A Story Like the Wind

Synopsis

Hunter's Drift, its immediate setting in the hinterland, is a vast plantation lying at both a physical and a cultural crossroads. Here Bushmen, Bantu, white settlers, white hunters meet and/or collide; and along the great trade route nearby, guns move by night. The magic of this world, the wonder and mystery of a brilliant primitive life in which human beings, birds, animals, indeed all nature lived in a condition of meaningful kinship with one another, are presented here in the way primitive Africa has always interpreted itself to itself. But this is also a novel in which the sophisticated twentieth century collides with the storied past. And like so much other of twentieth-century encounter, the climax is violence, though the sort of violence that is not wholly negative, but suggests hope for the future. The main character is a teen-age boy who has a relationship with this Africa not unlike Kipling's Kim with the antique world of India. Francois Joubert, whose Huguenot ancestors settled in Africa three hundred years ago, lives as a solitary child on his father's farm, Hunter's Drift. The most important influences on his life have been his nurse Koba, a woman of the almost vanished Bushman race; 'Bamuthi, a primitive aristocrat and chief of the Matabele tribe who are the chosen partners of Francois' father in his pioneering; and Mopani Theron, a hunter whose name is a legend throughout Africa and who is the founder of a vast game reserve close by. As a result of all these singular influences and circumstances Francois imagination and awareness of his world are heightened to an almost extrasensory degree. His meeting with Xhabbo, a little Bushman who teaches him how desperately the living spirit in everyone needs "a story" for survival and renewal; the strange pilgrimage Francois undertakes to the distant kraal of the greatest of all witchdoctors; his dramatic encounter and relationship with the bright, sensitive daughter of Sir James Monckton, a retired Colonial Governor-General and newcomer to Hunter's Drift--all are examples of vivid African point and European counterpoint, in a highly original theme, moving to a strangely presaged and omened climax.

Copyright:

1972

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

371 Pages

Publisher:

William Morrow & Company, Inc.

Date of Addition:

02/25/14

Copyrighted By:

Laurens van der Post

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Literature and Fiction

Submitted By:

BookMouse

Proofread By:

BookMouse

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.