Fear, tragedy and changing forms
Dan Wylie is a prolific and highly accomplished writer and artist who works as Professor of English at Rhodes University. His publications, far too many to mention in a review of this length, include seven volumes of poetry, journal articles, chapters in compilations, books on topics such as Shaka, crocodiles and elephants, a memoir, as well as a blog.
However, even readers well acquainted with his work may be surprised by his latest offering a work of speculative or futuristic fiction entitled The Wisdom of Adders.
As one such reader, I guessed that a form of restlessness compelled Wylie's foray into what is an uncharted territory of creative writing in this country in general, and certainly in the Eastern Cape.
An understanding of the author’s literary adventure as fuelled by a desire to expand the horizons of his creative imagination, as well as by the pure pleasure of the journey in and for itself, is confirmed and rewarded by reading his story.
The story is set in 2170, one and a half centuries after a global environmental collapse, when the remaining human beings struggle to sur- vive in isolated and impoverished, but resourceful, communities.
One such community occupies the city of Grahamstown and its surrounds, providing the setting for The Wisdom of Adders.
The story’s young protagonist, Shawn Xaba, with the aid of a compelling character called Stormchaser who plays the role of her mentor or guru, sets off in search of her father who disappeared when she was seven years old. For the Grahamstown reader, there is pleasure in instantly recognising the original versions of Wylie’s renamed streets, such as Haarstreet and Hellstreet, or a church called River of Life, or towns named Palfred and Kentonsi, or “red-caped vaasity Demmicks lost in their arcane thoughts”.
The story is woven around the theme of a deeply felt love for animals and nature, with the accompanying fear of ecological destruction and the extinction of species. The book’s mood ranges from anxious to playful, from mournfulness to hope. The element of mourning and the sense of tragedy are powerfully expressed in words from poems composed by Stormchaser that Shawn discovers inside the covers of books or scrawled on walls: So I, maggot, shrivel in my exiled suit, Look back on all we did and failed to do … There is, as we always knew, no going back
If Stormchaser’s poetry serves as a space for apocalyptic imaginings and dark emotions, it is in the novella’s prose where we frequently find a celebration and exaltation of nature and animals. This spirit of affirmation runs through the work as a whole.
However, for their obvious echo with the title of the book and its front cover illustra- tion (a painting by Wylie), it is worth lingering on words that express Shawn’s experience of an adder: “It began to move, motion with no clear beginning or end, a slow unfurling into visibility, until she could make out its subtle ribs walking along in perfect accord beneath the mottled sheath of skin. Each uncoiling pressing the next curve along like the progression of a muscled fluid.
“And then it was gone, its long body losing its boundaries in the dappled light, its skin turned back into leaves.”
Be it in the form of both poetry or prose, the language Wylie uses to express his concerns is beautifully precise; sensitively cadenced.
His verbal command enhances the spirit of celebration and exaltation that infuses his story as a whole. Dan Wylie’s debut appearance in speculative fiction is very welcome indeed.