The Power of One: A Novel by Bryce Courtenay
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.18 You Save: $8.82 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Power of One: A Novel
Book Review: The courage to remain separate, to think through to the truth is the Power of One
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an outstanding epic South African coming of age novel told in the first person by a young English (Rooineks) fatherless lad of five who names himself Peekay. When we first meet up with him just before WWII he is being raised by a Zulu wet nurse because his mother has had a nervous breakdown. Sent to a Boarding School full mostly Boar children (Afrikaners) Peekay learns that he is "wicked" and is tried and tormented by a gang lead by one 12 year old Peekay calls "the judge". The judge comes to symbolize the intolerance of apartheid and the conservative nationalists who implement their anti-black racial polices. Lines like, "The photograph captures the exact moment when understood with conviction that racism is a primary force of evil designed to destroy good men." Courtenay tells Peekay's story in an episodic manner and does at times exhibit the one thing about novels which does bug me which is the number of coincidences or events where the lead character is found to be at the right moment in history. That said, this story is a great beach read (where I read it) and moves along as you grow up along side young Peekay as he learns that an education along with boxing skills sets him on a path to leadership and helps him achieve a kind of revenge on all the judges of the world that would keep him down. He learns the power of one. Peekay says, "Doc had taught me the value of being the odd man out: the man who senses that there is an essential collective sanity to humans and who assumes the roll of the loner, the thinker, and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one was based on the courage to remain separate, to think through to the truth, and not to be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power. There is also a lot of boxing in this story and if I had known that up front I might have passed on reading the book. However, the boxing is not only a good medifore but very well written into the fabric of the narrative. In many cases you almost feel the blow yourself as Peekay attempts to become a champion. And lastly I might note that blacks are a large part of this story but don't take leadership rolls... they are in fact to be protected by their white liberal benefactors which is a bit condescending but I believe reflective of the era that story takes place. If you're in the mood for a great coming of age story with vivid characters and events this might be the perfect read. I certainly enjoyed it a great deal.Book Review: This Book Was GREAT!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book, as I said in my title, was great. Except for one thing. The ending. It was nice to know that the Peekay had finally gotten back at the Judge but I wanted to see him become the Boxing Champion of the World. This book, other than that one flaw was inspired. It is amazing that the author can put so much into one book.This book starts and ends with Peekay. Peekay is taken from his home in the middle of the second world war and put into a bording school where all of the general population hates him. He goes there with his rooster dubbed Grandpa Chook. He is tortured and at the end of his stay Grandpa Chook is killed.
From there he travels on the railroad and meets Hoppie, who is a VERY NICE person and a terrific boxer. He is the one who inspires Peekay to become boxing champion of the world. He goes home and finds out that his mom has turned into a religion freak. He meets several nice people there too. He meets Doc, who changes Peekay from a frightened boy to a champion. He meets Geel Piet, who is an exellent boxing instructor, even if he is a crook. He meets tons of nice people. But, Doc gets jailed for being an unregistered immigrant from Germany. He has to spend the rest of World War two in prison. This is when Peekay really learns to box. He has to practice for three years until he is ready for the city competition. He wins in his division. From there he has schooling with Doc, since he is way ahead and has passed the knowledge of most of his teachers. When he is of age he wins a scholarship into a private school and meets Morrie, a Jew. They come up with all kinds of schemes to win money and Peekay finally has enough to hire a pro trainer. His boxing steadily improves and he helps the school win the championships. However,cantreally put it into words, but starting from the time when he smuggled things into jail for the colored prisoners he was given a special name. Tadpole Angel in English. Well, when he graduates he gets several scholarships, but fails in the one for oxford. He decides to spend some time in the copper mines so he can get away from it all and find out who he really is. The death of Doc while he was in school was a very emotional time for him. At the end of the book he fights the Judge and so can finally except himself for who he really is. In finally standing up to the Judge he set himself free.
I had hoped that I would see Peekay become Boxing Champion of the World, but, in a way, this ending was good too.
Book Review: If Only It Were True!
Summary: 5 Stars
This amazing story of a lonely English boy growing up in South Africa during WWII has an almost fairytale, mystical quality that I loved, although it's most certainly a book for adults. "Peekay" (the only name the reader is given) is banished to a boarding school because of his mother's mysterious "breakdown." As the youngest boy in the school and a hated "rooinek" (British) he is tortured by older Boer farmers' sons. Rescued finally, he has a chance meeting on a train with a boxer, who plants in Peekay's mind the dream of becoming a welterweight boxing champ. Peekay sees boxing as a way of overcoming, through brains, speed and heart, the bullies who made his life in school hell. The meeting with the boxer is only the first of a number of chance encounters with grownups who recognize a special quality in Peekay and nurture it.
