Why Moxyland is not like Disgrace
WARNING: This post contains major spoilers about Moxyland, which is why the bulk of it is after the jump. If you haven’t read the book and plan to, avert your eyes.
I ran into Ashraf Jamal yesterday at the Booker shortlist party for Damon Galgut at the Book Lounge – and that charming, lovely man cut me deep.
We’ve never met before, although we have friends in common, and, even better, he was one of the many people whose support and encouragement was instrumental in making Moxyland – and thus my writing career – happen.
As the judge of SL’s short story competition years ago, he wrote some very nice things about my short story, “Branded*”, although even at the time he says, it felt more like a fragment of something bigger. He was right – the short story turned out to be the seedling for a novel, although I later changed the name from Branded to Moxyland. He was so complimentary about it, I later hit him up to write a supporting letter for my application for a National Arts Council Grant, which allowed me to take several months off to get deep into the writing of the thing.
Ashraf and I hit it off straight away, falling into a conversation about books and art and our kids – and then he said something terrible.
He said that Moxyland reminded him of Disgrace.
Specifically the ending, he said, which he found as negative and pessimistic as that devastating pastoral.
“Ouch!” I exclaimed, clutching my chest, staggering under the blow.
Now, most people wouldn’t object to having their book compared to a Nobel Laureate’s. But I really don’t like Disgrace. And specifically, I don’t like the ending.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading it. There’s a reason JM Coetzee won the Nobel. He’s a very good writer, it’s a brilliant book, austere and crisp as its Karoo setting. But it leaves a very, very nasty aftertaste.
Some people have said the same of Moxyland, it’s true. That it’s a tragedy, that the ending is a devastating and shocking punch to the intestines. I even received one anguished email from a reader demanding to know “How could you do that!”
The answer is because the story demanded it.
I never promised you a happily-ever-after and I think I left plenty of clues along the way that we were heading for bad ugliness. I didn’t mean to upset you, but c’mon, it couldn’t have gone any other way.
I agree with Ashraf that both Moxyland and Disgrace are bleak and nasty tragedies. But I vehemently disagree that Moxyland is pessimistic in the same way as Disgrace.
I hate what Disgrace says about South Africa, that the differences between us are irreconcilable, white people deserve to suffer for their decades of smug privilege and oppression, black people are inscrutable Other, we will never understand each other, we will never be able to reach across the chasm that separates us, and the only thing to do is surrender to history, to society’s failings, to personal failings. We are fallen. It’s over. There is no coming back. Try to find some kind of dignity in accepting the inevitable.
As Ashraf pointed out, Moxyland isn’t really about South Africa, it’s about the whole world, which he found all the more depressing. But Moxyland is a parable, an allegory, a warning not about where we are now, but where we’re potentially heading – towards a future where we’ve traded our rights for convenience and the illusion of safety and shiny consumer goods. It’s 1984 for 2010.
And Moxyland’s characters, for the most part, go out fighting, deluded maybe, disillusioned definitely, but they don’t just roll over and play dead like a mangy crippled cur. (Actually, that’s an insult to the mangy crippled cur, who was probably the most gutsy character in Disgrace).
[MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD]
In fact, the ending is purposefully ambiguous, purposefully open-ended, at least for one of the characters, who gets the final say in the novel, who has the key to everything in his hand. He could fix the world. Or doom it. The interpretation – and thus the pessimism or optimism of the ending – is up to you.
To me, it boils down to this:
Disgrace’s ending says: “These characters are fucked because this country is fucked right now and I’m moving to Australia.”
Moxyland’s ending says: “These characters are fucked because their future world is fucked and I’m sticking around because we’re not there yet.”
(*To be republished in the Apex Book of World Science Fiction Vol 2, edited by Lavie Tidhar, coming out mid-2011)
