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The Power of One: A Novel Paperback – September 29, 1996
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–The New York Times
“Unabashedly uplifting . . . asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independence–‘the power of one’–can prevail.”
–Cleveland Plain Dealer
In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams–which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the power of one.
“Totally engrossing . . . [presents] the metamorphosis of a most remarkable young man and the almost spiritual influence he has on others . . . Peekay has both humor and a refreshingly earthy touch, and his adventures, at times, are hair-raising in their suspense.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Marvelous . . . It is the people of the sun-baked plains of Africa who tug at the heartstrings in this book. . . . [Bryce] Courtenay draws them all with a fierce and violent love.”
–The Washington Post Book World
“Impressive.”
–Newsday
“A compelling tale.”
–The Christian Science Monitor
- Reading age12 - 17 years
- Print length544 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Lexile measure940L
- Dimensions5.4 x 1.16 x 8.18 inches
- PublisherBallantine Books
- Publication dateSeptember 29, 1996
- ISBN-10034541005X
- ISBN-13978-0345410054
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Review
–The New York Times
From the Publisher
Jennifer Richards
Ballantine Books Publicity
From the Inside Flap
THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
Set in a world torn apart, where man enslaves his fellow man and freedom remains elusive, THE POWER OF ONE is the moving story of one young man's search for the love that binds friends, the passion that binds lovers, and the realization that it takes only one to change the world. A weak and friendless boy growing up in South Africa during World War II, Peekay turns to two older men, one black and one white, to show him how to find the courage to dream, to succeed, to triumph over a world when all seems lost, and to inspire him to summon up the most irrersistible force of all: the Power of One.
From the Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
Set in a world torn apart, where man enslaves his fellow man and freedom remains elusive, THE POWER OF ONE is the moving story of one young man's search for the love that binds friends, the passion that binds lovers, and the realization that it takes only one to change the world. A weak and friendless boy growing up in South Africa during World War II, Peekay turns to two older men, one black and one white, to show him how to find the courage to dream, to succeed, to triumph over a world when all seems lost, and to inspire him to summon up the most irrersistible force of all: the Power of One.
"From the Paperback edition.
About the Author
lived in Sydney for the major part of his life. Visit him on the web at www.brycecourtenay.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1939: Northern Transvaal, South Africa
This is what happened.
My Zulu nanny was a person made for laughter, warmth and softness and before my life started properly she would clasp me to her breasts and stroke my golden curls with a hand so large it seemed to contain my whole head. My hurts were soothed with a song about a brave young warrior hunting a lion and a women's song about doing the washing down on the rock beside the river where, at sunset, the baboons would come out of the hills to drink.
My life proper started at the age of five when my mother had her nervous breakdown. I was torn from my black nanny with her big white smile and taken from my grandfather's farm and sent to boarding school.
Then began a time of yellow wedges of pumpkin burned black and bitter at the edges; mashed potato with glassy lumps; meat aproned with gristle in gray gravy; diced carrots; warm, wet, flatulent cabbage; beds that wet themselves in the morning; and an entirely new sensation called loneliness.
I was the youngest child in the school by two years and spoke only English while the other children spoke Afrikaans, the language of the Boers, which was the name for the Dutch settlers in South Africa. They called the English settlers Rooinecks, which means "Redneck,'' because in the Boer War, which had happened forty years before between the English and the Dutch settlers, the pale-skinned English troopers got very sunburned and their necks turned bright red.
The English won this war, but it was a terrible struggle and it created a hatred for them by the Boers, which was carried over into the generations that followed. So, here I was, someone who only spoke the language of the people they hated most of all in the world. I was the first Rooineck the Afrikaner kids had ever seen and, I'm telling you, I was in a lot of trouble.
On the first night of boarding school, I was taken by two eleven-year-olds to the seniors' dormitory, to stand trial. I stood there shaking like billy-o and gibbering, unable to understand the language of the twelve-year-old judge, or the reason for the hilarity when the sentence was pronounced. But I guessed the worst. I had been caught deep behind enemy lines and even a five-year-old knows this means the death sentence.
I wasn't quite sure what death was. I knew it was something that happened on the farm in the slaughterhouse to pigs and goats and an occasional heifer and I'd seen it happen often enough to chickens. The squeal from the pigs was so awful that I knew it wasn't much of an experience, even for pigs.
