The White Kudu by Gisela Hoyle
People often ask: “What is your book about?” and stupidly I gape like a goldfish, though I flatter myself that this is not because I don’t know but because the answer is long – and possibly complicated. And inevitably incomplete until people read it and tell me what it is about – that is the readers’ job, I think and they’d be better at it. But I’ll give it a go.
One of the things it is about is a place, which is both imaginary and real – as all places are. Because places are both patches of the earth and what they have come to mean to us, based on the things which have happened there. 
For example I have just moved to Leicester, so at the moment it is a fresh place, relatively untouched by personal experience.
On the other hand I think everyone knows the lift of the heart, the joyful rush of breath of returning to a place where one has been happy or the clenched furious, bleak shock to the stomach of seeing again a place where one has been hurt: betrayed, abandoned etc. Of course if you’ve had both in one place or worse, the betrayal was yours, you’re screwed, by this theory and will be forever exiled from that place, because you will struggle to make peace with it.
This is what happens in The White Kudu, as people are drawn into the legend of Abelshoop and Pniel. The experience is overwhelming for many: they leave, go mad – or (and this is the important bit) try to live on with what dignity and grace is left for them. The legend is one of love impossible and the promise of rain – as so many desert stories are. Pniel is a farm just on the edge of the Kalahari desert in the Northern Cape of South Africa, where the Karoo meets the Kalahari and creates something else called Vaalbos (grey bush). It is an uncertain and harsh landscape, where life can be stripped bare or plentiful, depending on the rainfall and proximity to the river, which runs through it. 
There is also a great deal of mineral wealth – the Northern Cape is also home to Kimberley and to Sishen, Hotazel and Okiep mines. And in the novel, it is this invisible, deeply buried wealth which provides the catalyst for the story, which awakens the legend again. The history of mining in South Africa is a mixture of the usual sinister greed and individual moments of sheer, delighted discovery. There is for example the wonderful story of the first diamond found in the country: children playing a game with pebbles on a farm, blissfully unaware of the spurious monetary value of the shiny stones they are using. I can think of no better use for the bright little buggers than that first one. History of course does not record how the children felt at having their toy taken off them . . .
Mining houses have a very different concept of the earth than farmers and other people who actually live on the land, have. The latter are often deeply suspicious of delving so deeply into the earth, of hollowing it out – and when one thinks of the dreadful accidents on the mines, particularly in South Africa where they are so impossibly deep, one cannot help but agree with them.
So for those who live on the surface of the earth, the uncertainty as well as the width of the horizon in the desert leave much space for the collective imagination, which responds with dreams and stories to beguile the time and to make sense of the daily lives of the people who live there. But of those next time.
Gisela
Note from Admin: Picnic hope to have its new website up soon. Meantime, apologies to Gisela and all 2009 list authors -your beautiful books of which Picnic is so proud will be showing soon-ish . . .
October 6th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Thanks, Gisela! At last someone, who is daring enough to put the stories and legends of our “home” into some shape, so that we can all find our meanings (“what it is about”) by reading them. I’m looking forward to the reading, and will love to do the “work” of discovering what it is about for me and then share that again with you and so perhaps a collage can take shape, like a multilayered quilt of meanings that help us to hear each other in the stories. Gruß, Felix
October 6th, 2008 at 9:54 am
This sounds really interesting–I like the idea of exploring notions of the ‘collective imagination’.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Felix – thanks for hitting it so spot on, your collage of meaning is a wonderful image.
And Sare-Mae: the collective imagination is hopefully a taking responsibility for Jung’s collective subconscious (psychologists will probably tell that is impossible – but there it is).
Thanks both for kind and thoughtful comments!
