The Art of Politics in James McClure's "The Artful Egg"

Abstract

in a pioneering study of fiction of James McClure, Bert B. Lockwood, Jr. demonstrated how six mystery stories written between 1971 and 1980 were designed to expose microlegal system of South African society.' Lockwood concluded by defining twenty-one rules he saw governing racial relations of apartheid. On occasion of recent publication of The Artful Egg,2 seventh of McClure's police procedurals,3 I wish to consider how literary qualities of story shed new light on a few of these rules. My focal points will be rule number two, it is impermissible for whites to engage in sexual activities with nonwhites, and rule number twenty-one, the community should view Afrikaners as social inferiors, because these two rules are especially pertinent to this latest of McClure's mystery stories. (The term English-speaking should be understood to refer, not to all those who speak English, but to those whose ancestors were English-speaking, namely British.) Although all of McClure's fictional works are skillfully written and worthy of literary analysis, The Artful Egg differs from previous mystery stories in that main murder victim is a writer, and that a good deal of investigation involves a consideration of Hamlet. Indeed, most obvious innovation of this latest book is attention paid to problem of being a