A Story Like the Wind by Laurens van der Post
|
List Price: Our Price: $15.19 You Save: $6.76 (31%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.45 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of A Story Like the Wind
Book Review: The voyage of the Spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
Van der Post's books are about the spirit inside our flesh, about its power to see, its powers to hear, its incredible power to endure and triumph. The man's life reads like a fable: born the 13th and last child of a Boer farming family, he grew up as much in the myths of Africa as in those of Western civilizaiton, and he knew, as only a child can, with the their freedom to come and go and eavedrop on adults, of the hidden world of the many (and utterly different one from another) black people of Africa.
Most tellingingly, he had a Bushman nanny, of that small and persecuted race, who triumphed in the barreness of the Kalahari, existing as if at a banquet, for whom telepathy was a commonplace, as they lived in the world of the inner voice. From that childhood, he passed into manhood and became a friend of Jung, who foresaw WWII and dreaded it. Therein, VdP, leading a rearguard commando (which the Boers invented) to delay the Japanese in their conquest of the Dutch East Indies, he was captured and spent the whole of the war in Hell on earth, a Japanese POW concentration camp, where he was further schooled in the travails and triumphs of the spirit.
There are (a few) people in the West who can be both of the modern world and a shaman of the spirit: VdP is one.
I was introduced to his writing as a teenager by my mother. She had been paralyzed by polio when I was a year old and was a tower of courage and spirit in a nearly immobile body. VdP's books were a talisman for her, and a new book was a source of rejoicing. I envy all of you who are reading them for the first time. One of VdP's characters in this book says, "Those who look before they leap, don't". Leap for these books.
Book Review: African Survival
Summary: 5 Stars
"Thou knowest that I sit waiting for the moon to turn back, that I may listen to all the people's stories . . . For I am here--in a great city-- I do not obtain stories-- . . . I do merely listen, watching for a story which I want to hear; that it may float into my ear . . . I will go to sit at my home that I may listen, turn my ears backwards to the heels of my feet on which I wait, so that I can feel that a story is in the wind." So begins the introduction to this fascinating story as Van der Post quotes a Bushman to show the African love for stories. I was inspired to read this book after watching the Disney movie, A Far Off Place, which is based on this book and its sequel. At first I was a bit bogged down in the numerous details about Africa, and then these became my favorite part of the book. The plot moves slowly at first, but the last chapter is so tense I could barely read fast enough. Francois is a young boy, just 13, when this story begins. He has been born and reared in Africa, knowing the bush as well as his African Matabele friends. His coming of age is helped by his beloved dog Hintza, his new friend Nonnie, and his Bushman friend Xhabbo. When the Angolan men of the spear rise up determined to slaughter all Europeans and those who befriend them, well, you will just have to read this book yourself to find out what happens, to feel a story like the wind.Book Review: Restoring Respect for Tribal Wisdom
Summary: 5 Stars
I am just finishing the first book by Laurens van der Post I have ever read. It won't be the last. A Story Like the Wind follows the life of a 13 year old European boy, Francois, living on a remote farm in a country in Africa. His father, a former school superintendent who left public service because he disagreed with the public policy of inferior education for native peoples, home schools Francois. But the true education of this child of the frontier is derived from the native people who help to raise him, principally Matabele and Bushmen. The respect that Van der Post paints of the tribal cultures is profound. Laurens was raised in Africa in the early 1900s in a family with 15 children and he grew up immersed in the stories of the original African cultures. Many of these stories are no longer told. These people had a profound awareness of their connection with the natural world. It is this awareness that we in the West need to foster and expand.
You'll love this book.
John Haines. Author of In Search of Simplicity: A True Story that Changes Lives
Book Review: A white boy-man feels the soul and magic of Africa.
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book because I am interested in the depth psychologist Carl Jung. Van der Post was a male friend, perhaps the only male friend, of Jung. It is clear from this book why this would be so. STORY LIKE THE WIND delves into the magic of the continent and its peoples though the story of a boy descended from three centuries of 'settlers'. In his life at Hunter's Drift, an agricultural oasis created by his father, Francois has become more a child of the bush than a European. The nearest telephone is miles away, but there is much to be learned from the bush. Even nature, through the birds, warns of great danger, and the boy and his 'uncle', Mopani the Hunter, share that secret. Soon a great black Seer senses the coming of an overwhelming evil. The next warning comes too late to help Hunter's Drift and what it represents. All this, especially the experience of the bush, is presented in a prose that at times turns into poetry.Book Review: Story Like the Wind
Summary: 5 Stars
Here is a tale as intriguing as its title. It moved me as no other book about Africa can. If you loved the little Bushman on "The Goods Must Be Crazy", you must read Laurens Van Der Post. The underlying motive in this work is to give you the very great gift of intimacy with the little people of the Kalahari. Van Der Post is so taken with them that his life and life works center around the African Bushman. He leads you to believe that our civilization and each of us personally is missing unbelievable magic in our lives -- magic that is a natural posession of the mystical Bushman. I remain entranced with a new awareness and a deeper sense of our potential, if only we could find our way back to our natural selves. "Story Like the Wind" should appeal to almost anyone, from hunters and adventurers to thinkers, romantics and fantasy lovers. If you read it the world will be better for it.