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The Conservationist (Paperback)

by Nadine Gordimer (Author)
2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (23 Feb 1978)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140047166
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140047165
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 240,460 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Nadine Gordimer
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Product Description

Synopsis

Mehring, a wealthy, dominating South African industrialist moves to preserve his way of life, his power, and his possessions in the face of massive injustice and suffering, changing times, and death.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
2.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, 7 Sep 2008
By BookWorm "BookWorm" (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Conservationist (Paperback)
Despite having won the Booker Prize, and Gordimer herself being a Nobel literature laureate, I found 'The Conservationist' rather disappointing. It's not terrible, but it's unexciting and often quite hard work to read. It does improve as it goes along and you become more familiar with the style, but it was one of those books I had to make a conscious effort to pick up and read.

The story is set in South Africa during the seventies, and focuses on a rich white businessman who owns a farm as a weekend hobby. Other characters are the farm workers, the local shopkeepers, and the son of the businessman. I found it hard to get to know or really empathise with any of the characters. The prose from Mehring's point of view frequently refers to his former mistress, a liberal humanist, and his arguments with her. There are some interesting points in there but I found the intrusion of flashbacks into the past and sudden changes into second person narration irritating and confusing.

This is a story that may have more resonance for those who lived in or visited South Africa during the seventies. For those who haven't, this book doesn't bring the setting or era alive enough to draw the reader in.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Boring boring, 19 Aug 2009
By Jesper Jorgensen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Conservationist (Paperback)
What hard work, tedious and unrewarding, to get through this novel. It is the worst I've read in years. The story is really simple and utterly unoriginal, it's hardly a story at all, more like silly social realism of the seventies. But the worst thing about it is the style. Characters are not really introduced and settings neither. The reader pops in and out of heads of people but as they aren't really grounded in a figure the thoughts and shallow oberservations we read come across as echoes of thoughts. Real observations are very few indeed. Assumption on the other hand are quite plentifull.
But listen to this one: an Indian family plays a minor role and suddenly we zoom in on them and see the wife standing in a room.
" What did she think, standing looking out into the yard or across the burned veld - you could grow bananas, it would be warm and steamy and green, like the coast?"
And goodbye wife, not to be heard of again. What do we care what she might think if it isn't put into perspective of something, anything, show some respect for the trees Gordimer!
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This is writing at its best., 21 Sep 2008
By Xaves "Pete" (Leicester, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Conservationist (Paperback)
Form and style are matched to content in this expertly crafted novel by Gordimer. 'The Conservationist' was my introduction to Gordimer's writing and I wasn't disappointed. Her Modernist style, with its rapid shifts of narrative viewpoints, stream of consciousness and insertion of flashbacks is exactly suited to the tragedy that is Mehring's life and times - capturing his increasing ennui, uncertainty and his inability to fit. It's not difficult to understand why they gave her the Nobel.
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