Portrait with Keys - Book summary & notes. PDF

Preview

Summary

Book summary & notes. ...

Description

Ivan Vladislavic, author of Portrait with keys, was interested in writing history from below which means he wanted to focus on the voices of the marginalized whose stories where concealed and silenced during Apartheid. He wants to broaden stories past the master narrative and thus has no master narrative in the novel but rather fragments which makes up the keys contributing to the portrait of JHB and Ivan. Vladislavic is also aware of is status as a white male figure who was privileged during Apartheid, this makes him a relatable narrator, as he is constantly turning his focus on representing the breaking down of social walls and being open, however is straightforward when demonstrating that he is having trouble with this new mindset at times. Vladislavic explores the everyday life of JHB to demonstrate that histories are concealed in individuals’’ stories. He finds history in unexpected places while reminiscing and remembering part of his own history which inconsequentially makes up part of JHB’s history and through these memories we have a concept of JHB still controlled by remnants of Apartheid. Portrait with Keys delves into a post-Apartheid city and the transition its space and citizens experience. Ivan is interested in the gaps, as demonstrated by the structure, as well as the artefactual and conceptual quality of books and the hand-made – refers to art quite a lot throughout the novel. Vladislavic explores the texture of JHB as a city during its tumultuous transition into democracy. There is an awareness of safety, of locking others out and keeping yourself safe as the anxieties around Post-Apartheid South-Africa grew. He wishes to illustrate that social walls need to be knocked down, however, he also wants his privacy and safety. This illustrates a need for social connection however pinpoints an underlying fear which is preventing this connection. The narrative is made up of slowly accumulated history since the writer wrote several fragments prior to 2006 and thinks of how he can recycle it into a story that is representative of those in JHB at the time. The narrative’s order is not straight forward which forces the reader to make connections. Emphasis is placed on the space of study, connection and distance throughout the novel. Vlad is aware of the anomalies within the city when observing the every day. For example, edifice of the gallery juxtaposed with the homeless children in a forgotten nook who Vlad decides to conceal and allow them to sleep for the night. The fall of Apartheid was a necessary occurrence however this meant that society had to be rebuilt. A bildung of character and better people is also necessary as society grows and develops. Vlad is well aware that his position as a white man must fall for other things to rise. This space is his home, however, it is also moving into a space of the The Other. There is a spatial awareness which is emphasized as Vlad notes architecture, art and the use of the city space. Ivan uses the symbol of Scrooge to represent a model of solitariness and mean-spiritedness but the reference to Dickens is more notable. The Dickens reference shows he knows the canon (white and middle aged) however he is self-aware about it. His fictional brother asks him why still cares about Dickens, but Vlad relates to Dickens since Dickens walked through London to find inspiration for his novels. Vlad is thus following Dickens’ lead by looking at the ordinary within the city to discover different aspects of the concealed history of JHB

outside the view of JHB as a booming, financial center. Vlad demonstrates that JHB’s spaces represent the fall of an old society to make way for the rise of a new society. As the financial and Carlton Center rose to success during Vlad’s childhood, they also fall post-Apartheid. This is evident in the fact that Vlad and his brother can longer drink coffee at the Carlton Center Café as they used to. Vlad brings about topical issues in a non-direct manner which signifies the idea of sweeping issues under the rug. The symbol of a map is very important in the novel as a map is a means to help people feel located. His dad used a map to direct strangers, using it as moment of connection. Vlad notes that the misdirection of a stranger is often done for their own good, since it may send them on a journey where they discover something new or strange to themselves. We are the strangers being addressed in the fragments, we must trust the narrator who is misleading us. He is simultaneously directing and misdirecting us which is directly relational to the structure of the narrative. He keeps leading us in different directions and we have to trust through this process of revealing different keys that we will come to a specific conclusion. De Certeau approaches the city JHB in the novel as a textual space which can be read through linguistic code. The towers are referred to as monumental a when you are at the top and looking down – making the city seem immobile. Vlad is setting up intertextual understanding. The way we view JHB shouldn’t be based on how something looks. Looking at something from the top erodes the minute textures of the city space. In some ways, it is the power of organizing the city in this way that drives things like town planning. Cities need to be legible – should have logical texture of networks. Being at the top of the tower makes Vlad feel powerful – mastery. A binary is set up of the Icarus figure and the Daedalus figure who can’t quite see everything. Being at the top of the tower makes you a voyeur – you feel yourself to be the master. In contrast the ordinary practitioners of a city live down on the ground. De Certeau sees walking through the city as a practice through which one makes a city legible. He calls this pedestrian enunciation. He also defines langue (language) and parole (speaking). Langue is abstract with systematic rules and conventions of a signifying system – independent of its users. This links to the idea of the city as a space with abstract urban strategies. Parole is the way we personalize languages. The personal phenomenon of language as a series of meaningful individual speech acts created by a linguistic subject are opportunistic, inventive and momentary. There’s a need for the city to systematic but this doesn’t account for the ways in which users use different tactics. Vlad personalizes this idea of tactics. De Certeau emphasizes to not simply experience the city from the top (towers) which gives you a sense of mastery but to experience the personal uses of the city. The peripatetic view is looking at the city from the top which gives one the idea of being a master and makes the city feel legible. The panoptic view is when you’re down in the streets where the city is not legible – you are then involved in pedestrian enunciation. The streets are reformed as a place of connection where people are allowed to move from one space into the other. This strongly opposes the Apartheid ideology of segregation. Vlad doesn’t romanticize these relationships – there is still chaffing and questioning for example with the Ndebele mural. Vlad draws our attention to self-writing in multiple fragments. He emphasizes ‘pentimento’, which is a place where the painter changed his mind (he can still

