SOURCE: "Dry Eyes," in London Review of Books, Vol. 13, No. 23, December 5, 1991, p. 20.

In the following excerpt, Bayley discusses the stories of Jump in the context of classic stories by literary masters of narrative art.

A Jane Austen of today is barely imaginable: but if one nonetheless imagines her, and locates her in South Africa, how would she be exercising her art? Could she find any subject other than the one Nadine Gordimer writes about? A great, even a good writer does not find his subject, it takes him over: he becomes it, and the world it has brought with it. But there exist situations in which this is necessarily not the case. Not only the subject but the way to treat it is handed to the talented South African writer in the most unambiguous terms. His success must be measured, not in terms of the world he has...