After Work - Agaat

To read Agaat is to be absorbed by a literary work of art.  Marlene van Niekerk portrays rural South Africa with precisely chosen words.  She contrasts the beauty of the land with the harsh, passion-filled crises experienced by her main characters.  The silences in every scene are stiff with repressed emotion.  The most subtle beauty is in the long narrative arch that tells the story of mistress, Milla and maid, Agaat.

The story is revealed in the diaries, memories and mental anguish of Milla, as she is dying of ALS.  In her bed, unable to care for herself and cared for by Agaat, she slowly reveals a tragedy born of Christian charity.  We don’t know that for a long time.  Her starting point is at a particular moment that is meaningful in her own mind.  The reader is a silent listener to her thoughts that wander from one scene to another, sometimes in her past, sometimes in the present. 

Agaat is ever-present, except during the unwise and hasty courtship of Milla and Jak.  Clearly Agaat’s position is as maid; but, in a twist on the stereotype of the wonderful servant who loves her mistress, a rich blend of malevolence, servitude, loyalty and intelligence fills the stiffly starched apron and cap of her life-long uniform.  Milla strains to know Agaat, as do we; the only Agaat we can know is filtered through Milla’s perceptions.

Although this novel is set in South Africa during the liberation struggles and was written in Afrikaans, its themes are pivotal to how we all make choices and live with the far-reaching consequences of love.  The isolation of the farm, the claustrophobia of the remote community and the silence of ALS magnify the depth of the interdependency of Milla and Agaat.  Neither one can leave.

Agaat is a magnificent novel that explores the both the richness and the poverty of the human condition.