Softness of the Lime by Maxine Case

[jenjayfromSA]

Throughout Softness of the Lime by Maxine Case, an exquisitely written book, I wondered about the dates on the chapters. At the end it hit home with a punch that almost winded me.

Cape Town was in its infancy in 1790. The Dutch East India Company ruled and the solid Dutch burghers were making their fortunes selling meat, vegetables and wine to the passing ships. Slavery was an accepted part of society and Geert Baardwijk, coming early into his inheritance at his father’s death, did not question it.

For Lena, it was the central fact of her existence. Born in Madagascar, pawned by her family to pay a debt, sold by her chief for silver, she ended up as a kitchen slave in Geert’s home. He took her as his mistress. As her master, he considered it his right.

The story, told alternately, is a vivid and poignant portrait of two people trapped by themselves, their beliefs, their circumstances and their culture. Is love possible between two so unequal?

As the characters develop and reveal themselves, their world is deftly filled in around them. Lena’s childhood and way of life in Madagascar is carefully researched and told with telling simplicity. The account of her journey in a slave ship to the Cape reads like a prose poem. It wrenches your heart.

Geert’s life is bound up in the affairs of the Cape, the prosperity and otherwise of his business, the effects of wars and rumours of wars from faraway Europe. Through him, we are shown a detailed and again well-researched picture of what life must have been like.

As Lena sees so clearly with reluctant compassion, Geert is a weak man struggling to live up to the ideal of his dynamic father, grasping what he owns because he is afraid to face life alone. She is part of what he owns, she and the daughter she bore him. When his finances force him to take a bride of impeccable Dutch ancestry and dowry the conflicts and cruelties are exposed in all their terrible inevitability.

Self-deception, futility, bitterness, regret, loss, unspeakable pain, frustration, betrayal, love unrealised and unrecognised, and ultimately the drudgery of resignation, resonate through this beautifully written, carefully crafted narrative.

“It is the softness of the lime that is fatal to the bird” – Malagasy proverb

This young South African author won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in Africa.

I was given this book to review by Penguin/Random House SA. The dates that affected me so much were 1796 on Geert's timeline and 1858 on Lena's. Think about it. I give this 4 out of 4 stars.

Softness of the Lime
Maxine Case
Penguin/Random House
ISBN: 978-1-4152-0933-2

[Reuben 92]

This was a lovely review! I had never heard of this book before but it sounds truly beautiful and emotionally hard-hitting. Thanks for sharing about it, it really made me think.

[Irene C]

Thank you for this review! It sounds like a wonderful depiction of a particular culture and era, one that I'd love to read about. When that's done well it is the best historical fiction can offer.