in his service as long as possible. The virus also addresses a second person – YOU directly. This awareness in the novel is to remind the reader that virus can come for even the reader – no one is out of reach. The novel ends leaving us with a vengeful Khutso which only allows for so much sympathy to be elicited from the reader. Khutso goes through a lot of trouble to write down the names of people he infects. The act of writing which can be useful for healing is depicted as being destructive. Ties in with patriarchy and the systems of violence. Patriarchy has the potential to turn innocent systems into violence. The novel ends with the reader being addressed directly by the virus HIV/AIDS. It warns the reader ‘I am coming for you. This is a promise. I promise you that I am coming for you.” The final picture we get of this virus, this entity is one that is cold, calculating and without

feeling. It is a non-presence that is acting through Khutso tying in to the idea of a poisonous masculinity. The entity relies on the weaknesses of our attraction in order to do its work. It is able to advance itself due to our promiscuity - promiscuity which is seen as freedom. The novel is thus a direct imaginative confrontation with HIV/AIDS....