Gordimer's Conservationist is an impeccably crafted book, that is saved from its dull pacing, intentionally dreary main character and overall sluggishness by the shere brute force of its thematics and the author's gift with words. Gordimer is a master at the understated, at writing about intimate subject from a detached point of view and this shows very well in her shorter prose and this relatively short novel. Though this is a book abut apartheid, about the inequalities of race and class it does not feel militant but sad, looking with equal despair upon the empty lives of rich whites and the emptied lives of the downtrodden blacks and coloureds.

A dull but very good book that is very well written, recommended.