And I knew something else for sure; death wasn't as good as life. Now death was about to happen to me before I could really get the hang of life. Trying hard to hold back my tears, I was dragged off to the shower room. I had never been in a shower room before; it resembled the slaughterhouse on my grandfather's farm and I guessed this was where my death would take place. I was told to remove my pajamas and to kneel inside the recess facing the wall. I looked down into the hole in the floor where all the blood would drain away. I closed my eyes and said a silent, sobbing prayer. My prayer wasn't to God but to my nanny. I felt a sudden splash on my neck and then warm blood trickled over my trembling body. Funny, I didn't feel dead. But who knows what dead feels like?
When the Judge and his council of war had all pissed on me, they left. After a while it got very quiet, just a drip, drip from someplace overhead. I didn't know how to turn the shower on and so had no way of washing myself. At the farm I had always been bathed by my nanny in a tin tub in front of the kitchen stove. She'd soap me all over and Dee and Dum, the two kitchen maids who were twins, would giggle behind their hands when she soaped my little acorn. This was how I knew it was a special part of me. Just how special I was soon to find out. I tried to dry myself with my pajamas. My hands were shaking a lot. I wandered around that big dark place until I found the small kids' dormitory. There I crept under my blanket and came to the end of my first day in life.
I awoke next morning to find the other kids surrounding my bed and holding their noses. I'm telling you, I have to admit it myself, I smelt worse than a kaffir toilet, worse than the pigs at home. The kids scattered as a very large person with a smudge of dark hair above her lip entered. It was the same lady who had left me in the dormitory the night before. "Good morning, Mevrou!" they chorused in Afrikaans, each standing stiffly to attention at the foot of his bed.
The huge woman tore back my blanket and sniffed. "Why, you wet your bed, boy! Sis, man, you stink!" she bellowed. Then, without waiting for my answer, which, of course, I didn't have, she grabbed me by the ear and led me back to the place where they'd pissed on me the night before. Making me take off my pajamas, she pushed me into a recess. I thought desperately, She's even bigger than Nanny. If she pisses on me I will surely drown. There was a sudden hissing sound and needles of icy water drilled into me. I had my eyes tightly shut but the hail of water was remorseless.
If you don't know what a shower is, and have never had one before, then it's not so hard to believe that maybe this is death. A thousand sharp pricks drilled into my skin. How can so much piss possibly come out of one person, I thought. Funny, it should be warm, but this was icy cold, but then I was no expert on these things.
Then the fierce hissing and the icy deluge stopped suddenly. I opened my eyes to find no Mevrou. The Judge stood before me, his pajama sleeve rolled up, his arm wet where he'd reached to turn off the shower. Behind him stood the jury and all the small kids from my dormitory.
The jury formed a ring around me. My teeth were chattering out of control. The Judge pointed to my tiny acorn. "Why you piss your bed, Rooinek?" he asked.
"Hey, look, there is no hat on his snake!" someone yelled. They all crowded closer.
"Pisskop! Pisskop!"--in a moment all the small kids were chanting.
"You hear, you a pisshead," the Judge translated. "Who cut the hat off your snake, Pisskop?"
I looked down. All seemed perfectly normal to me. I looked up at the Judge, confused. The Judge parted his pajama fly. His large "snake" seemed to be a continuous sheath brought down to a point of ragged skin. I must say, it wasn't much of a sight.
More trouble lay ahead of me for sure. I was a Rooinek and a pisskop. I spoke the wrong language. And now I was obviously made differently. But I was still alive, and in my book, where there's life, there's hope.
By the end of the first term I had reduced my persecution to no more than an hour a day. I had the art of survival almost down pat. Except for one thing: I had become a bed wetter. It is impossible to become a perfect adapter if you leave a wet patch behind you every morning.
My day would begin with a bed-wetting caning from Mevrou, a routine that did serve a useful purpose. I learned that crying is a luxury good adapters have to forgo, and I soon had the school record for being thrashed. The Judge said so. I wasn't just a hated Rooinek and a pisskop, I was also a record holder.
The Judge ordered that I only be beaten up a little at a time, and if I could stop being a pisskop he'd stop even that, although he added that, for a Rooinek, this was probably impossible. I was inclined to agree. No amount of resolve on my part seemed to have the least effect.