The most important is Doc, an exiled German, gifted pianist, and lifelong student of the world around him. After Peekay's arrival back home, Doc takes him under his wing, and the two develop the closest of relationships. When Doc is imprisoned as an enemy alien during the war, Peekay gains permission to visit, finds a way to learn boxing, and earns the name "Tadpole Angel" for transporting letters, tobacco, and money for the blacks held there.
All this and more is set against the backdrop of extreme hatred and racism, between Boers and the British, between whites and blacks, between whites and other immigrants. Like most children, Peekay is color blind, and at first only dimly senses these class, ethnic and racial divides. Only later does he come to realize that his special status among the Africans is a source of power and strength.
Like some, I did find the last section of the book a bit jarring, where Peekay, to escape the expectations that have grown up around him, goes to work in the mines. For a time he leads a charmed life in the most dangerous job in the mine, until, uncharacteristically, he takes one too many risks. Nevertheless, the Herculean strength of a friend saves him, and to top it off, he has the chance to finally inflict the revenge that's kept him pushing forward his whole life.
This is a tough story in parts, and I wouldn't recommend the full version for ages below the teens. But adults will be enthralled--I was.
Book Review: A Story of Courage and Strength-A+!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first I have ever read of Courtenay's writing, and I did enjoy the story all the way through.
It takes place in Africa, back in 1939. A boy Peekay, as he was later called was an english child. The story begins with Peekay being taken from his dear nanny, as his mother was unable to care for him, and he was sent to a boarding school. There he was considered not "one of them," the African's that is, so he was bullied almost to death, and picked on for everything. After about 2 years there, he was sent back home to his mother who had recovered. Before that, during the trip home, he meets a friend, Hoppy, who cares for the boy and was like his big brother during the whole trip. Hoppy was a boxing champion, and it was such that he struck an interest with Peekay in boxing, and from there on when he met Hoppy, he just had to learn. Hoppy thought Peekay was a natural, and truly encouraged him in the short time they had together.
When he reaches home, he goes out one day to meet a new friend
that would always be there for him for the next many years of Peekay's life. "Doc," as he was called was an older established professor of music who was retired in the story. He latched on to the boy right away, and was like a father to Peekay. One day though, Doc was sent to prison much to the shock of many others, and Peekay was devastated. But within a short time, he connected with "Doc," in jail and not only did Peekay visit Doc, but the other prisoners became his greatest of friends. This is also where he learned the real sport of boxing. The prison offered classes in it, and Peekay was accepted even though he was too young, (about 8 at the time), they accepted him as he was overly eager to learn.
This started a whole new life for Peekay. He beat everyone in the ring, even some of the toughest men. He grew with boxing into bigger and bigger tournaments, and later when he started a new boarding school, was the most well-known kid there for his outstanding talents as a boxer. His new friend Morrie became his partner in business, and later they hired the best teacher Solly, who was the BEST in the boxing division in Africa.
The book is definitely a great read, and a story you won't
forget after reading. I will probably try Tandia later.
Book Review: Concerto of the Great Southland
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the chronicle of Peekay, a disadvantaged South African white boy who, at the age of six, decides that he will be the welterweight champion of the world. The story begins in 1939 when Peekay is five, and he is the smallest lad at a boarding school where his bed-wetting affliction is getting him in trouble. He suffers constant abuse from a band of Nazi worshipping older boys, and even the teachers. Peekay copes using his camouflage, his chameleon like skill to disguise his true nature.After a year or so at the boarding school, Peekay is reunited with his mother, who had been hospitalized for conniptions, and his grandfather. He has no father, the author never reveals why not, and none, least of all Peekay, seem to miss him. His mother and grandfather are dear, but uninfluential. Peekay treats his mother with tender respect, fearing that she will have another nervous breakdown, but he shuns her distorted Jesus-freak perception of the world. Grandpa, who mostly tends roses and diddles with his pipe, isnt much help either.
Peekay is a prodigy, and he has the good fortune to choose good mentors, including a pugilistic railway conductor and an inveterate recidivist at the local penitentiary. The most important of his tutors, however, is Doc, a washed out concert pianist who teaches music and collects aloe and cacti. As Peekay and Doc explore the African veld, Doc tutors Peekay on many subjects, especially the value of thinking for himself.
Through Peekay, Doc and a host of other well crafted characters, Courtenay scrutinizes the logic of born again Christians, the ordained superiority of white men, the relevance of Jewishness, the glory of the English Empire, the origin of Afrikanerdom, the philosophy of apartheid, the disposition of cacti versus roses, and the significance of all deaths, even that of a kaffir chicken. He entangles these concerns with strands of poignant romaticization. You might want to keep the Kleenex box handy, particularly when Doc recuperates his musical genius long enough to compose the Concerto of the Great Southland.
This is a review of the paperback edition.