Dit word aan die leser oorgelaat om te besluit of hierdie laaste stelling ’n dreigement is teen diegene wat die diskoers van die rykes besig. Dit kan as onskuldig afgemaak word, maar hoe sou Eyes, wat niks verstaan nie, seker kon wees? In die Editor’s Note word gesê dat sommige van die bande vir groot dele geen spraak bevat nie, maar bloot geluide, soos fietsklokkies, voëls, grepe uit musiek en in een geval ’n paar minute van aanhoudende en onverklaarbare gelag. Waaroor word daar gelag? Wat weet ons nie?
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Saam met Elli moet ons uitroep: “HEY, ANIMAL’S PEOPLE! I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND YOU!” (183) Meer nog as Elli: Ons is die Eyes wat ’n traan pik oor al die pyn in die wêreld en dan die boek toemaak. Ons is die Eyes wat aan die ander ent van die kapitalistiese stelsel die joernalis en sy uitgewer ryk maak en dan die boek toemaak. Ons sê saam met Elli: “Oh poor Animal, what a life!” (184). Waarop hy reageer:
I’ll tell you what disgusts me about this place, which isn’t what disgusts you, such as scorpions, filth, lack of hygiene, etc. It’s not that if I want a shit, I must visit the railway line [...] What really disgusts me is that we people seem so wretched to you outsiders that you look at us with that so-soft expression, speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice (184).
In Zoo City sien die leser die heterotopiese ruimtes deur die oë van Zinzi as ruimtes wat haar walg of haar flymskerp sinisme en sarkasme ontlok. Die roman kom nie verder as die uitbeelding van heterotopiese ruimtes en die heterotopiese zoo-fenomeen nie. In Animal’s People is dit grootliks as gevolg van die wyse waarop taal en letterkunde uitgebeeld word, asook die wyse waarop Animal as verteller funksioneer, wat die roman dit in my oë regkry om ’n alternatiewe ordening van die kantlyne daar te stel. Die sussende sienings oor diegene wat geïgnoreer word en diegene wat uitbuit en/of simpatiseer word tot so ’n mate omvergegooi dat dit die leser met nuwe, dommer Oë laat kyk. Soos McHale (1987:44) oor heterotopiese literatuur sê: “Radically discontinuous and inconsistent, it juxtaposes worlds of incompatible structure”. Meer nog: Animal’s People vervul die krities-etiese heterotopiese funksie wat Hubbs (2011) as fundamenteel beskou in die konstituering van ’n teks as heterotopie. Dit funksioneer as heterotopie van dis-illusie omdat dit die hulpverlening en onskuld, die ‘basiese begeertes’ en ‘ontwikkelde behoeftes’ van Eyes en kie as illusie ontbloot.
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Ek wil my oorspronklike vraag oor of Beukes se “high-concept” spekulatiewe fiksie in die geval van
Zoo City ’n ‘ontvlugtingsopsie’ is, as volg begin beantwoord: In my alledaagse omgang met my
portuurgroep en rondgaan in Kaapstad is die ideologiese landskap van Zoo City mý wêreld. Meestal minus die verbeeldingryke truuks. Ek is dus geneig om Corrigall se kommentaar oor The Shining Girls te eggo: Die narratiewe kompleksiteit van Zoo City is soms verblindend, maar op die ou end is die ideologiese argitektuur van die roman ’n mimetiese representasie van my leefwêreld.
Wanneer Jamal (2013) praat van die globale idioom waarby Beukes en ander jong Suid-Afrikaanse skrywers inskakel, kwalifiseer hy: “It is not of course the universalism of our suffering and triumph that our writers have tactically engineered that matters here, but the transnational commercial idiom they have finally mastered”. Nixon (2011:38) glo dat dit nodig is om gebiede en studievelde wat anderkant postkolonialisme se konvensionele rykwydte val, in transnasionale terme aan te spreek. Tog spreek hy sy kommer as volg uit: “I do feel some concern about how the categorical turn, in literary studies, to world literature often ends up deflecting attention away from the anti-imperial concerns that a materialist postcolonial studies foregrounded” (Nixon, 2011:38). Die invloed wat die transnasionale
kommersiële idioom het op die wyse waarop kwessies rondom diskriminasie en “rights, law, justice”46
(Sinha, 2007:3) aangepak word, weerhou Zoo City myns insiens daarvan om as teks ’n heterotopie te konstitueer. Anders as in die geval van Animal’s People word daar nie werklik bo die polities-korrekte uitgestyg nie en val die kritiek sag op liberaal-kapitalistiese oë.
46
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Beukes sê (met aanhalings uit Ben Williams van BookSA se opmerkings oor Suid-Afrikaanse literatuur) die volgende:
[A]lthough South African literary fiction is still wedded to “one white man’s lonely journey into his own interior through the country’s interior”, it’s in genre fiction that the readers will find fast, gritty stories “densely populated with a cross-section of South African society. That’s very exciting. And very new” (in Ansell, 2011:7).
Hierdie siening inaggenome klink die volgende aanhaling van die kritikus Nicholas Fagan dalk soos ’n pryslied vir die Suid-Afrikaanse literêre fiksie waarna Beukes en Williams verwys. Tog wil ek op hierdie punt ’n passasie van hom betrek:
Every Kurtz must have his Marlow – and Marlow will always come to take Kurtz home. It is a mark of our respect for those who lead us into darkness that we bring them back for burial, pay their debts and console their loved ones with lies. This process is played out over and over – and with every journey up the river, we discover that Kurtz has penetrated just a little farther than his counterparts before him. Poor old Marlow! Every time he heads upstream, he is obliged to a longer journey, through darker mysteries (in Pordzik, 2001:158).
Die donkerte of heterotopie waarheen ’n roman die leser kan neem, het myns insiens nie te make met of dit ‘literêre’ of ‘genre’ fiksie is nie. Dit wil wel voorkom of die ‘postnasionale psige’ redelik kieskeurig en selfs voorskriftelik is oor die tipe of graad van donkerte waarmee sy gekonfronteer wil word. As daar ’n soeke na ’n ‘bevryde verbeelding’ is, is dit dalk nie Gaylard se weergawe – wat die fondamente kan verskaf vir die oplossing van ingewikkelde en sensitiewe postkoloniale kwessies – wat in aanvraag is nie. Die verbeelding wat by die ‘transnasionale kommersiële idioom’ inskakel, is ’n verbeelding wat ons van die onuithoudbaarheid van sekere sosio-politiese realiteite ‘bevry’ deur dit binne ’n globale raamwerk aan te bied. Hierteenoor staan die effek van ’n roman soos Animal’s People wat spore van die Ander in jou agterplaas en ’n beklemming op jou bors laat.
Die donkerte waarheen Beukes se Zoo City ons neem, is nie ’n donkerte wat Marlow óf Zinzi noop om ’n ent vérder stroomop te reis nie. Soos wat Szczurek (2013:30) oor die roman opmerk: “As with
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geen sprake van Zoo City of hierdie weergawe van die bevryde verbeelding as volwaardig heterotopiese skip nie. Die troosbootjies is genoeg en voldoen aan eerstewêreldse standaarde.
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