AS THE WARTIME SETTINGS of Ian McEwan’s Atonement or Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain powerfully show, contemporary historical novels with military settings are committed to displaying the personal side of war: the side that bears upon survival and endurance in the absence of glory. The Great Karoo is a grand coming of age novel set in the course of the Boer War of 1899-1902, during which British and colonial forces attempted to pursue a wily moving target over the rocky crags and ravines of the South African landscape.
Eager for adventure, Alberta boy Frank Adams signs up with the Canadian Mounted Rifles. In early 1900 he begins the long march from Cape Town northeast to Pretoria across the Karoo desert, in the company of Ovide, a laconic cowboy, and a dubious pair called the Belton brothers. Frank soon realizes that the colonial forces are being used by the British to draw fire ahead of their own troops; he determines not to fight more than is necessary for his own survival.
Along the way the group of four disperses: the Beltons desert and Ovide succumbs to misadventure. Frank takes to drink and slips to the rank of horse holder for the Canadian Scouts. By December 1900 he has gone missing. Arriving at a Boer farmhouse which is being occupied by Canadian intelligence gatherers, he forms a shy but intense attachment to a young Boer woman, Alma Kleff. After the Canadians move on, Frank finds himself starving and alone. Pleading amnesia, he joins the Canadian Scouts, making it his business not just to survive the war, but to get back to Alma.
Frank Adams is not an extraordinary man; he’s just one of many soldiers boiling their uniforms to get the lice out. But Stenson remains faithful to Frank’s experience of hero worship and romantic love under the stress of bad tinned beef and imminent death; it’s a fine depiction of the experience of a minor player.
It’s always useful to climb out of the trenches for the long view, and Stenson makes good use of the occasional appearances of historical figure General William Francis Butler. Despite his palpable disappointment in the downward turn of his careers, both martial and marital, Butler displays the tempered wisdom of one of the great military men of the late Empire, aware that the Boer War was fought on the cusp of a century that might be bound for even greater tragedy.
The Great Karoo is a subtle book. If you are patient, it will show you places historical, emotional, and geographical that you may not have seen before. Stenson’s treatment of the tender attachment between a soldier and his horse is particularly poignant. But don’t expect to knock it off on a plane trip – the book goes deeper than that – savour it over a ten day vacation.
The Great Karoo has been nominated for a Governor General’s Award.
Alice Petersen is a Montreal-based writer. In 2007 her work was short listed for the Writers’ Union of Canada Short Story Competition, the CBC Literary Awards and the Journey Prize. Her stories will also appear in Coming Attractions 08, (Oberon Press) edited by Mark Anthony Jarman.
