Word: rosa
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...passionate and inspiring as her novel is, Gordimer emphasizes that the way Rosa chooses is not necessarily hers. "I haven't got the Rosa kind of commitment--it would be terrible to let you think that of me. It's kind of a holy mystery to me, that commitment. What makes them absolutely sure they couldn't live any other...
...Rosa finds it impossible to live with herself on any other terms, but Gordimer has chosen a path she lambastes in her novel--moral but not overtly political commitment. "There is an uneasy middle ground. I know because I live on it," she says. "You take all kinds of stands that you find ridiculous later. For a long time, I refused to own a house because I felt badly about owning something blacks couldn't. But every time I travel--on a segregated bus--or go to any cinema. I'm doing things blacks...
Despite a degree of political harassment and the humiliation and frustration of seeing her works banned, Gordimer protests she falls far short of Rosa's ideal. "I've never been named, and wouldn't be (naming is a form of punishment less severe than banning, but which restricts movement and visits). People are named as a result of direct political activity. It takes a lot of courage to do that," she says...
Gordimer does not choose Rosa's way--and you sense regret, self-condemnation, and a wry self-knowledge that she could not live Rosa's life. Nevertheless, she seems to have confronted and accepted her personal commitment as an artist. "I do my work. I tell the truth as I see it. I say what I think, here and there," she says, proudly...
...book is no political tract, no sterile self-righteous condemnation of oppression. Rather, Burger's Daughter is an intensely personal vision of political commitment--and its costs. Through the character of Rosa Burger we sense the emotional toll of living in a country with epic conflicts, a frontier where every action must be extreme: either gutless capitulation or heedless defiance. There is no middle ground in a country where there are still heroes...