see fragments of the old wall), pointing to the fact that writing and the writing of the self can be influenced and changed by the writer/artist. An example of pentimento in the novel is Ndebele wall painting. He hated the Ndebele wall at first for commodifying culture, but grows to like it, growing used to it. Now it’s being painted over, erased. There’s a layering over of history/experience. He pays a lot of attention to work of painter. It’s not artistic but an industrialized painting. He describes it as ‘vandalism’. Our responses to art are mobile (didn’t like mural, now he’s used to it). He tries to convey that transition feels alienating but you will get used to it with time. Fragment 4 concerns his falling on the street where he is dethroned as a figure of mastery (white, male, authoritative) and becomes a figure of ordinary people. It is a pretense since he plays possum when falling. He suspects he is being mugged – pointing out indoctrinated preconceived notion from apartheid. There is also a sense of potential community. He is aware of his position in relationship to people. However, though they are close and the moment for connection is there. A pedestrian reaches out to touch him but does not. Here he reveals through insinuations that it is still not entirely allowed to share that intimacy on the street. The title of the book: ‘Joburg and what-what’ is instrumental to his interest with concealment and revealing. Joburg implies a sense of familiarity and intimacy and works towards a more personalized connection. It is not only a monumental city, but also a city connected to one’s heart, sense of self, memories. The ‘&’ suggests the writer is a word artist. The ‘&’ is not onedirectional, it is mobile and thus subject to change. ‘What-what’ is urban vernacular and reflects Ivan’s interest in taking bits and pieces and trying to find an intimate embodied structure. The implication is that the story fragments are his and filtered through his consciousness. In a way, through the novel he is revealing the preconceived notions of society before and after Apartheid. In fragment 45 he sees a man on the side of the road with a scale. He assumes there is a scam involved which reveals how he attempts to orient or position the man. His position as a white man leads him to make assumptions, thus he is revealing the effect of Apartheid on his mindset. However, the man has a small business, which symbolizes pedestrian inventiveness. This emphasizes that there must be a re-weighing or change of assumptions and perspectives in this new post-Apartheid JHB. As demonstrated, these fragments work together to puncture gaps in Vlad’s own mindset as the idea of Joburg as a place of crime to reveal the truth behind these biased assumption as he starts understanding that his own idea is being superimposed. He begins to see the possibility of diversity – a notion he does not romanticize due to on-going violence. In his formation of his portrait with keys, he provides the reader with fragments to give a sense of self through fragmented fractures as opposed to making clear connections. He emphasizes layering as a form of writing of the self. With layering, the idea of surface and depth is prevalent – what is projected and what lies beneath. He works with autobiographical elements using his own life and the life in JHB to depict both the city and citizen in transition. Through fragmentation he represents the concealing (privacy) and within the fragments of remembrance he represents the revealing. He wants to recover a part of SA which already exists but also reconfigure history to add authenticity. With these fragments, he

allows for glimpses into his personal life and the personal experience of JHB which brings about a sense of intimacy. This sense of intimacy is disrupted because it is performative – constantly performing repertoire of ‘selves’ – there is a revealing and concealing impulse during transition and the fragility of the self shows the danger of connection. He cuts his finger and realizes the fragility of the self whereby he concludes that the body itself is an archive of things that have happened to you. Another prevalent element on the discourse of the self is the tension of the contained. He describes Wood’s Self Storage very particularly like a map. Though he is conscious that no map is synonymous with what it wants to describe. The self-storage is a reference of self as a container. His whole life fits into a box. Wood’s Self Storage is on the outskirts of the city. He is aware that discourse of the city, the way cities are constructed constantly changes. He is therefore interested in relations between centers and margins. He offers us detours in discourse of self. He understands that self is an uneasy conglomeration. We are also aware of the fact that he feels his privacy is being exposed. He is aware that he as an old-fashioned form of the self which was formed under the fires of Apartheid. Now he must re-order his sense of self as a white-male in a changing South-Africa....