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Klik hier om die Afrikaanse weergawe van hierdie artikel te lees.
Literary polemics: Questions and answers; claims and responsesMadame LacosteI The corridors are abuzz. "Have you heard?" "No, really?" In a post-postmodern era you have to wonder: a charge of plagiarism with regard to documents in the public domain? A charge of plagiarism about a Ted Hughes quotation from Country of my skull, an ingenious piece of faction (blending of fact and fiction) and a book in which characters parade as intellectual puppets on behalf of the implicit author. Hughes probably got his view of myths from Robert Graves, and one of his first gifts to Sylvia Plath was supposedly a Graves boook. "But besides the wench is dead" – to “steal”, while I’m at it, a motto from an Eliot poem. (Yes, guess which one?) A polemicist has pointed out the uncollegial nature of Stephen Watson’s criticism of Krog. Polemic doesn’t have to be uncollegial, but rumours of a soured friendship are mentioned in passing and the poem "‘I think I am the first’ – Lady Anne op Tafelberg" assumes new psychoanalytical interpretations. Who was first? Who was second? This psychodrama – which South African literature, being as small as it is, is not quite able to absorb – has necessarily led to a choosing of sides. Which is a pity. Because the complex processes are at once reduced and destroyed. Furthermore: questions ought to be raised about appropriation, adoption, mine versus yours; Afrikaans literature’s freer, postmodern approach to playing with intertexts versus local English literature’s apparently “old-fashioned” handling of texts. The words integrity and custodian were also used by a polemicist. Who decides about a writer’s integrity and who decides that someone is above criticism? In law an advocate refers to someone that he’s had to carry and defend through many court sessions as “My man”. Biographers often become possessive about a subject, and Leon Rousseau, that excellent biographer of Die groot verlange, has often referred to his obsession with Marais. Krog’s publishers threatened legal action. Whereupon an advocate friend remarked, “One shouldn’t fight with people that buy their ink by the litre.” Hennie Aucamp has wisely remarked in this debate that a symposium, not a court case, would be the prudent step. II In the Freud Archives, a study by Janet Malcolm, an unpleasant libel claim between Malcolm and Jeffrey Masson is recounted. The case dragged on for eleven years and cost approximately eleven million dollars. What was the fight about? The fight beween KR Eissler, head of the Freud archives, Masson’s former successor and subsequent vilified manager of the archives, and Peter Swales, one-time manager of the Rolling Stones and subsequent psychoanalyst, about who owned rights to the letters and other Freud archival material, reads like a thriller. Malcolm, just like Eissler, is dragged into court. The book makes for fascinatiing reading and could be directly applied to Watson and Krog. The final chord in this fascinating text is a lost jotter belonging to Malcolm. If she had been able to produce it as evidence, Masson’s case against her would have been unnecessary. One day – coincidentally – her granddaughter discovered the notebook in which she had recorded verbatim every word and pronouncement of Masson’s. III No one “owns” the Bushman documents. Everyone can write, argue and publish things about them. Acknowledge one another’s work. Even in a postmodern milieu, acknowledgements, the "coup de chapeau" of which I, Mrs Lacoste, am the marketer, is essential. Literary etiquette would at least have required the publication of Krog’s response simultaneously with Watson’s accusations. And would literary etiquette, by which Watson sets such high store, not equally have required a more sober, more academic tone? Called for: A symposium on this matter with an objective, neutral chairman so that both parties can be heard. Sources
Krog, Antjie. Country of my skull. Random House, Johannesburg. 2002.
Malcolm, Janet. In the Freud Archives. Papermac, New York. 1997. Rousseau, Leon. Die groot verlange. Human & Rousseau, Cape Town. 1974. "I think I am the first" – Lady Anne op Tafelberg
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