This novel is a biography of sorts about an abolitionist named Thomas Pringle. Many biographers will either interview the subject or those who were around them and tell their story based on that info. In this book, we get first-person accounts of Pringle from five different people who were in his orbit when he was alive. Pringle touched each character in some way and the stories come together to show a complex man. The problem is that at the end, we still don't get a clear picture of him. We get a clearer picture of each of the storytellers instead, which isn't a bad thing. But it is a little frustrating, hence why I give the book four stars instead of five. Despite the unfinished goal, the book is still a fascinating look at slavery and abolitionists and a turbulent time in history that still to this day gets ignored far too often.

Zoë Wicomb’s novel “Still Life” is a strange fictional twist on life writing that takes “ghost writing” literally. “Still Life” blends historical fiction and biography seamlessly, creating a highly original novel that stands alone in its own category. The book is about a female author attempting to write a biography of Thomas Pringle, a forgotten Scottish poet titled the “Father of South African Poetry.” In the novel, Pringle’s life is retold through the anecdotes of the ghosts Mary Prince, a West Indian slave, and Hinza, Pringle’s adopted black son. These ghosts assist the fictional author in her writing. Sir Nicholas Green, a time traveller, enters the story to help the group vividly relive parts of Pringle’s life.

In “Still Life,” Wicomb examines the complicated relationship between a biographer and their dead subject. There is gruelling tension between Pringle and the author trying to write about him. Pringle isn’t pleased. He feels out of control. This narrative exposes the ethical dilemmas of writing a biography. The fictional biographer is trying to write an accurate account of Pringle’s life without being disrespectful of Pringle and his family. Pringle himself acknowledges that “ghost writing has its difficulties, but surely respect is the first requirement.”

As this novel jumps in time, it calls attention to literary sexism that exists today and historically. Pringle is constantly uncomfortable that a female is writing his biography. If it were up to him, he “would’ve written his own life, avoiding this dependency on a woman.” One ghost says, “new generations have…Skewed everything, even admitting women to the canon, for heaven’s sake.” In this novel, Wicomb acknowledges how women have previously been excluded from the literary canon and that women being accepted into the canon does not automatically mean women writers are respected. Overall, this novel prompts readers to think about literary sexism in new, more profound ways.

But mainly, this novel is about writing and the difficulties of writing. The reader gets an unromanticized stripped back look at the process of writing, which includes all the procrastination and all the suffering that comes with writing. Wicomb portrays the agony that comes with trying to write with such accuracy that it’s humorous; writers will find it relatable.

Wicomb’s writing style is fresh and unique. Wicomb pushes the boundaries of how a novel can function. However, most of the text is dialogue, with little description or exposition. So much so that it can feel like reading a script rather than a novel. This novel could benefit from more structure. Sometimes this novel jumped too far too fast through time and space, making me dizzy. Wicomb’s experimental writing style, while innovative, was at times confusing. But I suspect this is Wicomb’s intention. As the biographer struggles to piece together Pringle’s life, the readers are meant to do the same.

Beautifully written, thought-provoking, and just generally one of the most absorbing reads I've encountered in months.

This book prides itself somewhat on the density that it presents, but it is an interesting novel nonetheless. It is introspective to the narrator and main focus- but also allows the reader into a very intricately woven labyrinth of social issues. There's a deep historical dive that any reader would benefit enormously from before progressing through this book, and I would like to think that the time would be dedicated to that as much as possible. I thought this book tried very hard to be obtuse in some senses, but I also understand that the historical context necessitates linguistic gymnastics. It is somewhat remarkable, but perhaps not as accessible nor as informative as it could have been, and so it sits firmly in the middle of the road for me.

Thank you to The New Press and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!

Now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indie Bookstore.

Zoe Wiecomb's Still Life is a wholly unique time traveling adventure as an author struggles to write a memoir of Thomas Pringle, a forgotten poet known only as the Father of South African Poetry. Jumping between 18th century Scotland, contemporary South Africa and the West Indies, the cast of characters expands time and space as we meet the seasoned time traveler Sir Nicholas Green, Mary Prince a West Indian slave and Hinza, Pringle's illegitimate son. It's a novel unlike anything I've ever read before as the author breaks the fourth wall constantly, creating a sort of meta questioning into the structure and function of the novel or literature in general. Provocative and interrogative in its relentless examination of Pringle, his racist and colonialist past, Still Life offers a glimpse into what it means to live in South Africa today.

This book is very stream of consciousness and it was really not a book for me. I honestly had a hard time following what was happening and what the book was even about.
This book was not for me.

I'm afraid that I'm finding the author's prose to be dense and too contrived. Phrases like these 'a strong, vegetal whiff of desire rises from it' are definitely not my cup of tea. The lack of quotations marks also is rather frustrating.
I'm sure there is a reader for this kind of story but I'm not the one.

