I found the story itself only somewhat interesting, but the parable that splits the book into two parts contains an idea that I love thinking about.

A good and distinctive farm story.

I really liked the majority of this book, although at times the philosophical tangents got a bit long for my taste. Still, I was surprised and intrigued by this book. It's a unique perspective--Victorian, but set in South Africa
and written by a South African white woman. There is a predictably large amount of upsetting racial stereotypes, but also a distinctly feminist main character who rails against the barriers society has set for her. It's very different from the majority of books written at the time, and the writing itself is beautiful. It's a good window into the time and place, and overall a satisfying read.

Having a little public-domain e-book downloading spree.
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I'm getting a lot of great to-reads from the book list 500 Great Books By Women, which got set up as a Goodreads group. There are cool demographics in the list, and I've been tracking them in my reading with a spreadsheet (and so can yoouuu).

A convict, or a man who drinks, seems something so far off and horrible when we see him; but to himself he seems quite near to us, and like us. We wonder what kind of a creature he is; but he is just we, ourselves. We are only the wood, the knife that carves on us is the circumstance.

I don't coddle the books I read, neither their texts nor their authors. It matters not when the author lived, or what language they spoke, neither how they died nor how little they raped during the course of their lifetime. What matters is the quality, the creativity, the complexity and the holism, so when all I hear during the 19th, the 20th, the 21st centuries is excuse after excuse after excuse of this one knew no better, this one was treated too well, this one was on top and thus couldn't be expected to realize that good writing meant good writing, not writing that fared well enough in conjunction with whatever fad of selective humanity was passing through the mainstream. I know that my poor rating of Schreiner will attract the woman haters that mewl and puke their way through this website, but the only reason why their precious white boys aren't suffering the same and/or more is that, having already wasted far too much of my life on brainwashing myself to like said white boys, I am only in the mood to waste a little more once in a blue moon. In any case, when it comes to Schreiner, I found a few tidbits of quality here and there, but mixed in such a fumbling morass that spent too long on certain aspects and too short on vital others that it joins the ranks of classics whose survival I marvel at.

They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, 'Into how little space can a human soul be crushed?' I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and found room to move there—wide room. A woman who has been for many years at once of those places carries the mark of the beast on her until she dies, though she may expand a little afterward when she breathes in the free world.

'The Story of an African Farm' reads like a wannabe [b:Wuthering Heights|6185|Wuthering Heights|Emily Brontë|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388212715s/6185.jpg|1565818] in certain sections and an Evans novel (Mary Ann for those who are content to wallow in their own superficial filth) merged together, with a sprinkle of a ultra simplistic villain straight out of Dickens and a meandering, ultimately futile character developments. Xenophobic antiblackness is there in spades, as mainstream reception attests to, but frankly, I don't care how much humanity Schreiner saw in the indigenous populations of her imperial outpost. Her writing as a whole is too vague in places and too repetitive in others, and this touches upon all her characters, both white focus and black periphery. I see the feminism others talked about, but any humanizing that doesn't follow through on its inherent promises of ubiquity will never be given a free pass should its other narratological aspects be lacking. Monotone characters with a sprinkling of developmental quirks which barely change over the broad spread of time the narrative touches upon, unnecessarily blunt pathos that went on as awkwardly as it concluded, and observations that, while of interest, happened as the result of events that the narrative chose to pass over to its ultimate detriment. All in all, neither a very good story, nor a very good greater message: just another instance of women being allowed to take the forefront in the ivory tower when they're doing the work of imperialism.

I've taken on too many longer works with which I've been too equal in my attention over the past week, so I sped up on the pace on this one out of the petty reasons of personal dislike on my part and relative lack of length on its. My opinion raised a tad between the time I decided on this quickening of pace and the end, but I still wonder at the masochistic acrobatics of the majority of readers who choose to tackle works of this particular breed. Remember, remember, yes, but wounds are never healed by digging them up, plying on white out, and then stringing them up as an example of how one must react in as correct and status quo sucking a manner as possible. If one is so attached to critiquing purely for the sake of correct writing, they are welcome to do so. Just don't expect me to view them as having any credibility if their skills are compromised by an internalized hierarchy of, this is when bad faith is permissible, this is when it's not, cause guess what: compromise enough, and there goes one's edge.

There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, "Now deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children."

Some of the chapters enchanted me, but a few others went deeper into the author’s thoughts which I found jarring against the story and the characters

I started this book without knowing its history. I was expecting a book about life in South Africa written for children. Instead, this is a book that explores disillusionment. It is described by other reviewers as Anti-christian and feminist. I wonder if those descriptions are correct? It certainly explores themes of Christianity, rationalism, gender, and the acceptable roles and rules for women.

It would be interesting to learn more about the author and 3rd life. I feel like this book is, in some ways, a memoir - that she is working through her thoughts on life as she writes the book. The characters are somewhat two dimensional. There are moments when you feel real connection and then it fades. In any event, while not a particularly hopeful or inspiring read, this book is valuable for it's look into a specific time and place.