The Power of One By Bryce Courtenay

 

The Power of One

By Bryce Courtenay

 I thought this book would be about something entirely different based on what I read on the back cover.

Peekay is an English boy growing up in South Africa during the end of World War II and the apartheid. When very young he is bullied at school to the point where he learns to close himself off from others, but he meets a few people who give him lasting life advice. The main person being a welterweight boxer who tells him to think with his head before thinking with his heart.

As he grows he has the goal of being a world welterweight boxing champion and that driving goal drives the decisions he makes. Peekay is extremely intelligent beyond his years and is doted on by teachers outside of his schooling, but he also becomes the project of a German pianist named Doc.

Peekay grows up around racism and benefits from apartheid, though he makes friends with several Africans throughout his life, and is a more liberal thinker than most of the people that surround him, including his born again Christian mother who tries desperately to get Peekay to convert, which he refuses to do.

Most things, after he is very young, come easy to Peekay and he doesn't have a lot of setbacks. Several things happen in the book that point to Peekay being regarded as the source of hope for the African tribes who are oppressed by the white South Africans. Both of these things bothered me about this book. I found the whole "savior" complex to be not only insulting to Africans, but not feasible. I also wanted Peekay to have to struggle in this coming of age novel. He did at the end of the book, when he doesn't get accepted to the college he wants to attend, even though he's smart enough, as well as being the victim of a mining accident. But it wasn't enough for me.

Unfortunately, I expected something more to do with World War II and South Africa and the "epic journey" the back cover promises. Also, most of the book is about boxing, which doesn't really interest me. It fell short for me. I'm giving it 3 stars.