Cinderella in the South: Twenty-Five South African Tales — Background and Themes

Movement Between Scenes

The stories frequently hinge on transitions between locations, often via train or foot. In 'The Thing That Hath Been,' the narrator's consciousness of a ghostly presence is tracked across three nights of travel: from a Jo'burg second-class compartment to a third-class carriage near Mafeking, then to Bulawayo. Each shift in setting—from the hotel near the ruins to the ticket office, from the mine-banks to the dawn at Mafeking—is marked by sensory details: the chill of dawn, the fading light on white mine-banks, the crowing of cocks. This movement is not merely scenic; it structures the narrative, with the ghostly presence appearing only in transit, never at rest.

Recurring Images of Ruins and Waste

Ruins appear as both literal and symbolic settings. The Mabgwe Ruins in 'The Thing That Hath Been' are described through the bar-tender's skepticism and the curator's 'cold scent to puzzle out.' The narrator approaches them via a river crossing and a road, only to find a motor-car with a Jo'burg magnate arriving later. Later, a house on waste ground with 'white palings that lacked repainting' and a 'poverty-stricken' appearance echoes this imagery of decay. The prologue's Africa, 'drest sometimes in skins' and living in a 'thatch'd hut,' aligns with these images of raw, unadorned existence. The tales repeatedly return to structures that are incomplete, abandoned, or in need of repair.

Voice and the Narrator's Role

The narrator in 'The Thing That Hath Been' is a first-person observer who is both participant and commentator. He engages in dialogue with a bar-tender, reflects on the curator's methods, and later interacts with a detective who suspects him. His voice is wry and self-aware: he 'chuckled to himself' imagining the detective's notebook entry. He also admits to 'prayerlessly' lying down and fighting for sleep, grounding the supernatural in a fallible human consciousness. The prologue's speaker, addressing Africa as 'her guest' for fifteen years, similarly positions himself as an outsider who has earned a degree of intimacy. This dual role—sympathetic yet detached—shapes the collection's perspective on the land and its stories.

Structure of the Collection

The book is organized into twenty-five tales framed by a prologue and epilogue, both in verse. The contents list shows a mix of titles that suggest folklore ('La Belle Dame'), biblical allusion ('Pisgah,' 'The Burnt Offering'), and colonial themes ('Intelligence,' 'A Credit Balance'). The first tale, 'The Thing That Hath Been,' establishes a pattern of blending the everyday with the inexplicable. The prologue's mention of Africa as a 'ward' who 'drudges for them' hints at a critical undercurrent regarding colonial exploitation, though the excerpts do not develop this fully. The epilogue is not provided, but the framing suggests a deliberate arc from observation to reflection.

Readers approaching this collection should attend to the interplay between the prologue's poetic framing and the prose tales that follow. The narrator's voice—curious, sometimes ironic, and attuned to the uncanny—provides a consistent thread. The stories reward attention to physical details: the feel of a train compartment, the look of a dilapidated house, the taste of water from a temple approach. These concrete observations anchor the more elusive elements, making the collection a study in how place and memory intersect.

I’ve often thought that a certain patient listening runs through our oldest tales. In Cinderella in the South, a traveller hears a ghostly presence on the train, a thing that hath been, waiting for acknowledgment. That gentle haunting feels akin to the medieval world’s comfortable murmur between the seen and unseen, as if our Aucassin & Nicolette, and Other Mediæval Romances and Legends — Edition Insights sing to it, softly, across the years.