Through a class darkly

BYLINE by Chris Baker

The Bungalow Lynn Freed Poseidon 237 pages $21

A professor once warned me to avoid parties attended by South African expatriates.

This rather odd advice had an even odder explanation. He said that, at these get-togethers, the talk inevitably turned to the old country. The evening gradually turned into a glowing remembrance of distant places and people. Attendees exulted if they could find some common friend or some similar experience. Rather than rejoicing in their escape from oppression of all kinds (these were usually racially mixed parties comprising Indians, blacks and whites), they grieved for the country they could never return to.

By about midnight, when the talk and liquor had taken effect, a terrible melancholy settled over the get-together. Their homesickness was palpable, and the party disintegrated on a sour note.

The Bungalow is a book that deals with the ambivalence of an ex-South African. The author, former UT visiting professor and Guggenheim Fellowship winner Lynn Freed, was born and raised in white privilege in Durban, South Africa. She came to America as a graduate student, and received a Ph.D. in English from Columbia.

She has spent the rest of her life living as a "middle-class gypsy"in New York, Boston, Montreal, Austin and California. But she does not forget about her country.

Freed's books are an exploration of her life as an expatriate, and an exploration of the country that she both loves and despises. Through the semi-autobiographical character of Ruth Frank, Freed's novels tell her story to the world. She effortlessly captures the mindset of the insular white aristocracy that surrounded her. She also details the experiences of an independent woman in a patriarchal society.

Ruth Frank's childhood in South Africa was related in the widely acclaimed Home Ground. The Bungalow picks up in 1975, when Frank is roughly 30. It deals with a temporary return to her native country. She goes back to visit her ailing father, but her stay stretches longer than she had intended.

Something is very different about this visit. Frank, who lives an unfulfilling life in New York City with her husband (also a South African), finds herself loath to leave the beautiful land. Freed beautifully captures the sadness and confusion of the expatriate, who's unable to explain why she had to leave South Africa to her family and friends, and unable to explain what holds her there now to herself. Frank understands wanting two things at once.

And Freed understands how to make something both attractive and repulsive. The balmy sedateness of the land is as lulling as the violence and omnipresent hardship is jolting.

Part of the reason Frank wishes to stay in South Africa is the chance to escape from her life in New York. Frank has realized that her marriage was one of convenience--her husband had a green card, and marrying him was a sure ticket out of her country.

Back in her homeland, she willfully takes up with a rich man. She finds a new level of contentment staying in his beautiful country bungalow. She also finds that she is pregnant.

The furor this affair prompts amongst her family and friends is fascinating. This is what The Bungalow is best at portraying: privileged white South Africans and how they view the world. If these insulated people can't understand why their daughter would want to leave the country, or why she would try to escape her pointless marriage, how could they begin to understand the complex problems of their nation? Freed gives a face to the Boerish image of these pampered whites.

Her protagonist moves in the wealthy circles of a liberal clique (her parents are show-biz people). But a "liberal" South African is still reactionary by American standards. The author's dialogue is always telling (and savagely funny). The rich liberals can have a Zulu chief over for dinner, and remark how his taste in food is similar to that of their "houseboy."

Freed writes plainly and skillfully about uniqueness and loss. The phrase "fortune favors the brave" crops up repeatedly, and Ruth Frank displays this bravery. But fortune can't tell what is right and what is wrong. Ruth's paradox is compelling. Is it better to leave, or stay? And what good can either choice do for her, let alone for anyone else? An Indian revolutionary suggests that she has betrayed her country by leaving. We soon discover that he is angry and jealous because he wants to escape so badly himself. And we learn that he is miserable and lonesome when he is finally able to leave.

The Bungalow reminds one of the plight of Solzhenitsyn, the expatriate Russian persecuted by the Communists. The reader comes to realize that it is possible to love the motherland while hating its customs. And, like Solzhenitsyn, this ambivalence is terribly complex. It is difficult to express and nearly impossible to explain. The Bungalow admirably attempts to do both.

( Thanks to the University Co-Op for the loan of this book.)