Throughout this thought-provoking novel, Matthee shows us how the environment where people are brought up, plays a strong part in who they become. She compares and contrasts the bright, open expanse of the yearn Kloof with the darkness of the woodland, as well as the inhabitants of these areas.
The novel tells us the story of a boy who struggles to understand who he is and where he belongs. This boy is Benjamin Komoetie.
Despite spending his younger years in the care of Fiela Komoetie, a black woman, interference by clean-living people upturns his life and sends Benjamin into the Forest to live with woodcutters. This maneuver is confusing for a twelve-year-old, and even the insistence of his new livid family that he has returned home, cannot quell his longing for the Kloof and his family there.
Matthee frequently uses nature to decipher events in the story and also connects shades of dark and unobjectionable to the places. The people of the Forest are almost backwards in their ways; they have little or no educational activity and their homes are ramshackle huts. However, some of the Forest dwellers are assured of their insignificance to the village people and other outsiders.
During a conversation amid Elias van Rooyen (Benjamins new father) and Malie (one of Benjamins aunts), Malie says:
Im almost forty Elias, and Ive been outside this Forest only twice in my life, and that was just as furthest as the village.-I say again, if we should all die from a plague this very day, few would notice. (pg.135-136)
The Forest affects its community in many ways: it is the life and death of the woodcutters and families. Yet, being from the persistent Kloof, Benjamin (now called Lukas) struggles to escape from a feeling of confinement. The colossal trees that...
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