Triomf Paperback – September 7, 2000

Best wrapped book ever!!

Months after reading Triomf I can still close my eyes and like Dorothy clicking her heels, am quickly transported to heat, poverty, opressive depression and the sense of something really grimy nagging at the corners of my soul. When someone chooses a book in order to visit another place I don't imagine this is the "where" many are after. The author - and translator - have managed a perfect journey, not very pretty, into the world of a South African version of poor white trash. The characters' lives are like the town they live in - built on destruction with God know what lying rotting under the surface. As I read I was almost desperate to find something, anything, to like about the characters. The few moments when that happened were rain in the desert. Sweet, relieving, and over very quickly. This book is a slice of life written well enough to make it quite real. The question here is if you want to go where Marlene van Niekerk takes you.

Perhaps a reader who is not from, or who does not know, South Africa might not understand many of the references, but for me, coming from southern Africa, I found Triomph utterly absorbing - but I'm still not quite sure why!

Very well written and topical since the death of Mandela. I would recommend this for anyone studying the effects of racism and the impact that continue to be topical.

I am a great admirer of Nelson Mandela and read anything that I can get my hands on about South Africa. I bought this book in the Dutch version but it was one big struggle to finish. There is really nothing that I liked about this book. I found the language ugly, repetitive and more of the same all the way through. I could not recognize anything lovable about the 4 characters of this family nor feel any compassion with the way they live their life. Maybe I am too naive or too spoiled but I completely failed to recognize the essence and quality of this novel.

My husband is reading Triomf and enjoying it. I am rereading Agaat which I read some 14 years ago and loved it. Marlene Van Niekirk is the only author I've reread. I look forward to reading Triomf.

Frank,explosive and mesmerising. One is drawn in to the poverty and most difficult of living conditions.

I quite agree that this book is far too long. Also it makes the mistake of making it obvious who the parents of Lambert are long before the end, which leads to something of an anticlimax.Some reviewers have described these poor Afrikaners as "white trash". But are they? And who has the right to call anyone trash, for that matter? Mol and Pop are perfectly decent people. They have arrived at the situation they are in largely by events which were mostly beyond their control. They are now being sucked down towards disaster by a combination of a dangerously violent Lambert and his mischievous winder-upper (Treppie). Unable to escape from this cycle they all cling together as they approach the waterfall. Poor Mol, she certainly deserved something better.I found this book too tragic to be very amusing, though I did find myself smiling from time to time. Moreover I can reveal that Ms Van Niekerk is very sound on the internal working parts of fridges.

Had to buy this for my studies but am very glad for it, as it is a very worthwhile read beyond the classroom too.

This book is far too long - as the author admitted at some stage the Afrikaans version could probably have had a third cut from it without losing any value - if not improving it. The English translation is still far too long despite the brave efforts of the translator.VanNiekerk was still too much of an academic at time of writing, having her Triomf dwelling poor white afrikaners dropping references to Nietzsche and letting slip many other learned references which suggest that this book was aimed at a very particular audience.I do ask myself, was this book really necessary? What has it achieved, except possibly to prove, looking back from 2021, that the fears the Benades had for the future might not have been unwarranted ...It seems to me that the reason it was published is because at the time the Afrikaans publishing houses were desperate to find a book which showed Afrikaner intellectuals (at which this book was aimed) were 'moving with the times' (1994 and all that). Certainly from that point of view it was very fashionable ... Today Triomf has ben 'gentryfied' ...