Monday, December 22, 2014

Gordimer's "Which New Era Would That Be" (1956)

Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)
Our last meeting of 2014 took place on November 24th.  The short story under consideration was "Which New Era Would That Be," by South African writer and 1991 Nobel literature laureate Nadine Gordimer.  "Which New Era Would That Be" is a vignette of a visit made under the apartheid regime by two white liberals, Alister Halford and Jennifer Tetzel, to the Johannesburg printing shop of Jake Alexander, who is of a mixed-race background. 

In the story, Maxie Ndube, a black trade unionist, relates two stories of his personal experience with the color barrier. The first is a visit with a white labor lawyer to an employer of workers he represents. Maxie describes being offered lunch at the man's home. As they are about to sit down in the dining room, Maxie is told that his lunch has been placed on a table on a veranda outdoors and he must eat separately.

The other story is of Maxie's dealings with a certain firm. He has several phone conversations with a white secretary there named Peggy that become increasingly flirtatious.  When he arrives at the offices and Peggy sees that Maxie is a black man, she tries not to look surprised but seems “terrified” that someone from the inner office might see her shaking hands with a black man.  Jennifer's response to the story is "Poor little girl, she probably liked you awfully, Maxie, and was really disappointed. You mustn't be too harsh on her.  It's hard to be punished for not being black."  It seems that Gordimer here implies that Jennifer is making a play for Maxie's affections or at least demonstrating to a roomful of men how "liberated" she is both sexually and politically.

Shortly afterwards, Alister and Jennifer make an exit from the shop, and Jennifer says to Maxie, "I feel I must tell you, about that other story -- your first one, about the lunch, I don't believe it. I'm sorry, but honestly I don't. It's too illogical to hold water."

Gordimer writes, "It was her final self-immolation by honest understanding. There was absolutely no limit to which that understanding would not go. Even if she could not believe Maxie, she must keep her determined good faith with him by confessing her disbelief. She would go to the length of calling him a liar to show by frankness how much she respected him -- to insinuate, perhaps, that she was with him, even in the need to invent something about a white man that she, because she herself was white, could not believe. It was her last bid for Maxie".

In other words, Jennifer must state that Maxie's story seems to be fabricated for a political agenda, but that she feels Maxie's pain to the extent that she even understands his need to embellish the truth. It is an acknowledgement on Jennifer's part that although there exists a deep racial divide in their country, she is in solidarity with the cause of political advancement for nonwhites.  She wants to bond personally with Maxie by calling him out on the story, yet by doing so commits “self-immolation.” (By the way, we the readers have no way of knowing whether Maxie’s story is true or not.)

Gordimer ends her description of their exchange by writing, "The small perfectly made man crossed his arms and smiled, watching her go. Maxie had no price." 

He will not allow Jennifer to heroize him in this fashion, and the two will, at best, be separate but equal political partners.