Respectful, because it does not pretend: A review of Halley’s Comet by Hannes Barnard

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Title: Halley’s Comet
Author: Hannes Barnard
Publishers: Catalyst Press (worldwide) and Penguin (South Africa)
ISBN: 9781946395559 (Catalyst) and 9781776354801 (Penguin)

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It is cleverly, almost maddeningly written at times.
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To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when a book tells you that it “does not shy away from sensitive and complex issues”, believe it. The South African version of this book issues such a warning on the first pages, right before part one. There also is a quote from Bettina Wyngaard: “We learn nothing from presenting a sanitized, scrubbed version of history for posterity.”

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Hannes Barnard has written a story from the perspective of a white teenage boy, and Halley’s Comet is respectful, because it does not pretend to have the experience to represent everyone’s first-hand accounts.
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Pete is an average 16-year-old white boy living in Dannhauser, a small town in apartheid South Africa, 1986. He has ambitions to join his school’s first rugby team and to win the heart of a beautiful blonde girl, Renate. His life couldn’t be more average, until he meets the son of a black farmhand and the two of them become witnesses to a crime. Together, they rescue an Indian girl from an assault, and from then on, their lives are changed. The three teenagers must navigate the aftermath of their shared experience and the illegality of interracial friendship, and survive the predator that still lives free among them.

Parts of this book had me wondering whether I was qualified to review it. I am of the born-free generation. I don’t have first-hand experience of apartheid South Africa. But upon reflection, I am qualified to review it for this exact reason. Hannes Barnard has written a young adult novel, and therefore it needs to carry the realities of history to a generation that has come after. I remember racism being displayed more openly when I was a toddler than I see it in these times, where intolerance is not tolerated (as much). Nowadays, you need to know what a dog whistle is, to be able to interpret what a person’s words and actions suggest about their thought process. And sometimes, you just won’t know who your friends are until you are the only brown person in the room and the conversation takes an uncomfortable turn. So, what would all this look like when racism was written into South Africa’s laws? Halley’s Comet is a window through which young adults might get a glimpse back into that time.

Right out of the gate, the protagonist, Pete de Lange, uses a racial slur. I found him difficult to warm to in the beginning, and I resented his perspective during much of part one, but part two, and all the pages following it, really drew me in. Pete shows self-reflection and self-awareness. His teenage boy thoughts leap in now and then, but he becomes a character whom I respected for his courage, empathy and critical thinking.

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“He could smell her. Sweet as the Edgars perfume section,” is how Pete describes a girl he has a crush on, and I thought this was perfectly South African, vivid and funny.
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The book does raise serious and complex issues. One of them is sexual violence. The innocent title and the cover featuring suburban silhouettes against a lavender and purple sky belies the shocking events within. Petrus, who – for a while – is referred to as “the black guy” once explains his thoughts and feelings to Pete about the racial barriers that they have grown up with. There were tears in my eyes as I read this, because I have felt this. The shadow of apartheid still falls on all of us. And some are more comfortable in the shade than others.

A lighter part of the plot was Pete’s relationship with his father, Rikus. The father-son conversations were a touching part of the story that kept the coming-of-age aspect of the novel going. Pete’s ability to share his perspective with his father demonstrates how important it is for the youth to be allowed to share their thoughts with the older generation, particularly within families. I think adults might benefit from remembering that their children can teach them as well.

Halley’s Comet is set in the 1980s, and many youths hold an Americanised view of this decade, filled with good music, big hair and brightly coloured exercise apparel. When I think of the ’80s, I think of war. The Armed Struggle was here, and everyone in the story sees it. In Halley’s Comet, it is not a memory; it is as real and immediate as the moment you are reading these words. The book drags its readers behind the radio and microphone of Venny, an instrument of the Struggle, and the anxiety this juxtaposition creates is ghastly. It is cleverly, almost maddeningly written at times.

While violence was never the message of this novel, I don’t think Venny’s motives are given a lot of depth. At least not in a way that a reader far removed from the real situation could truly understand. The real people who planted bombs, fired guns and launched rockets were once schoolchildren who sat beside my uncles and aunts in class, and their radicalisation deserves a more complex explanation, but perhaps this just isn’t the place for it. And when it comes to harming innocent civilians for a cause (especially in a young adult book), perhaps a more black and white explanation would have been appropriate.

Rudie is the story’s main antagonist, and he is doubtlessly a brute – a fictional representation of some of the most detestable people in our world. He is not attractive on the outside or the inside; he doesn’t seem to have much respectability tied to his name. This is unfortunate, as his menacing behaviour would have been more convincing if it weren’t written with such a heavy hand. The scary thing about men of Rudie’s ilk is that they typically aren’t as easy to spot in the real world, and I think this villain would have been more frightening if he were at once more covert yet more present in the story. In their small, tightly knit community, his presence should have been felt a bit more tangibly by the characters.

Barnard’s writing is easy to follow, with descriptive lines such as, “The prowling and suffocating mist always forboded a breathless, stifling day.” Some of the similes that he uses come across as humorous to me, and I wasn’t sure whether this was intentional in each case, but it was always interesting. “He could smell her. Sweet as the Edgars perfume section,” is how Pete describes a girl he has a crush on, and I thought this was perfectly South African, vivid and funny.

Halley’s Comet could be a great introduction to the realities of apartheid for those who did not live through it. I wouldn’t say it offers broad insight into the lives of those who were oppressed and who continue to experience the effects of the regime. However, Hannes Barnard has written a story from the perspective of a white teenage boy, and Halley’s Comet is respectful, because it does not pretend to have the experience to represent everyone’s first-hand accounts.

See also:

In conversation with Hannes Barnard about Halley’s Comet

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