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We are beset with stories of war. Pervasive and shocking, our world seems to revolve around the Middle East, Ukraine, refugees escaping tyranny. How do we find the light of Truth, banish darkness and find morality again?
Sounds very esoteric, doesn’t it? And perhaps it is, but for author Patricia Schonstein these are subjects that drive her. Peace, humanity, caring, respecting animals and our environment are her soul mates.
The creative arts allow us to speak out, whether through the theatre, painting or writing. The arts are the changemakers, saying the difficult things through words, symbolism and motif. When an author has licence there is no telling where we might travel with them and, in The Glass island, Schonstein’s eighth novel, she uses her considerable creative skills in prose, poetry and art knowledge to probe our inner and outer environments and pose tough questions.
Using magical realism, and, as the protagonist, her own lived experiences, she crosses genre boundaries, reviving the dead, in conversation with the living, uses past wisdom, mythology, to find new perspectives on social issues. This deeply thought-out journey is at once finely wrought, dazzling, sumptuous, theatrical, surreal, ingenious. It is signature Schonstein. Her creative pen sweeps us across this quilt. Cutting, stitching, adding memory pieces that speak to the narrative. As a poet and curator she has interspersed poems seamlessly, adding another dimension, descriptive realities that are movingly apt.
Characters from her previous books, favourite Long Street venues, decadence, a little magic, banquets of mouth-watering food, the Space Theatre, all have a place shifting across the experience. The glorious theatricality is so rich with description as we ride with her across time and continents to a Venetian-inspired sinking golden city, mysterious, sinister. Finally to an island of Peace – the Glass Island. Overseen by the mysterious Magistra and the Contemplatives, it is here that five powerful souls, past and present, gather to ponder ‘ethical decay and the tyranny that drives it…the power of creativity and truth in facing up to tyranny’. In the shadows is the sixth soul, waiting, while war and fascism rage on the mainlands.
But the depth is serious. Schonstein’s concern lies with what is happening in the world today and where the answers might lie. This is her stage; she creates a story that provokes thoughts otherwise not entertained, allowing ideas to emerge. We disappear down portals into a time warp where nothing is impossible. You could be walking through a Frida Kahlo painting or a dreamscape: nothing is quite what it seems. She challenges in a gentle, probing way…what are we doing? How do we treat our fellow man, our animals, the lands we live in? Losses that have affected her, brought her to new realisations, those people who have shaped her thinking. She recalls a conversation with her late friend Katarina underlining her commitment to her craft.
‘I have an obligation as an author to tackle the dark and irredeemable aspects of human behaviour and my absurd belief that my writings might play a part in ending war and the recurrence of genocide…’
Words can be powerful weapons. The feelings that emanate are palpable.
It is a short novella – only 110 pages – with meticulous referencing on the poets, characters, and art, but the content is weighty. A beautifully crafted book that demands attention, re-reading and discussion. Multifaceted, hybrid, exploring, contemplative, questioning, existential, Schonstein’s metaphorical words are a meditation on our tragically crumbling world.
Patricia Schonstein is an award – winning novelist, poet, children’s book writer, blogger and anthologist. Her work has been endorsed by Nobel Laureates, the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and JM Coetzee. She lives in Cape Town.
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