Iron love, by Marguerite Poland

Iron love, by Marguerite Poland. The Penguin Group (South Africa). Cape Town, 2000. ISBN 9780140297058 / ISBN 978-0-14-029705-8

Iron love, by Marguerite Poland. The Penguin Group (South Africa). Cape Town, 2000. ISBN 9780140297058 / ISBN 978-0-14-029705-8

The novel Iron Love is deeply considered and lovingly detailed. Marguerite Poland has captured the era and a little corner of South Africa where many still have their roots.

Marguerite Poland  

Charlie Fraser. For some, just a name, just a boy. For some, not even a remarkable boy. Not like Rudd had been, god himself; not like James Seymour or Georgie Holmes, trailing all that glory about behind them still. Charlie Fraser: just one of the good fellows in the House with a particular facility with a rugby ball. -Remember Fraser? -Fraser? -Charlie Fraser. -Ah... yes. Quiet fellow. Full-back, of course. It was written in the school magazine of that year: 'Fraser is a splendid full-back, solid as the proverbial stone wall, a courageous tackler and an accurate kicker with both feet. Can always be relied upon to be steady and cool'. Herbert had that magazine still. If unconsulted now, he could recall the contents without fault. He kept it with the photo album 'Sunny Memories' with its grey-blue cover and a rising sun engraved in the upper left hand corner. It was Charlie Fraser's album, full of Charlie Fraser's photos, taken with the camera he'd been given by an uncle. It was the only new thing he'd ever owned. On the back of each print he'd written his initials - CWF - in his firm, round hand or 'my effort' when the subject inclined to horseplay round the swimming pool or mock fights on the lawn behind the House. 'Not for public scrutiny; dressed in Nature's garb': a picture of the fellows at the public pool, bunched together, naked and cross-legged, just their grins immodest. For years Herbert had meant to put the album together again, return the pictures to their original ports, with the kind of care Charlie would have taken. Charlie had always pretended they were inconsequential. If anyone came in and glanced over his shoulder at them, he would stretch, his left eyebrow drawn down but lifting at the edge, a kind of self-mocking frown, and push them aside as if they didn't matter. But they did matter. Herbert had seen him often, late at night, half reclined across his desk, sorting, choosing, discarding, arranging: an absorption. And he remembered the day that Robbie, their Housemaster, stamping about in search of some culprit who'd evaded him, had glanced into Charlie's study in passing and said, 'Fraser, for pity's sake, are you always at that wretched album of yours? I'd suggest a little more application to mathematics and a little less to pictures. Put it away at once and don't let me catch you at it except on Sundays. What possible use could it have beyond wasting your time and pleasing your mother in her old age?' Charlie Fraser had closed the album and left it where it was, not put aside, but there, under his lamp, defended. -What possible use could it have beyond wasting your time and pleasing your mother in her old age? She had given it to Herbert herself, smoothing the binding of the spine which had come away from the cheap cardboard underneath. -Take it, she had said. -I would like you to have it. He had turned the stiff pages, not looking at her. She had glanced over his shoulder. -That's my favourite, she had said, pointing to a picture of Charlie and Dan Grant, laughing, holding Highland Terrier pups. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel Iron love, by Marguerite Poland.

Title: Iron love
Author: Marguerite Poland
Publisher: The Penguin Group (South Africa)
Cape Town, South Africa 2000
ISBN 9780140297058 / ISBN 978-0-14-029705-8
Softcover, 13 x 20 cm, 480 pages

Poland, Marguerite im Namibiana-Buchangebot

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