Synopsis
A distinguished writer, explorer, and philosopher analyzes the interconnected twists of fate that lead him to expeditions in Africa, to serve against the Japanese in World War II, to develop a close friendship with Carl Jung, and more.
Reviews
In this rhapsodic, self-dramatizing spiritual autobiography which often verges on the mystical, famed explorer van der Post seeks a patternsee last sentence in his life's seemingly random events. His great love of horses, especially a black-and-tan mare named Blady, inspires flights of philosophical speculation on human relationship to nature, the soul's immortality and the unhealthy devaluation of the feminine in modern life. Hopping around in time and place from fighting the Japanese in Java during WW II to watching sunsets on the Kalahari desert, he contemplates his son's experience with terminal cancer and theorizes that the origins of disease reside in the soul. His friendships with Jung and with Jungian analysts fuel his ruminations on "the sickness of our time," defined here as a refusal to enlarge one's awareness. Seeking renewal, van der Post imaginatively enters the mythological realm of Zeus and Prometheus. Many transcendent moments experienced on his travels punctuate his quest. this point made in first sentence/right you are, as always. don't need, so I've cut.gs
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
An autobiographical musing on mortality, suffering, and modern life from octogenarian van der Post, in which his often naive ponderings are relieved by vivid references to his beloved Kalahari and its Bushmen, still his true m‚tier. After a long life rich in adventure and friendship, van der Post is well qualified to reflect on the troubling big questions. His belief in the underlying unity between all living things and the importance of the subconscious has certainly been a major theme in his books on Africa (Testament to the Bushmen, 1985, etc.). Now, however, affected by the death of a son and two beloved friends from cancer, he attempts not only to link cancer, which he regards as a post-WW II disease, with all that is wrong with the present, but to find metaphysical meaning in its occurrence. Going beyond Susan Sontag's idea of cancer as metaphor, van der Post describes it as a condition for attaining grace and salvation. Those afflicted are paradoxically blessed, for they are able to transcend contemporary greed and self-absorption. Recalling first his childhood, special friends, and wartime experiences, van der Post finally comes to Blady, a mare whose story, he says, exemplifies his contentions. Rescued by friends from ploughing the fields, Blady does the impossible and wins a prestigious competition. This victory is van der Post's epiphany and his balm: Blady is not only a symbol of waiting for ``a readiness'' for whatever fate decrees, but, in her unlikely success, a reminder that ``in the short run [we] may have to go through darkness and death but will be joined inevitably with the last great story of all, and its happy ending.'' The message is heartfelt, but the antique flavor of van der Post's reasoning and his simplistic tenets about illness overwhelm all that is fresh and moving here. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
To this unconventional autobiography, van der Post has given a title that symbolizes rather than describes his book. The South African writer of novels, travel journals, and books in other literary genres concentrates less on recording events in his life, with the usual succession of dates and names, and more on attempting to express a vision of life; a vision crystallized in a horse named Blady. Van der Post has spent his life in many places, has met many people, and has acquired a miscellaneous store of knowledge. He has the strength and weakness of an impulsive writer, entirely free from self-consciousness. His lines are as natural as a running stream, but his substance is elusive. The meditation from which his thoughts spring is rich and varied, but it is too remote from common interest to hold the attention of many readers.
- A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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