SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga: https://t.co/uD60PHpAvO

Short Review: 7.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 2, 2020

Short Review (cont): Part Queer coming of age novel, Part cyberpunk thriller dealing with mass surveillance, All dealing with the aftermath of Apartheid South Africa, Triangulum tires to do too much all at once, and yet is too interesting not to suggest reading.
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 2, 2020

Triangulum is the second novel (and first SF/F novel) by South African author Masande Ntshanga.  The book is nominated for this year's Nommo Awards, which attempt to celebrate the Best Speculative Fiction published by African authors.  It's not a long novel, but it's one that doesn't reward quick reading, drawing heavily upon the events of South African past in order to tell a story about both the present and the future.*  

*Note: I said this in another review recently but it definitely applies more here, and I'll make note of this again below: this book draws heavily upon the events of Apartheid South Africa and the events that have taken place since then for the context of its story, and as such as a White (Jewish) American, I lack knowledge about the context of the setting to a good extent.  As such, this book isn't written FOR me, and I very much am likely to have missed significant parts of what's going on in the background and how it affects the book's themes.   

And well, Triangulum is a fascinating novel that tries to do many different things at once, with these things not often obviously tied together.  The story features three timelines featuring the same un-named protagonist, from a document supposedly released (through the framing device) in 2043.  It's a coming of age story, a story of alien interactions, and also a story of how the cycles of oppression, slavery, and destruction have never ended - a story contrasting cruel treatment and control of others with that of love, and more.  Without the context of its intended audience, I'm not quite sure it fully works...but it's still well worth your time.

----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------
The year is 2043 and Former Hugo and Nebula winning author Dr. Naomi Buthelezi releases this book to the world.  The book, consisting of voice recordings and two manuscripts, came to the South African National Space Agency by an anonymous package, and was once thought to be an intriguing but strange piece of fiction.  Until the events predicted therein started to come true, leaving the scientists and Dr. Burthlezi to think it is more than that: a warning of the potential destruction of the world in the year 2050.....

The book contains three narratives, all told by the same author, a girl/woman, somewhat connected and somewhat not:
In 1999, the 14-year old narrator finds herself without her Mama - who has disappeared - and with her Tata (father) dying from illness, and she reflects on their past history that brought them here, all the while occasionally seeing visions of The Machine.

In 2002, the 17-year old narrator - using audio tapes - narrates how she again begins seeing the Machine, just as girls in the area begin disappearing.  Thinking everything is connected to her mother's disappearance, she and her two friends, a girl and a boy, begin to search for answers about the disappearances...and each other.  

In 2025, the narrator outwardly works for a governmental agency collecting data on the population, as South Africa transforms under corporate control, but secretly also works for an underground movement of hackers as an agent.  But when she is asked to work with and to spy on a woman involved in a revolutionary movement, the narrator begins to experience feelings she had long locked away, and to remember that some long thought false pasts might actually be true......
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Triangulum warns you from the start, in the "Foreword" (really part of the framing device), that it is going to be a strangely and kind of disjointed-in-format novel.  The novel's first act, "The Machine," features alternating stories 3 years apart: the narrator telling about her past and her parents past in 1999 and the narrator, through transcribed audiotapes, telling the story of what she did in 2002, as she searched for her other and for other girls who kept disappearing.  The common link between them is "The Machine", a seemingly alien presence in her visions who leaves her with a visions in the shape of Triangles.  These two narratives form what very much feels like a coming of age story in South Africa, for a young girl whose parents were part of the collaborator government in the Apartheid State and have found it difficult to deal with life after it is torn down, leaving their daughter a bit adrift in it all.  

The second act of the book, "Five Weeks in the Plague", feature the narrator in middle age, in an almost cyberpunk narrative, as the narrator is involved in government spying on its own populace through more and more nefarious methods, two revolutionary groups, and significantly a woman involved with those groups with whom she falls in love.  Unlike the first act, there is no direct jumping back and forth between narratives in this act, although the narration sometimes still feels like it's there and it's all still happening to the same person.  

The final act of the book, Triangulum, returns to prior two narratives in '99 and '02, and reveals the ending of those stories.  But in a twist, it's essentially a sort of parallel ending to the ending of the second act, taking a concept that seems used literally there and using it figuratively in the finale.

The result is a package that again is seemingly trying to do a lot of things, and I'm not sure how successful it is for a reader who isn't in the target audience like myself.  You have as a whole, a story about how the oppression of the past is not any different from oppression run by corporate entities in the future, and how these cycles are never ending and never changing, unless people can come together for some purpose to do something about it - and even then it often results in tragedy when meeting up against the resistance of the status quo. 

But you also have as a whole the story about a girl growing up with parents who are present yet absent - first emotionally and then physically - who in a desperate attempt to find them, finds herself and finds love - despite the shitty world she resides in.  And then, when years have passed and the love seems long lost, the narrator finds it once more, despite the world being grimmer as technology has empowered the darkest parts of this world.  The concept of "Triangulum" connects the past with the present, and both with the future, as it connects all of us with each other in love and connection.  It's a hard force to see, but ever present, despite those trying to rip it apart.  

I'm not really sure how much sense this review is making for one who hasn't read this book.  And that's sort of how I feel about it - again some of this is undoubtedly because of my lacking a context of the South Africa that is the background of the story but not all - it's kind of the type of book that has to be experienced to know how you should feel about it.  I think it's good enough to deserve that chance from you, and I guess that's the most I can say for now.  It's...something.