Reviewed by John David Harding
One challenge of reviewing an exceptional book is that I want to tell the reader everything that makes it great. Hopped up on the book's merits, I feel like running full speed through its pages, shouting, "Look over there! And look at that! Isn't that brilliant?" Not only would that be exhausting, it would also mean overselling the book or, worse, giving too much away. And then there's the problem of enjoyment; some say that critics aren't meant to discuss the "e word." What I enjoy is subjective and therefore immaterial, and only a casual reader talks about what they "like." But I admit that when I reached the final pages of Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu's The Theory of Flight, I recognized that I had read something truly rare: an intelligent novel with a big heart.
In my life as a reader, I rarely feel compelled to read a novel twice. But The Theory of Flight invites this level of attention without making it seem like a chore. Structurally, the novel's two books are comprised of several parts and chapters. Chapters bear the names of characters in the limelight, and the cast is so extensive, a useful dramatis personae is provided. Fortunately, these shifts in focus do not accompany shifts in voice; a consistent third person narrator relays characters' histories and motivations. Certain passages of exposition made me eager for a scene, but the narration on the whole is artful without being burdened by authorial flourish or intrusion. Readers are given the opportunity to decide for themselves who is right and who is wrong, who is a hero and who is a villain—determinations that are rarely simple.
In the prologue's first lines, we learn that a character named Imogen Zula Nyoni, better known as Genie, is dead. Her death, however, is immediately followed by an ascension. Residents of the Beauford Farm and Estate, located somewhere in southern Africa, observe Genie "fly away on a giant pair of silver wings, and at the very same moment, her heart calcified into the most precious and beautiful something the onlookers had ever seen." In part, Genie's story is the story of the people (friends, family, citizens, colonizers, bureaucrats, militia, rebels) whose destinies intertwine at Beauford. This liminal space reflects the complex, tumultuous political climate of the unnamed African country en masse. But hers is also a story of a young woman's resilience in the aftermath of tragedy.
When Genie is young, a period of relative stability ends when a group of sojas (state-controlled militiamen) summarily violate and murder Beauford residents. Their primary target is Genie's father, Golide Gumede, a man with albinism who earns notoriety for building a giant pair of silver wings, which some refer to as an airplane. Golide's efforts at self-efficacy, however, are met with violence by a government intent on asserting control by stripping power from the people. Put another way, they want to destroy Golide not because he wants to fly, but because he dares to. They accrue power the only way an authoritarian regime knows how: indiscriminate and brutal shows of force. They stop Golide to show that they can.
Even as a child, Genie resists the state's attempts to silence and intimidate her. She learns this from her father's and mother's examples, and also from another Beauford resident, Jestina, who leads Genie away from their ravaged homes and into an uncertain future. "We should not let this change us," Jestina says of the massacre. "If we let it change us then they will have won." Genie takes Jestina's words to heart. Years later, a member of The Organization—the locus of the state's security apparatus—detains Genie on suspicion of retail theft. Hidden behind two-way glass, the official orders Genie to submit to a strip search. Nothing is found. Before leaving, Genie reframes Jestina's words to powerful effect. "You cannot break me," she tells the official. "You see, I know for certain that my parents were capable of flight."
Like all compelling stories, Genie's is marked by pain and joy. At a crucial moment, she finds a companion in Vida de Villiers, who doesn't judge her the way her adoptive parents do. Like Genie, Vida witnesses the brutal effects of colonization, civil war, and his country's attempt at national independence, one characterized by authoritarian rule. Vida loves Genie, but he does not accept her decision, later in life, to refuse treatment for medical complications from HIV and AIDS. It is never specified how Genie contracted the virus, but surviving the pandemic's earliest days attests to Genie's perseverance against all odds. There comes a point, however, when Genie must yet again do a difficult thing for someone she loves: she must let them go.
Genie's briefly described death on the book's first page is not likely to elicit strong emotion. But when her death is revisited in the final pages, the character's allegorical dimensions become overwhelmingly clear. Most of all, Genie is defined by her humanity. Her search for a place in the world parallels her country's own search for its identity. Despite attempts to steal her dignity, despite challenges posed by living with HIV and AIDS, she finds a way to make a beautiful life. Will her country follow her example? Genie endures, and at the very end, she refuses to be consigned to a clinical death. Finishing her father's work, she ascends on a pair of beautiful silver wings. Residents of Beauford, old and new, bear witness to this miraculous moment. They are awestruck . . . as am I.