The Equality of Shadows {Review}

Hermanus Verdomp lived in a small Northern Cape community he calls “The Seems So Flat” in the 1970s. Working as a journalist, he’s called up to photograph an unusual building that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Just as fast as it appeared, it disappeared. As he reports on this and other strange events his life is turned upside down. Traumatised and alone he eventually finds himself on the farm of a childhood friend where he recuperates and starts writing his story.

The most interesting part of this book was the foreword, which laid out the context of The Equality of Shadows came to be. The manuscript was written in the 80s on a farm near Petrusville as a documentary novel by one Mr Hermanus Verdomp. He left it there and decades later it was discovered by the farm owner and through her it made its way to Charl-Pierre Naude. After tracking down the original author who disowned the text, he put it together as the novel it is today. In the words of the original author Mr Verdomp “it is a work of lunacy” and one I am no better for reading.

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