A new world with memory erased
MEMORY is elusive. People have tried for centuries to understand it and how it works because it is so essential to our humaneness. Now it is the central theme in debut novelist Fred Strydom’s The Raft – a philosophical adventure story that takes the reader into a terrifying world where nobody can remember who or what they are.
Cape Town-born Strydom searched widely to find a novel dealing with the subject.
Satisfied there was little out there with a similar concept‚ he has created a world in which‚ on Day Zero‚ humankind loses its memory in a single‚ devastating moment.
The book opens some years after Day Zero with confused people‚ unable to use technology to survive‚ camping in beach communes. They are closely watched by a regime‚ The New Past‚ that maintains that Day Zero was a good thing.
“It believes this was an opportunity to purge ourselves of all our bad habits‚ our consumerism‚ our materialism‚” says Strydom. “If there is no family nucleus‚ then we’ll be rid of our tribal mentality and we’ll evolve collectively.”
The strangers imprisoned on a Cape coast beach‚ live a precarious existence, not allowed to converse with one another or make friends.
When the main character‚ Kayle Jenner‚ along with a few others‚ tries to help a pregnant woman escape‚ he is punished by being spreadeagled on a wooden raft‚ hands and feet shackled‚ facing the sun’s blinding rays.
“Such rebels are pumped full of an hallucinogenic substance so that they will realign with a new philosophy called The Renascence‚” says Strydom. The idea is that as they lie there tied to a pier for three days‚ burning by day and freezing by night‚ they will detach from their desires and return to the beach numbed‚ disconnected and unable to rebel.
The rope on Kayle’s raft snaps and off he floats‚ still bound‚ into a broken world with his haunting visions. His dreams of finding a boy he believes to be his son become his raison d’etre .
We meet a robotic family of mother‚ father and two children who are polite‚ friendly and eat normal food.
“They are the last remnant of what we used to be like‚ in The Raft’s fragmented world of forgotten identities.”
Kayle’s raft bumps up against an island made totally of rubbish on which people live‚ growing fruit and vegetables.
The reader is taken on his journey of self-rediscovery. In the first half of the book he is simply an observer. He begins to form opinions only in the second half‚ which becomes richer and warmer as he develops. “He can’t have opinions in the beginning because he’s in his infancy in terms of an identity‚” says Strydom.
He found it tricky to tell a story in which characters don’t know who they are‚ and readily agrees that there are elements of Buddhism‚ the Bible‚ mythology‚ The Life of Pi‚ maybe even some Pilgrim’s Progress in a novel that has all the ingredients for a Hollywood blockbuster.
Already‚ American Skyhorse Publishing has snapped up rights to The Raft . It will be published in the US and Canada next year.
Strydom is a writer to watch and I wondered as I read what genre his book falls into.
“I’m wary of labels but it’s been called speculative fiction‚ which authors such as Haruki Murakami‚ David Mitchell and Lauren Beukes use in a fantastical way that mixes the magical with the mundane.”
One thing Strydom emphasises is that it’s not science fiction.
He’s also keen for the book not to be seen as South African‚ “because writers here so often feel obligated to write about our past. American and British authors don’t feel the same need to advertise their countries. Doing so could limit our creativity.”
Nonetheless‚ he occasionally includes little‚ off-the-map South African towns in this book and in his short stories‚ “because I feel they still have a mystical quality about them”.
So does his writing‚ which is richly‚ lyrically descriptive.
He wants The Raft to be read as entertainment‚ “with a few ideas about alternative ways of thinking and living. So‚ it’s fun with a bit of reflection too”. — BusinessDay