Whose 'Lost Ground'? Facets of Outsiderhood. Issue 1 (2nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dimitriu, Ileana
• Is Part Of: Current writing. Volume 32:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 10
• Page End: 23
• Publication Date: 2020-01-02
• Subjects: Michiel Heyns -- Lost Ground -- South African novel -- home/exile -- insider/outsider; Southern African literature (English) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 820.996805
• DOI: 10.1080/1013929X.2020.1743027
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1013-929X

Abstract

Abstract : The article considers the concept of 'home' and its experiential application in relation to Michiel Heyns's novel, Lost Ground . A prize-winning novel in South Africa, Lost Ground has taxed interpretation. Is it a detective novel, a novel of 'gay' relationships, or a novel of oblique rather than direct political observations on 'post-apartheid' South Africa? I argue that the novel is all the above, but tangentially. More centrally, I argue that Lost Ground explores commitment and non-commitment to both a home place and a place of exile; that Heyns is too subtle a novelist to promote an either/or response to a situation which, at least in the narrative, subjects despair to a muted redemption. If the protagonist does not find a home on his 'home visit, ' neither does he find equanimity in his thoughts of a return to London. Yet, his experience in his brief return to the town of his earlier life grants him fresh insight into his own vulnerability.