A Question of Power - by Bessie Head [from South Africa]

“It was an insane pursuit this time. It did not bear comparing with the lofty statements of mankind’s great teachers. Hidden in all their realizations were indistinct statements about evil. They never personified it, in vivid detail, within themselves.”

Although about the protagonist’s personal struggle, I think this quotation embodies much of this novel’s ambition and achievement. Essentially, “A Question of Power” (AQOP) describes a woman’s journey through hell; a vivid private show inside her own mind (and of course, all of the deep insights she gains through her experiences). I found it be a very unique and effective way of dealing with ideas of good and evil, heaven and hell, and freedom and power, within a novel.

I have never felt more spiritually and intellectually connected to a novel as I do to AQOP; I felt drawn to it from the start and it exceeded any expectations I ever imagined. I hate to be so overdramatic, but it blew my mind. I would highly recommended to anybody, but be informed that most of it is really fucking confusing, but still completely fascinating. The upside is that what’s confusing for the reader is also confusing for the protagonist, so the experience of reading about her hallucinations are much more vivid and closer to the actual experience than if they were simple metaphors with plots easy to follow. It definitely required me to approach this novel in a new way. Many things come to light gradually as you progress to the end, but I am still trying to analyze scenes that were confusing to me. That’s another great thing about AQOP- it’s not easy to forget.

The two main themes that I drew from AQOP are a redefinition of God and, as the title suggests, desire/possession of power. A central idea in the novel’s discussion of God is described well in this quote: “… the basic error seemed to be a relegation of all things holy to some unseen Being in the sky. Since man was not holy to man, he could be tortured for his complexion, he could be misused, degraded, and killed…” The central idea in the novel’s discussion of power was the evil that greed for power creates in us. However, the application of this desire is not focused on radicals that advertize to overrule the world. If nothing else, AQOP has made me more aware of the subtle instincts we all have to posses intangible things, such as social situations, our reputation, ideas, and even the hearts/minds of the people that we love most. It is by detaching ourselves to these obsessions of power that we open ourselves to find freedom of the heart.