'July's People'

I think a key theme of Nadine Gordimer's July's People was that of the children.

A lot is made of July and the white couple, but the children play these ancilliary, unseen roles in allowing the plot and story move along. In fact, I don't remember the children's names and only small bits of information are revealed through the narrative.

The book is set during a fictional civil war between whites and blacks in South Africa. July, a black servant, helps his employers and their children to the countryside where they can shelter until they can find a way to get out of the country.

All the while, there are these stories of the whites learning to live in the wild and the blacks trying not to hate their guts for what they've done the last hundred years of hate and power.

The children just adapt in the background. First they are attached to their old lifestyle and things, unable to easily leave these articles behind.

As time passes, Gordimer gives us hints that the children are borderline feral. They go and play on their own, the parents realizing they can not take care of themselves. They are dirty and wearing sparse clothing as they adapt to not only the country, but the black children that they have befriended.

It reminds me a lot of Walkabout, the story of the white children stuck in the Australian countryside where a Aborigine boy helps them and they, too, adapt and learn to live on their own.