Word: rosa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Fashion, in other words, is taken not to exist. But the unpleasant fact is that no reputation is immune to fashion. The art market is built on it. The French cattle painter Rosa Bonheur, a favorite of Victorian merchant princes, got ? 4,059 (then almost $20,000) for her Highland Raid in 1887; in 1952 it was resold for under ?200, or $560. Sir Edward Burne-Jones' Love and the Pilgrim, sold in 1898 for .?5,775 ($28,000), dropped to ?21 ($85) within less than 50 years. If artists who in their day were considered outstanding, whose work...
...most poignant reminder of this racial gulf is the wrenching reunion between Rosa and her black childhood friend Baasie in London. After meeting at a party and exchanging social inanities, Baasie calls Rosa in the middle of the night. Raging, he taunts her for her pride in Lionel, reminding her that anonymous black men are killed every day, and they are no less heroic than her father. She counters brutally until they fall tidily into the roles apartheid has prescribed for them--bitter black, guilty white...
Baasie's hostility jolts Rosa from her comfortable daydream, forcing her to confront the question she has fled: whether to fight or capitulate. Rosa, the reluctant dissident, is not larger than life. She is not like her singleminded father, who chose his path without regrets or soul-searching. Rosa must find her own way to fight. Her heroism is more moving because it is more human, because her conflicts--both selfish and unselfish--mirror...
Burger's Daughter tells how one woman carves out a personal moral vision and finds the conviction and the courage to act on it. It does not preach; it inspires. Rosa decides to return home and make her father's cause her own. She concludes...
Inspiring as Rosa's choice is, Burger's Daughter is not primarily a call to follow her path. Gordimer is far too subtle for that--for her, Rosa's commitment is a "holy mystery," one she penetrates with her imagination, but cannot share. Rosa chooses action, but she accepts suffering and self-denial. Burger's Daughter provokes outrage and fear, and then leaves us hanging, torn between activism and knowledge of its costs