In many ways this book's cover - an out-of-focus picture of a 19th century man - captures the novel. Ostensibly a biography of Thomas Pringle, poet, colonist, and abolitionist, his story (and legacy) ends up being fuzzy and filtered through: first, 3 black people whose lives he touched; next, by a character from Woolf's Orlando; and finally by a character called "the author". Each layer of this filter hijacks the story at some point, our cast of historical and fictional characters ends up together in modern London with a side trip to South Africa, and the viewpoint shifts among at least 5 different people. None of whom is Pringle.

So lots of questions rise: how reliable is biography, and who gets to control the story (there is a nice irony in having the biography of a white man largely told by black people while a pompous white guy tries to wrestle it back); how far can we go to apply modern sensibilities back onto past eras; how much does poetry airbrush reality; and how does one balance the good in a person's life against his shortcomings and failures.

Wicomb's writing is concise and exact and a pleasure to read. The complicated structure of the novel is deftly built and navigated. The characters are well drawn and their interactions make for an engrossing story in the midst of the Larger Issues. It's well worth reading.

While this timely book made me think this biography of a 19th century Scottish poet, Thomas Pringle, who was a strong abolitionist. I would call this fictional biography. He came to South Africa where he was known as the father of South African poetry. Wicomb presents his life through a variety of perspectives which I really liked, And most importantly, this form of story telling allows the author to question history.

📚 REVIEW 📚 Book 109 of 2020 (5/5 stars). Still Life by Zoe Wicomb.

I don't think I've ever read a book like this. The synopsis on Netgalley sounded so strange, but learning that the author is a top literary voice of South Africa made me take the leap and request it anyway.  It really blew me away! It's wildly unique and meta but it WORKS.

The book is about an author who is trying to write a book about Thomas Pringle, the "famous" poet of South Africa who was actually Scottish and only lived in South Africa a short time in the early 1800s. The author enlists the help of the ghosts of Mary Prince, a slave woman who Pringle wrote a book about, and Hinza, an indigenous boy who Pringle raised and wrote a poem about. Pringle brought them both to London with him. And finally there is the spirit of the fictional poet Nicholas Greene from Virginia Woolf's Orlando (which I've never read). Pringle, Mary, and Hinza are real historical figures.
Are you confused/ lost yet? Please don't let all that scare you off.  The way Ms. Wicomb used these ghosts to reflect on Pringle and his relationship to them, to Indigenous people of South Africa, to colonization, to abolition, and to poetry, is incredibly multi-layered and excellent.
The ghosts are working together to do research in 1970s London and South Africa in order to write this book about Pringle. The way the author used the characters in order to develop and change the reader's understanding of just who this Pringle really was, was impressive.
The book is so precise with its reveals and its unfolding of what was really going on. I can't begin to put it all in this short review. But she pulls the wool away from the reader's eyes, as well as the ghosts' eyes, on how being anti-slavery (as Pringle was) can still have racist reasons such as colonization and "saving" or "civilising" the native people in South Africa and training them to be missionaries. That's just one example of an issue she articulates and shows the reader so well. 
It's fiction, but in a way it's an examination of the history of European colonization in South Africa, colourism, sexism, and white saviourism. Blown away.

It comes out Tuesday 11/3!

A struggle. Though whimsical in its set-up, this novel develops turgidly and a bit too worthily. I never became engaged, instead bogged down in its braid of narrative voices. Marks for good effort, but insufficiently engaging.

Mary Prince's Autobiography has become a classic of the English language. She used to be a slave in the colonies. As an adult, she got married to an ex-slave, but in a way she abandoned him when she ran away to England. There was no slavery legally in England at that time, although there was a lot in the colonies.

She was helped by Scottish poet Thomas Pringle, a poet who supported abolition. I thought the novel was going to be more about Pringle, but it is more about Prince. Maybe because his support for her book is the true claim to fame for Prince.

The way it is written it reminds me a lot of Virginia Woolf, specially in the use of narrators and editorial voices. The "writer" presenting a manuscript to editor Belinda and being terrified about the comments she may or may not get was hilarious and one of the high points in this novel.

From a technical point of view, dialogue is embedded between narration without any brackets to mark it up. It takes a little while to get used to it, but it is a technique similar to what Woolf and other modernists used to do, so I got used to it pretty quickly.

I found it interesting that Mary Prince had to make concesions on what was said on her book --- specially given that it was an autobiography. If one cannot say what one wants in one's autobiography, this means that there is something seriously wrong about the publishing world. And then they claim to be the fourth power, and to be the greatest defenders of freedom of speech. Now, I am not sure if the confusion about the pig and the man was true, or just a product of Zoe Wincomb's imagination.

It is also funny what history may make to interpretation. The plaque than the offspring of Mary Prince's owners puts out is historical reinterpretation at its best.

Also, there is a moment in which a character, Sir Nicholas Green, says that he is sick of himself. No wonder, I was sick of him as well!!!!

My only negative is that I felt that it drags a little bit in the middle. Towards the end, my interest peaked again. I felt that the ending was quite strong. It is a slow-burner of a book which takes some time to read, for sure.



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