I can sympathize with others who found the author's use of dialect off-putting. Especially for people who are unfamiliar with the South African accent, it can be difficult to hear Bonert's approximations in your head, e.g. "bladey" for "bloody." I wonder if listening to the audiobook would obviate these problems?
On the other hand, one thing we haven't really discussed is the novel's descriptive language. I thought it was really fresh and interesting in places, with striking metaphors and alliteration. I picked out a couple of passages I really liked, from early and late in the novel, respectively:
"Behind the glass of the butcher shops there hang black logs of salt-cured biltong and fat bottleblue flies mass on the blooded gobs of sawdust swept into the gutter with the smelly chunks of horse kuk." (15) [a bit of a run-on sentence, but what great alliteration and images!]
"it's as if a cosmic dentist has paid a visit with twisting pliers and the land is bare with only gravel dimples to indicate where the great trunks once rooted." (505)