Bogormen

Title: The Power of One
Author: Bryce Courtenay
Genre: Fiction, cultural
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~22hrs
Date read: November, 2022

In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams, which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives and the power of one.


I read and loved this as a teen, but hadn't read it in years, so was eager to try it again as I remembered almost nothing of it other than the bare bones. Unfortunately, it couldn't quite live up to my expectations... or rather, it lost its charm along the way. I loved the first half - PeeKay's way of surviving his first boarding school, returning home, meeting Doc, convincing the prison guard to teach him boxing - all of that had exactly the atmosphere I remembered from the book, and I was very happy with the revisit.

Once he started his second boarding school, some of the charm started to disappear though, and by the time he reached the mines, it had gone completely. I can't explain exactly what went wrong, but it was as if Bryce Courtenay had a brilliant idea for the beginning of a book - but no idea how to end it, meaning it just meandered along until he realized, "This is plenty long now - I'd better finish up" and did just that.

I'm still glad to have read it, and would definitely recommend it to people as an interesting view on South Africa during and after World War II, but it did leave me thinking that it lacked... something.