ESSIE MUSES ON "FAMILY AND FRIENDS"

As some of you who know me offline might already know, my mother has been suffering from ill health until recently. This has meant that she used to find it rather difficult to read for any length of time, a torment for her as she was (and in fact still is) a true blue bookworm. Recently however, Moms health took a turn for the better, which has meant she can read again. We are a family who strongly believes in doing nothing by halves; therefore, when I arrived at our ancestral home for three weeks, I was greeted by a veritable mountain range of books on every conceivable surface. A little Mont Blanc had been born on my desk too ``for you to take back`` Mom explained with a grin. I was not ungrateful, if a little taken aback by the sheer quantities.  This ``geoliterary`` formation was largely due to some books leant by a family friend. This meant that there were a few in this number that I would not initially have chosen myself, and I have to admit, this book was one of them. However, what started out as me casually flipping through the book that just so happened to be at the top of the pile turned into me promptly getting glued to the book and finishing it practically in one fell swoop.

Family and Friends traces the fortunes of the Dorn family, starting in the years preceding the Second World War and the period shortly after it. There is Sofia (Sofka) Dorn, the widowed matriarch who rules and forms her young family with velvet glove and iron will. Frederick, the debonair darling of the family, a dashing flirt whose every fault seems to be somehow forgiven. Then there is Alfred, the younger brother, serious and bookish. Then there are ``the girls`` Mimi and Betty; Betty is the one with the ``artistic`` temperament while Mimi is a quiet girl who is happy pleasing her mother. If only they could stay quietly under Sofka`s wing always – however, life does not quite work like that. Soon they will need to make choices in life, or they will elect to not make any choices at all… It is indeed quite amazing what different paths the exact same beginning can lead to…

Here`s the strange thing about me and this book. I did not like the characters. In fact a few of them quite literally annoyed the heck out of me. If I met them in real life, I would probably end up slapping quite a few. But of course, it is the fact that the book is extremely well-written that elicits such a reaction from a reader. And Anita Brockner`s use of language is something else altogether. It takes a bit of getting used to at first though, as the book is written almost entirely in the passive tense. But this by no means subtracts from the vividness of the descriptions, the attention to detail and the beautifully woven story. Brockner is very apt at analyzing that subtle force, inter-family politics, and through her, we not only follow the various choices and decisions of the four Dorn siblings but get a clear view of how Sofka effects each of them in separate ways and how they are effected by each other, by the rest of the family, by ``society`` (and the all-important question ``what will people say``) to arrive at four very separate destinations. And of course this gives us ample opportunity to reflect on ourselves and our own families. It`s a funny one, family politics. I am pretty sure we would all like to believe we are completely immune to it, that we are (or at least we are perfectly capable of, should we so want) breaking completely free of an ancestral influence and marching boldly forward, forming our own fate. But more often than not, the strands of fate are woven with more strings from the family bow than we may care to accept. If we have not adopted some subtle way of thinking or acting based on those around us, we probably have taken to doing the mirror opposite of what our family did, as a reaction. It can affect anything from the way we speak, the way we dress, the food we eat, our political convictions… And of course more subtle things, like the way we interact with others, the way we view ourselves… At the very least, our family and our past are present in us with their absence, in the way we are trying desperately not to be like ``them``.

The other thing Family and Friends points out is that the family is no `monolith`. It may sometimes (especially at occasions such as Christmas dinners, at that point just after the traditional almighty row) feel as if it is unchanging and will stay like this for ever and ever, but people are constantly changing and the balances constantly shifting, sometimes subtly, sometimes in the shape of great tempests.

I can guarantee you will find something of yourself, something familiar in this book, no matter what your relationship with your family is. And by the way, don`t you think it is rather comforting to know that we all suffer the same qualms and quandaries when it comes to our families?