The end of the first term finally came. I was to return home for the May holidays: home to Nanny, who would listen to my sadness and sleep on her mat at the foot of my bed so the bogeyman couldn't get me. I also intended to inquire whether my mother had stopped breaking down so I would be allowed to stay home.
I rode home joyfully in Dr. "Henny" Boshoff's shiny Chevrolet coupe. As we choofed along, I was no longer a Rooinek and a pisskop but became a great chief. Life was very good. It was Dr. Henny who had first told me about the nervous breakdown, and he now confirmed that my mother was "coming along nicely" but she wouldn't be home just yet. Sadly this put the kibosh on my chances of staying home.
When I arrived at the farm Nanny wept and held me close. It was late summer. The days were filled with song as the field women picked cotton, working their way down the long rows, singing in perfect harmony while they plucked the fluffy white fiber heads from the sun-blackened cotton bolls.
When Nanny couldn't solve a problem for me she'd say, "We must ask Inkosi-Inkosikazi, the great medicine man, he will know what to do." Now Nanny sent a message to Inkosi-Inkosikazi to the effect that we urgently needed to see him on the matter of the child's night water. The message was put on the drums and in two days we heard that Inkosi-Inkosikazi would call in a fortnight or so on his way to visit Modjadji, the great rain queen. The whites of Nanny's eyes would grow big and her cheeks puff out as she talked about the greatness of the medicine man. "He will dry your bed with one throw of the shinbones of the great white ox," she promised.
"Will he also grow skin over my acorn?" I demanded. She clutched me to her breast, her answer lost as she chortled all over me.
The problem of the night water was much discussed by the field women. "Surely a grass sleeping mat will dry in the morning sun? This is not a matter of proper concern for the greatest medicine man in Africa." It was all right for them, of course. They didn't have to go back to the Judge and Mevrou.
Almost two weeks to the day, Inkosi-Inkosikazi arrived in his big black Buick, symbol of his enormous power and wealth, even to the Boers, who despised him yet feared his magic.
All that day the field women brought gifts of food: kaffir corn, squash, native spinach, watermelons, bundles of dried tobacco leaf--and six scrawny kaffir chickens, mostly tough old roosters, their legs tied and their wings clipped.
One scrawny old cock with mottled gray feathers looked very much like my granpa, except for his eyes. Granpa's eyes were pale blue, intended for gazing over soft English landscapes; that old rooster's were sharp as beads of red light.
My granpa came down the steps and walked toward the big Buick. He stopped to kick one of the roosters, for he hated kaffir chickens. His pride and joy were his one hundred black Orpington hens and six giant roosters.
He greatly admired Inkosi-Inkosikazi, who had once cured him of his gallstones. "Never a trace of a gallstone since," he declared. "If you ask me, the old monkey is the best damned doctor in the lowveld."
The old medicine man, like Nanny, was a Zulu. It was said he was the last son of the great Dingaan, the Zulu king who fought both the Boers and the British to a standstill. Two generations after the Boers had finally defeated his Impi at the Battle of Blood River, they remained in awe of Dingaan.
Two years after the battle, Dingaan, reeling from the combined forces of his half brother Mpande and the Boers, had sought refuge among the Nyawo people on the summit of the great Lebombo mountains. On the night he was treacherously assassinated by Nyawo tribesmen he had been presented with a young virgin, and his seed was planted in her womb.
"Where I chose blood, this last of my sons will choose wisdom. You will call him Inkosi-Inkosikazi, he will be a man for all Africa," Dingaan had told the Nyawo maiden.
This made the small, wizened black man who was being helped from the Buick one hundred years old.
Inkosi-Inkosikazi was dressed in a mismatched suit, the jacket brown, the trousers blue pinstripe. A mangy leopard-skin cloak fell from his shoulders. In his right hand he carried a beautifully beaded fly switch, the symbol of an important chief. His hair was whiter than raw cotton, tufts of snowy beard sprang from his chin and only three yellowed teeth remained in his mouth. His eyes burned sharp and clear, like the eyes of the old rooster.
My granpa briefly welcomed Inkosi-Inkosikazi and granted him permission to stay overnight on the farm. The old man nodded, showing none of the customary obsequiousness expected from a kaffir, and my granpa shook the old man's bony claw and returned to his chair on the stoep.
Nanny, who had rubbed earth on her forehead like all the other women, finally spoke. "Lord, the women have brought food and we have beer freshly fermented."
