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Power of One
I have Smoke and Ashes to thank for this one. She mentioned it as one of her favorite books and since we seem to share some common tastes concerning books and music, I thought I'd give it a shot.
What a terrific book. Set in South Africa in the 1940s, it chronicles the boyhood years of Peekay who matures in life (largely through boxing) by applying the Power of One. Not since Lonesome Dove have I so genuinely fallen in love and cared about the characters in a book. And not just Peekay. The author, Bryce Courtenay, manages to paint a half dozen characters in rich technicolor with depth, sensitivity and real emotion.
After finishing the book, I felt all proud and smug about "discovering" this book. A day later, I found out that a movie was made of it in 1992 and that my nephew's 7th-grade English class read it in school. Never have I gone from feeling smug to completely out of it so quickly.
November 12, 2004 in Books | Permalink
Comments
the movie is terrible, but nonetheless, I own it on DVD. It stars Stephen Dorff as Peekay, who I love, and Morgan Freeman as Giel Peet, who is amazing. I've got a thing for South African themed books - so if you like that one, try Disgrace by JM Coatzee. There's a sequel to power of one called Tandia. It's not as good, not by a long shot, but it's decent.
That's pretty intense that your nephew's 7th grade class is reading it. I read it in high school, and i'm not so sure I would have picked up a lot of the nuances so young (particularly since I reread it somewhat recently and still found it to be a subtle, rich book).
Posted by: sarah | Nov 16, 2004 6:38:05 PM
