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Con has been tasked with an unusual request. His childhood friend, Mark, with whom he has since lost contact, makes a sudden reappearance in Con’s life.
Mark is in hospital in intensive care, following an injury at his work, and Mark’s mother has asked Con to retrieve Mark’s personal effects from the scene of the accident.
Mark is a volunteer at a lion park, and was mauled by one of two remaining Kalahari Black-maned lions. The rare breeding pair has not been reduced to extinction, as the culprit has been shot, eliminating the future success of the species, as well as the lion park.
In immersing himself in the past and remembering Mark as he once was, Con begins to examine his own life. Jobless and staying with his girlfriend, he lacks motivation and direction.
In a sudden desire to find a purpose or perhaps keep himself distracted, Con retraces Mark’s steps and replaces him at the park, desperate to know the allure of the lions, and eager to discover why Mark’s bright future was compromised as it was.
Rose-Innes’ prose is beautiful and she is undoubtedly a born storyteller, and yet this is marred by her constant, forced reminders of the story’s geography. In an almost apocalyptic state of being, the constant references to Table Mountain and Cape Town force the reader to break the reverie induced by the tale.
They are an unpractical reminder that South African writers try exceedingly hard to be as exalted as their foreign counterparts, to show their hand and draw on experience. This attempt to make the story relevant to a local reader sadly detracts from the tale’s hypnotic, beautiful rhythm.
The Green Lion tries too hard to please and seem relevant, where it need not try at all. It robs itself of greatness by having a forced menace lurking within the narrative. Rose-Innes’ characters speak enough for the flavour of South Africa.
The tale is steeped in cultural richness, imbued with myth and political turmoil redirected in conservation. While Con may not be a loveable character, indeed, he is stale, apathetic and listless, his portrayal is just such a person is remarkable. The Green Lion certainly paints a vivid picture, but the artist’s hand is visible and heavy.
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