Inkosi-Inkosikazi ignored her, which I thought was pretty brave of him, and ordered one of the women to untie the cockerels. With a squawking and flapping of stunted wings all but one rose and dashed helter-skelter toward open territory. The old cock who looked like Granpa rose slowly, then, calm as you like, he walked over to a heap of corn and started pecking away.
"Catch the feathered devils," Inkosi-Inkosikazi suddenly commanded.
With squeals of delight the chickens were rounded up again. The ice had been broken as five of the women, each holding a chicken upside down by the legs, waited for the old man's instructions. Inkosi-Inkosikazi squatted down and with his finger traced five circles, each about two feet in diameter, in the dust, muttering incantations. Then he signaled for one of the women to bring over a cockerel. Grabbing the old bird and using its beak as a marker, he retraced the first circle on the ground, then laid the cockerel inside the circle, where it lay unmoving. He proceeded to do the same thing to the other four chickens until each lay in its own circle. As each chicken was laid to rest there would be a gasp of amazement from the women.
Product details
- Publisher : Ballantine Books; Media tie-in edition (September 29, 1996)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 544 pages
- ISBN-10 : 034541005X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0345410054
- Reading age : 12 - 17 years
- Lexile measure : 940L
- Item Weight : 14.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.4 x 1.16 x 8.18 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #22,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #504 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
- #589 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
- #1,541 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Bryce Courtenay, AM (14 August 1933 – 22 November 2012) was a South African novelist who also held Australian citizenship. He is one of Australia's best-selling authors, notable for his book The Power of One.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Yahoo! Blog from Sunnyvale, California, USA [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Courtenay has produced rich characters that come to life on the page. You cheer, cry and cringe in horror as you follow the life of Peekay and the people he interacts with. In addition, the lush, inspiring, beautiful and harsh descriptions of South Africa make the reader feel as if they are there and is not only the background of the story but Africa is the story of Peekay. The novel begins with Peekay being shipped off to a boarding school at age five. He is haraassed, tortured, and abused by the "judge" and his posse but is a survivor who is determined to live. On a semster break he encounters a man who is a boxer and shows him kindness, dignity and begins to explain the power of one. This has such a profound influence on Peekay that his life obsession after this meeting is to be the welterweight champion of the world. The power of one is really the power of believeing in yourself. To follow your dreams and to be authentic. Through a series of moving freindships with the adults in Peekay's life he begins to understand this. Doc, a brilliant musician and botanist plays a central role in his life and urges him to be himself and to show others his extraordinary intellect. He teaches him and shares in his love of Africa. As Peekay emerges from merely surviving to fully inhabiting his person he begins to understand more fully the power of one. He meets Geel Piet a man in prison who is more tortured than Peekay was in boarding school simply because of the color of his skin. He teaches Peekay how to box and Peekay in return accepts him for who he is and loves him. As Peekay finds his place through his acceptance of others he gains a mythical status with the African people in the community. He becomes the "tadpole angel" who can unite the black and white races together. His friendship with Morrie, who is Jewish, and also feels like an outsider has a profound effect on Peekay. At prep school for the first time he has a friend of his own age. Morrie finds that Peekay's immediate acceptance of him although he is Jewish amazing and the two find that they have much in common including their equal brilliance. Not only does Peekay's life change because of these friendships, but what he finds is that he has a profound impact on these people's life as well. There are many other people in Peekays life who influence it and move it and the reader is held spellbound as they watch the fine web that Cortenay has woven and marvels in the intricacies of life that can be conveyed through writing. This is a life changing book and the reader will be the better for having read it.
A boy of English heritage is born in South Africa after the Boer war and during the rise of Nazi Germany. He suckles at the breast of a loving nanny the first 2 1/2 years of his life. Nanny provides physical and emotional nourishment. Grandpa is a male figure-head with some, but little, positive influence. Father unknown. Mother has a nervous breakdown and is sent away.
At 5 yrs of age, the boy is sent to a boarding school where he is taunted, teased and physically abused. The "Judge," (an older boy with a swastika tattooed on his arm), pronounces sins committed by the boy and punishment to follow. The boy is called "Pisskop" because he wets the bed. Pisskop learns it is better to endure the torture,and never give his tormenters the satisfaction of seeing him cry. He is a determined, precocious child of genius level intelligence. But how will he survive the mistreatment by Boer children and Nazi sympathizers?
