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The
Worth of a Soul: The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay
By
Marilyn Green Faulkner
Minute
by minute, hour by hour, day by excruciatingly long day, my mother-in-law
fights for her life. It’s been two weeks today since her surgery,
an eight-hour ordeal involving a team of twelve people, a myriad
of machines, and some perilously frail heart and lung tissues that
may or may not finally heal. The hospital (like an airport, but
for different reasons) seems to operate on a separate plane of time.
Minutes seem like hours, then hours become minutes, depending on
her condition. My dear father-in-law sits through the days and nights,
watching the monitors, jumping up to arrange a pillow, massage a
knot in an aching shoulder, or move a tube so that a beeping noise
stops. They both look exhausted, and because of the respirator she
no longer speaks, yet there is as much courage on display in this
little room as in the noisiest foxhole in battle. For death is an
enemy that cannot, in the end, be defeated, yet these two fight
on bravely, bringing to this last contest the grace and dignity
with which they have lived their lives.
The
Value of One Life
 Though
I can escape into the sun and sky, my daily visits to the hospital
remind me that this struggle to remain alive is being repeated today
in millions of places on the planet. The value of one life is staggering
to contemplate, when you realize how easily human life can be obliterated.
What makes us cling so tenaciously to life? What is the importance
of each individual? These are the questions at the heart of a stirring
novel by Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One. This story of
an English boy raised in South Africa is a daunting account of one small life pitted against
a world of hatred. In an environment where survival seems impossible,
this lonely little boy finds a way to triumph over his enemies and
be true to his friends.
Peekay
is in a difficult position. An English boy sent to a South African
boarding school at the age of five, he finds himself the whipping
boy for the Afrikaaner students, who are Nazi sympathizers and hate
the British for the atrocities of the Boer war. Peekay doesn’t understand
any of this, but finds hatred and persecution at every turn. His
torments are recreated for us in grim detail. I must warn LDS readers
at the outset that this book contains a good deal of foul language
and some graphic violence, though its overall message is profoundly
moral. When the book came out in 1989 teachers were so impressed
with its message that they petitioned the author to create a version
more suitable for children. Thus, an expurgated version of this
novel is available, and I would recommend it for those who will
find the swearing offensive.
Coming
of Age in Africa
Peekay
becomes a boxer, yet he also becomes a horticulturist, a musician,
and an academic scholar. What he does not become is a bitter, twisted
man, because of the influence of two or three guiding personalities
in his life. His father is dead and his mother is largely useless,
so Peekay finds mentors to guide him. His Zulu nanny gives him love,
and the conductor on the train to school gives him a quest: to become
the welterweight champion of the world. He also gives him a motto
that becomes his guiding mantra, which, because he learned it on
a train, seems to speak to him from the tracks:
“I
stood there watching the early morning folding back. It can be very
cold in the lowveld before the sun rises, and without a blanket
I soon began to shiver. I tried to ignore the cold, concentrating
on the lickity-clack of the carriage wheels. I became aware that
the lickity-clack was talking to me: Mix-the-head with-the-heart
you’re-ahead from-the-start. Mix-the-head with-the-heart you’re-ahead
from-the-start, the wheels chanted until my head began to pound
with the rhythm. It was becoming the plan I would follow for the
remainder of my life; it was to become the secret ingredient in
what I thought of as the power of one.” (104)
Peekay
meets some unique individuals, and finds himself in the middle of
a political and racial storm, as the Afrikaaners round up Germans
for prison (with whom many actually sympathize) while giving the
English token support along with private hostility. A German doctor,
horticulturist and musician befriends the lonely boy and teaches
him to be proud of his good mind rather than try to hide it. Much
of the book deals with Peekay’s attempts to soften the harsh effects
of war on the old man. In the meantime he learns to fight, and pursues
his boxing career with the same zeal as his studies, becoming a
legend along the way through some remarkable successes.
Courtenay
is a good writer but not a great one. He has some fine descriptive
passages, but is somewhat weak when it comes to really fleshing
out a believable character. His good guys are a little too good
to be true, and the bad ones are over-the-top. The Zulu nanny is
all love and wisdom, while his white, Evangelical Christian mother
is weak and hypocritical. His strength is in his ability to evoke
a landscape, and a culture, that is completely unfamiliar to most
of us, and use it as a backdrop for a more familiar emotional landscape
that we all share. Here is a description of some lonely moments
on a hillside, mourning the loss of his nanny:
“As
I sat on the rock high on my hill, and as the sun began to set over
the bushveld, I grew up. Just like that. The loneliness birds stopped
laying stone eggs, they rose from their stone nests and flapped
away on their ugly wings and the eggs they left behind crumbled
into dust. A fierce, howling wind came along and blew the dust away
until I was empty inside.
I
knew they would be back but that, for the moment, I was alone. That
I had permission from myself to love whomsoever I wished. The cords
that bound me to the past had been severed. The emptiness was a
new kind of loneliness, a free kind of loneliness. Not the kind
that laid stone eggs deep inside of you until you filled up with
heaviness and despair. I knew that when the bone-beaked birds returned
I would be in control, master of loneliness and no longer its servant.
You
may ask how a six-year-old could think like this. I can only answer
that one did.” (142)
It
is natural for this narrator to be somewhat defensive, because it
really is a bit of a stretch to believe that a six-year-old could
elucidate such thoughts as these. With that nit-picking aside, I
recommend this novel because of its untiring optimism in the face
of overwhelming evil. Peekay finds beauty, grace and humor in the
most trying circumstances. In an evil world he happens upon good
people who become trusted friends. His ability to assimilate information
and his persistence give him an advantage that overshadows his liabilities
of size and status.
Bryce
Courtenay is in demand as a motivational speaker. His novel is clearly
written with a purpose: to help us believe in the value of each
individual and in the power of each individual to triumph over adversity
and make a positive contribution to the world. For that effort we
must applaud him. I’d be interested to know what many of you thought
about The Power of One. And, when things are back
to normal around here, I’m going to pass my copy along to my mother
and father-in-law.
The
Power of One is the September
selection for the Best Books Club. If you’d like to get on the email
list write me at bestbooks@meridian
.com, or log on to our website at www.thebestbooksclub.com.
Our selection for October will be: The Reivers, by William
Faulkner.
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© 2004
Meridian Magazine.
All Rights Reserved.
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