I can't place this book as strictly Victorian or even Realist. I was more concerned about the animals than the people, which feels wrong. The characters are flat. The animal cruelty was upsetting. This is not an engaging book if you're looking for plot, either. I thought I was learning something but now I don't know what I got out of this.

In memory of Vera and Roland

Don’t mind me bawling my eyes out at this very fascinating but complex novel.

It wouldn't be quite right to say I enjoyed reading The Story of an African Farm. Having read Jane Eyre and Jude the Obscure in the past weeks, I opened this novel more or less expecting it to be another Victorian narrative. Instead, I found a novel that was at times reminiscent of Modernist writing in its mixing of forms - one chapter might be quite traditional, while the next might be a parable worked into the original story - as well as its characters, time lapses, and approach to major themes like religion and feminism. Schreiner here also attempted to describe things never described before in the English literature, namely the African landscape that is such a major player in the novel in itself; it is vast and small at the same time, and eventually utterly elusive, but Schreiner has certainly managed to capture its grimness, the empty space, the hopelessness.

The characters are nothing like straightforward Victorian people, either. Waldo and Lyndall, the two protagonists (if there are such in this novel) seem to be people ahead of their time, struggling with the society they live in, and losing badly. Lyndall is often said to be the first truly feminist character in English literature, and I can see that from her speeches on women's liberty and her stance on marriage. Despite this, I did not sympathise with her. Apart from the many tragic characters in The Story of an African Farm, there are also several almost slapstick comedic characters like Tant' Sannie - the thinkers are punished, the oblivious are allowed to continue on seems to be a rule of thumb.

Reading The Story of an African Farm was, therefore, unexpectedly challenging, since as a reader I wished to impose some sort of sensible framework upon it and try to understand all that was going on in the lives of characters involved, and of course did not succeed. I feel this is a book you can come back to again and again, and it will give up something new every time you reread it.

Schreiner somehow manages to be both feminist and racist simultaneously in this novel, and while advocating for women's rights in the 19th century is admirable, the fact that no person of colour is even given a name is inexcusable. Furthermore, the novel would have been a whole lot better had Bonaparte Blenkins been more than a mere caricature of a villain.