He miraculously survives the torture for almost 2 years. Then, he is called to live with his grandpa and now cured mother. For this meeting, he must no longer go bare-foot. Tackies are bought from a Jewish man who renames him "Peekay." What kind of name is "Pisskop" for a nice little boy?
On the train ride home, Peekay meets a professional boxer. Within 24 hours, Peekay learns about boxing, sees a boxing match, and makes a definitive decision to become the welterweight champion of the world.
His mother has become a born-again Christian. His grandpa - still a figure head. Peekay walks the countryside, meets Professor Von Vollensteen - the "Doc." Doc is the fairy godfather who becomes Peekay's most devoted friend, mentor and teacher. Doc is a musician, photographer and botanist. He is later imprisoned because he is a German.
Peekay is sent to a boarding school to be educated. He is far more intelligent than peers his age. He moves upward quickly in educational ranks. He wins a scholarship to the Prince of Wales School where he meets Morris, a Jewish boy of like intelligence. They become best friends.
Peekay has, from 7 years of age, learned to fight as a boxer. He shows unusual talent and is given boxing lessons. His best coach is the multi-racial prisoner, Geel Piet. Peekay visits Doc in prison, takes piano lessons and boxing lessons. The Black prisoners call him "Tadpole Angel" - an angel sent to rescue them. They know that Peekay smuggled tobacco, sugar and rations to them. Peekay feels the "power of one" after winning a boxing match. But it is not only about winning - "the power of one is above all, the power to believe in yourself."
Peekay and Morrie test for Rhodes scholarships. The scholarship committee believes that Peekay's boxing goals make him a lesser candidate despite his remarkable intelligence and test scores. Peekay refuses Morrie's offer to pay his tuition to Oxford. Peekay goes to work in a copper mine, earns enough to pay his own way.
At the copper mine, Peekay is met by his childhood tormenter, the Judge. The Judge, in a drunken stupor, threatens to kill Peekay. Peekay is lighter and smaller, but with superior intelligence and boxing skills, he pummels the Judge in vengeance and fury. He has his revenge. He is on his way to Oxford and boxing glory.
A fairy-tale? Once tormented child conquers hatred, fear and ignorance, and spreads tolerance, love and knowledge and lives happily ever after? Simple story? End of story?
No, there is more. There is love and emotion intertwined within the bonding of Peekay and Professor "Doc" Von Vollensteen. Doc - a Darwinian character who grades the best by "an eleven of ten" - yes, "schmarty pants," "absoloodle"! You cannot help but love and laugh with them. And learn...Doc teaches Peekay to find botanical specimens. Doc's description of the cactus is priceless. Doc teaches Peekay to play the piano well, yet knows Peekay will never be a great pianist.
There is despair. You feel racial injustice. Hatred. Whites against Blacks. Boers against rooineks (Brits). Nazis against Jews. You swell with pride when young Peekay defends and helps the Blacks who are imprisoned solely because of their color.
There is humor. You laugh when fat "Big Hattie," over 6 ft. tall gets trapped between bunks in the train.
There is sadness. You cry when Geel Piet is hacked to death and there is no punishment for the crime. You feel Peekay's pain when Doc goes to his death. You feel his sense of spirituality in the atmosphere surrounding Doc's body.
There is much to learn - about the Boer war, the Crimean war, Nazis and Hitler, religion, education, boxing, botany, prison life in South Africa, Apartheid, South Africa. You'd like to learn more. Research.
Courtenay's characterizations put you there. He makes you feel. He makes you feel that even though the character named Peekay may be a Cinderfella, and the story may be a fairy tale, too good to be true, they are what life should be about. The power of one is really one person's power to improve the world. The power of one, when achieved, is power for all.
I had mixed emotions about Peekay's need for REVENGE against the Judge. Peekay was devoted to humanitarianism and justice. If revenge is a form of justice, it is a in a negative sense. But most readers would say hooray for Peekay anyway!
Top reviews from other countries
Love it, reread at least once a year.
I listened to the audiobook which was fantastic with the South African accents.
I highly recommend this novel! I just started the sequel Tandia, also well written.
The wonderful story and page turning narrative has an important life lesson to help a teenage reader have the confidence to face his own challenges