Alan Paton’s unpublished fiction (1922- 1934): an initial appraisal

D Levey

doi:10.4102/lit.v28i3.171

Abstract

This article considers selected issues in the early fiction of Alan Paton, which is in manuscript form: three novels or parts of novels namely, “Ship of Truth” (1922-1923), “Brother Death” (1930), “John Henry Dane” (1934b), the novel/novella “Secret for seven” (1934d), and the short stories “Little Barbee”, (1928?) and “Calvin Doone” (1930a). Attention is given to the first novel. A summary of the findings follows: even though Paton’s longer unpublished fiction is religiously earnest and at times rhetorically effective, it is simplistic and tends to perpetuate the white, English-speaking patriarchal hegemony of Natal, rather than offer any sustained critique of it. These works are set against the background of the Natal Midlands in the 1920s and 1930s. The shorter fiction is slightly different in nature.

Highlights

The object of this article is twofold: firstly to record some of the findings of a recent doctoral investigation (Levey, 2007) into certain manuscripts in the Alan Paton Centre and Struggle Archives, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, which place the young Alan Paton in a slightly different light from that hitherto cast on him, and secondly, to introduce one of these works, Paton’s first novel: Ship of truth
It would seem logical for any study of Paton to begin with some of his earliest writings – not all these titles are Paton’s own – yet with few exceptions most work on him has dealt with his familiar published oeuvre
It seems obvious that Paton was already practising that ability to write which makes Cry, the beloved country so powerful as a tool of protest though, in some respects, the later text does not delve as deeply into the problematics of individual identity as some of his earliest works

Summary

Introduction

The object of this article is twofold: firstly to record some of the findings of a recent doctoral investigation (Levey, 2007) into certain manuscripts in the Alan Paton Centre and Struggle Archives, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, which place the young Alan Paton in a slightly different light from that hitherto cast on him, and secondly, to introduce one of these works, Paton’s first novel: Ship of truth (approximately 1922-1923). Appropriate theory is adduced in the aforesaid thesis It would seem logical for any study of Paton to begin with some of his earliest writings Focalisation proved a useful tool in discussing the underlying norms of the texts, since it became clear that the narrator largely conveys Paton’s own values and is often not very distinct from him, in Ship of truth (Rimmon-Kenan, 2002:82-83; cf Foley, 2005:84). In this context Paton represents my own construct, the author whose existence is inferred on the basis of clues in the texts and in what is known about Paton generally, for example from his biography (Alexander, 1994) and autobiographies (Paton, 1980 and 1988). A few selected major characteristics of Paton’s early fiction are discussed

Aspects of identity in the early fiction

Stereotypes and stock characters

An ambiguous pastoral environment11

Religion and other key signifiers of identity

A racialised religious environment

Conclusion