This book is pure magic. This is the story of Peekay, an english boy in predominantly boer south africa during and after World War II.
I have trouble summing up the book. Any explanation of the story makes the book sound mundane. There is so much to the book woven into and under the plot. It is powerful. Peekay is just an english boy who, after being bullied in school, wants to become the welter-weight champion of the world. In attempting to do so, he gets an ace education (in a prison, no less), becomes a unifying leader of the tribes of africa who sing songs to him, their "tadpole angel", works in a diamond mine, becomes a piano player and an expert on succulents, and eventually gets his revenge on childhood bullies.
These things make the book sound trite, but it isn't. The story is believable enough that I assumed it was, at least in part, an autobiographical account of the author's childhood (it isn't). |
