This book was a totally amazing read. I could hardly put it down. It is starts off with Peekay, a five year old boy growing up in South Africa. He is sent to a boarding school where he is the only white boy amongst Boers. He is tortured, beat up and put down constantly. When he is six and a half he goes back to live with his family. On the way in the train he meets a boxer who looks after him and teaches him some boxing tricks, like "first with the head, then with the heart', and 'a good boxer never stops thinking'. When home he meets an elderly gentleman who is a musician and botanist. 'Doc' teaches him many useful and important things, and he loves Doc more than any other person.
Here are some of Doc's words of wisdom:
'Always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty metres high through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky. The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking; most people you encounter will be vines, when you are a young plant they can be very dangerous. Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you will grow stronger. If you are right you have taken another step towards a fulfilling life.'
'Experts, what did I tell you about experts, Peekay?' 'You can't always go by expert opinion. A chicken, if you ask a chicken, should be stuffed with grasshoppers, mealies and worms.'
'Inside all people there is love, also the need to take care of the other man who is his brother. Inside everyone is a savage, but there is also tenderness and compassion. When a man is brutalised in such a place like this [prison] he is always looking for small signs. The smallest sign that someone is worried for him is like a fire on the dark mountain. When a man knows somebody cares he keeps some small place, a corner maybe of his soul clean and lit.'
Peekay has the ambition to become the welterweight boxing champion of the world. Most of this book is centred on him working towards realising his goal. Doc is unjustly imprisoned during WWII as he is a German. Peekay visits him in prison regularly, and joins the Prison Guard's boxing team, becoming unbeatable in championships.
When he is 12 he is sent to boarding school again. This time an English 'gentleman's' boarding school. He starts up a teaching program for adult blacks to learn how to read and write. It is closed down by the police, so he starts up a correspondence school just before he graduates.
In order to pay his way through Oxford university he goes and works on the mines. He develops a friendship with a Russian and they get each other out of many scrapes. Peekay over works himself in the most dangerous part of the mines. An accident occurs. His friend the Russian saves him, however the Russian dies. Not however, before writing into his life insurance that Peekay is to be beneficiary. Peekay now has enough money to go to Oxford.
However, before he leaves the mines he is attacked by a big, burly diamond miner. This miner has a swastika tattooed onto his arm. Peekay recognises the kid who tortured him when at his first boarding school. Peekay, becomes angry, and uses all his boxing prowess to beat this guy to a pulp. His revenge satisfied, he walks out into the cool night air, satisfied with his life.
I both loved and hated this book. It is enthralling, interesting, spellbinding. However, there is an awful lot of swearing and coarseness in this book. And it does not end up leading anywhere worthwhile.
Courtenay also spends a fair bit of time having a go at Christianity. However, all of the things he has to say are against silly charismatics, who are hypocritical and ignorant. I would agree with what he said about their doctrines, however to then turn around and blame and hate God for their ignorance is pure nonsense.
I hated the ending. A good man dies to save him, all his monetary difficulties are solved as a result (conveniently), he gets to beat up the guy who always beat him up as a child (hateful revenge) and then all of a sudden his life is fulfilled.
Besides, I really wanted to know whether he did become the welter-weight champion! Stupid ending.
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