The Printmaker, by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen

The Printmaker, by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen. Penguin Random House South Africa. Imprint: Umuzi. Cape Town, South Africa 2016. ISBN 9781415209127 / ISBN 978-1-41-520912-7

Debut novels with the subtlety and confidence of The Printmaker by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen are a great rarity.

12/2005
March

I am afraid there is nothing left to draw. The feeling has been coming and going now for months, receding when I'm in the studio but creeping up on me when Fm in the house or garden, or walking to the shops. On some occasions, however, it doesn't creep but actually jumps me, and gives me a fright like a sail unfurling suddenly in a strong wind with a sharp snap of fabric. When this happens I try to think about lines and shadings, perspective and form and all of that, but also to summon the whole pictures I see when I close my eyes, pictures that have always seemed to be there, always present to me, fully formed, flickering through like movie frames. Perhaps its not that there is nothing to draw but rather the question of why I should draw anything at all that bothers me. And then, too, there's the fear that I don't know how to draw things any more, how to join lines to make something materialise on the paper. All of this can be quite debilitating and make me wander about the house aimlessly. Whole mornings go by in this way. I am also, it should be said, troubled by a terrible plague of ants that has invaded the house following weeks of rain. Indeed, Johannesburg seems to have been overrun by ants. When I am out walking, I see armies of them going down the road, traversing garden walls, marching down pavements, even swarming over the trunks of the jacarandas. I worry too about the door handles and the light switches, and cannot touch them without going to the bathroom to wash my hands, which is a great waste of time. I try to keep my hands firmly in my pockets to avoid this idiocy, but I often forget. I touch a handle and the thought comes immediately that there are germs gathering on my palms. Of course, I try to suppress the idea, make tea, do some mundane thing as distraction, but finally it's too powerful a sensation, bordering on panic, and so I give in and wash my hands. I have to turn the taps closed with a paper towel to avoid having to go through it all again. Sometimes I see a strange huddle of figures at the edge of my vision, an optical disturbance - a kind of visual tinnitus -that I have to shake my head to banish. At night, when I'm dropping off to sleep, or at odd moments in the day when I'm engaged in some mindless activity, I see this circle of figures, whispering and shuffling. I see them more and more these days. They come uninvited - well, of course, who would want such spectral visitors? - intruding with their whispering. Strange ghosts who seem, nonetheless, real enough to touch or talk to, though I try not to do that and so far have not, thank God, caught myself doing so. Once or twice IVe imagined one of them turning to look straight at me, and then I'm not sure that I havent in fact spoken to them. Crossed over into their circle, I keep printing, making ten or more of an image that I like, to give myself the feeling that I'm doing something.  [...]

This is an excerpt from The Printmaker by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen.

Title: The Printmaker
Author: Bronwyn Law-Viljoen
Genre: Novel
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2016
ISBN 9781415209127 / ISBN 978-1-41-520912-7
Hardcover, dustjacket, 14 x 22 cm, 267 pages