Verteltoon as probleem in Gevaarlike land van Louis Krüger

Abstract

The issue of tone of narration in Louis Krüger’s novel Gevaarlike land
Suspicion is cast on the literary expertise of the laureate novelist, Louis Krüger, by extremely negative reviews of his penultimate novel, Gevaarlike land (1990). These negative reviews are, however, somewhat relativised by a few positive reviews. Krüger’s stature as an important Afrikaans novelist justifies an inquiry into these divergent evaluations of this novel. In this article the hypothesis that the difference in evaluation can be ascribed to a misreading of the text is tested by way of a detailed analysis of the novel. The conclusion arrived at is that the apparent message of the text is deceptive - the real message is embedded in the depth structure of the novel. In spite of explicit signalling devices, most critics interpreted the indirect narration literally. This literal interpretation, however, confirms the hypothesis of this article: the negative evaluation of Krüger’s novel can be attributed to an insensitiveness to the nature of irony and the marginalisation of the character and techniques of irony.