A Story Like the Wind

A fictional story, written in 1972 by Laurens van der Post, who has courted controversy and been accused of embellishing his non-fiction works. No controversy here, as this appears to be pretty well bedded in fiction.

Van der Post uses a relatively simple story line to then introduce large volumes of non-fictional information on Southern Africa and Bushmen (Kalahari Bushmen - San or Saan as they are now known). He also uses a very short action in current time, to then break off and provide the entire backstory, meaning that the action is limited. This is somewhat annoying during the read - for example in a single chapter of say 35 pages, we might have the simple action of a character being awoken by his dog and getting out of bed being the only action in the story, with the balance being the history of how he came to have the dog! For me this would have been fine if it was used once to set up the back story, but it is used fr several chapters in a row.

Other than that minor negative, I quite enjoyed this story. In my view it is probably a young adult focused or suitable book. The protagonist of the book is a boy of 13, and it includes themes of growing up, coming of age, as well as hunting, isolated rural life etc, and while there an unrealistic adult level of maturity and understanding shown, it works at an inspirational level for youth.

I am not one to plot outline much in fiction, so will refrain from doing so, but the story covers life in Southern Africa (I take it to be Zimbawe), a British “settler” family who live with the Matabele tribe on a large farm within the bush. As I mentioned above, it is a coming of age story for a 13 year old boy, it involves his father being unwell, and his spending time without his parents, where he must take responsibilities beyond his years. It is themed with racial tolerance and understanding, with respect and understanding of the natural environment & animals. The end of the book involves the commencement of an uprising or revolution, although it remains unclear and will be expanded on in the sequel - refer below. That said, there is buried in the 470 odd pages, an exciting and interesting story - it is perhaps padded out with more context than some readers may wish.

The story does end somewhat abruptly, and this is because there is a sequel, which continues the story. On this basis one could say that this is a 470 page introduction...

Enjoyable at 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.