According
to her website, “Bessie Amelia Head never knew her real parents: an unstable
white woman and an unknown black man. She
was born and raised in apartheid South Africa. There she suffered from poverty, racial
segregation, and gender discrimination. She
also had to worry about her own "delicate nervous balance." As a young woman she left South Africa to
come to Botswana. She lived the rest of
her life in this country, mostly in Serowe. Bit by bit she overcame her many formidable
obstacles. One of her passions was
letter-writing; she corresponded with hundreds of people from many countries
during her life. At the end she was a
famous writer known all around the world” http://thuto.org/bhead/html/biography/biography.htm#bbio
The
site also revealed that Head spent at least two periods in a mental
institution. Her doctors diagnosed her
with schizophrenia. After reading this
except, I began to grasp the enormity of the tale Bessie tells in her 1974
novel, A Question of Power.
I will say this right off – this was one of the most intense,
moving, and horrific descriptions of mental illness I have ever read. I have read a number of stories like this, which
caused me varying amounts of disturbance. For example, Lu Hsun’s chilling short story, “A
Madman’s Diary.” But those tales fail to
even begin to approach the horror of Elizabeth’s life.
The novel contains numerous scenes of sexual encounters
which may or may not directly involve the main character, Elizabeth. After a while, I felt as though Elizabeth
also suffered from what was once known as multiple personality disorder, but which
the American Psychological Association now defines in DSM IVTR as “Dissociative
Identity Disorder. The symptoms include:
The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each
with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and
thinking about the environment and self); at least two of these identities or
personality states recurrently take control of the person's behavior; the
inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be
explained by ordinary forgetfulness; and the disturbance is not due to the
direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic
behavior during Alcohol Intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g.,
complex partial seizures).
Some pages I could barely get through; others I had to read
and reread, and sometimes go over again to grasp the significance. I frequently thought, “I can’t read anymore.” But
I kept coming back. The middle of the
novel described a lucid period in Elizabeth’s life, but it ends with another
breakdown and an extensive period of hospitalization.
This wonderful section, of a relatively happy and peaceful
sojourn in the village of Motabeng, depicted Elizabeth helping the local
residents establish gardens to grow fresh vegetables. This part of the story was filled with love,
friendship, and compassion. However, the
entire novel suffered from poor editing.
I found dozens od spelling errors in the book. Despite all this, I want to read more of
Bessie Head. Her award winning novel, Maru is on my radar, but A Question of Power will haunt me for
quite a while. 5 stars
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