出版社：Glendora International im African e-Journals Project
摘要：THIS is a book whose time has passed. A political thriller set in 2027, it concerns the strategy by which Black nationalists from white-ruled^Malangada in Southern Africa, those in sympathy with them and those hired by them, bring pressure to bear on the white regime and its allies to accept black majority rule. For his work, Kodwo Abaidoo has redrawn the African continent a little, but the rest of the globe - the setting for most of the action in the novel, is intact: Europe and North America are in the right places geographically. The values of the book are fundamentally those of the thriller genre, with its lack of interest in humanity and its preoccupation with sadistic sex. There are major flaws in the writing and there is a confusing superabundance of plot. One can't help but feel that, as a novelist, Abaidoo must have viewed the political changes of the last seven years with some chagrin. He must have realised that the obliteration of the Berlin Wall, the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, the release of Mandela, and the holding of elections in South Africa, meant that any credibility or indeed any interest in this novel was leaking away. The manuscript became an historical curiosity in 1989. So far from being prophetic - or an intriguing glimpse of a possible future - Black Fury is a novel that was long passed its sell by date before it was published. This is a pity since considerable labour went into the writing and publication of the book, but not a great cause for regret since Black Fury is not, in any case, a very good piece of writing. It is not the sort of work that would, I would have thought, have commended itself to an African publisher. Although an African political issue is central, Africa is not presented with particular insight, and Africans are shadowy presences. The one part of the world Abaidoo writes about without detail is focus of concern: Southern Africa! (Awareness of ignorance perhaps accounts for the redrawing of the map). Despite the African political dimension to the book, it is essentially a 'Western' thriller. At one point - after passwords have been exchanged, one of the characters says: "Why all this James Bond-ism?' (184) Abaidoo thus provides a hostage to fortune: the sort of reference reviewers will jump on. The novel is, indeed, derivative. As if to draw attention to other forebears, it contains a character called Simenon, and another called Templar. The literary context of this book is provided by European and American traditions; Fleming, Frederick Forsyth, Jean Le Carre and their ilk stalk the text. They account for some of its strengths, and for some of its weaknesses. On the positive side, Abaidoo is generally excellent on places. He knows the importance of detail and precision in setting the scene. Hi> is good on road names, public buildings, tube stations and the like. He has, I suspect, travelled widely, he knows the places in the Northern Hemisphere that he describes; he has collected streets maps and used them. He is good on the nitty-gritty - but he is not, even at this level, perfect. For example, cars are parked with infuriating ease in crowded city centres and it takes an hour by fast train from Paddington to Reading!