October 6th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
It sounds amazing – i must admit i was one of those who asked “what’s it about?” but i guess im going to find my own answer to that. I’m looking forward to reading…
I know exactly what you mean about ‘places.’
lauren
October 6th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I like the ideas expressed in this book and in the summary Gisela has given of them: I was listening on Radio 4 yesterday (October 5th) to Bookclub where Michael Morpurgo was talking about his novel’ ‘The Wide, Wide Sea’ and he expressed sentiments very close to this. A novel is the place to explore the human condition, which although full of suffering can also be a place where those who suffer can ‘live on with what dignity and grace is left for them’ in Gisela’s words. I also like her idea of using the desert – it makes me think of a novel by Bernice Rubens (I forget the title, annoyingly) which begins with the arresting idea of the heroine (Sarah?) meeting God in the desert. Deserts are places of encounter and wonder. This sounds a good book to read. Richard Harrison
October 6th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Hi Gisela, not sure Leicester can give you striking memories like a past in Africa, the photos on your blog speak for themselves…is “the White Kudu” pure imagination and fiction or did you find inspiration from real experiences you have had or witnessed?
October 7th, 2008 at 4:38 am
Hi all
Lauren, I am sure you will find a great answer for yourself about the book.
Richard, what you say about deserts is exactly right and far better put than I did: encounter and wonder.
And Caroline: it is a mixture of imagination, fiction, real and dream-experiences – I’ll venture more about that in the next blog.
October 7th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Gisela, This looks, from your summary discussion of it, like a really interesting addition to our growing literature on South AFrica’s natural world – and not in some romanticised fashion, but in its connections and conflicts with human power structures and economics. At our recent Literature & Ecology Colloquium (the 6th), author and activist Jacklyn Cock urged us to think and act more vigorously against the human activities, both economic and political, that make appreciation of natural beings so difficult and also so precious. It looks like this is a useful and timely way of thinking our way towards these ssues, and I really look forward to reading The White Kudu.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
The comments and images evoked by the discussion of the book remind me very much of the work of a south african artist, Nico Roos, which imply the pull and kind of cosmic interchange between human, earth and sky. His images are well worth a look-I really wished when I left SA that I’d had enough dosh to buy one.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:20 am
Hi Cathy and Dan
Thanks for your comments. I shall definitely look up Jacklyn Cook and Nick Roos.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Hi Mrs Hoyle,
Just studying the find of diamonds in South Africa in History in the context of the British Empire… cant wait to see your take on it, and also the other themes you mention accompanying it.
Along with Lauren, I love your thoughts on places. All places have personal memories – I hope your new move to Leicester will give you as good memories and times as South Africa did.
Cant wait to read it
Pippa
October 10th, 2008 at 4:12 am
Hey Pippa – the finding of diamonds is a fun bit of History, with some great charcaters, like Barnato and Rhodes. I look forward to a DMC soon, which might include Empire building and mineral wealth.
Thanks for a lovely comment.
October 12th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Thank you, Gis! Words can have no meaning – or mean the whole world: describe different worlds, reactivate memories, make experiences, places ,feelings and so much more shareable…
While reading your blogs I was constantly reminded of what the “little Prince” said: “man sieht nur mit dem Herzen gut”- you wrote “with your heart” and will share it with all who read “The White Kudu”
Hug Line
October 13th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Danke, Line: I hope so!
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
Gis,
Finally the perfect ‘job’. Reading The White Kudu in its published form will be more than a pleasure, it will be a journey back to a Pniel which has haunted me (mostly in a nice way) since I read the first draft of your book. Your honesty and courage shines through in your work and I can’t wait to read whatever you chose to write next. Keep in touch!
Love Fiona
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 am
I am highly impressed with the way you created your characters. The amount of control your characters had on you is phenomenal. I think Dickens has mentioned a similar thought about his characters somewhere.
I don’t know whether this happens to you as well, but when I write a novel I take it to three fourths of its length and then the characters take it to the conclusion. In the beginning there is only a hazy idea of what the end is to be. The characters decide the final and finer points that are to make up the conclusion.
Lakshmi