Damn. I just finished listening to this audio book. It was so well narrated, and I became totally engrossed into the story. I read The Power of One about fives years ago, and truthfully I had forgotten much of the story. It will take me a while to digest the ending, though. I promise, I won't spoil it for anyone who is contemplating reading this book.
I love a good story teller, and I'm not a literature snob. While there are reviews who don't care for Bryce Courtenay-- I'm not one of them. So far, most of Bryce Courtenay's books that I've read never fails to deliver and capture my attention. When paired with the narration of Humphrey Bower, I am riveted to my headphones and I go on marathon "listens" . (Mr. Bower could read a science magazine to me, and I'd hang on to every word.)
As for the story line, it's sickening to read about apartheid, and the injustices done to the native people of Africa. Bruce Courtenay doesn't spare any details, either.
As in typical Bryce Courtenay fashion, there is always one antagonist that you learn to loathe. I can't spell Hilden-hais, because I listened to this in audio. I have no idea how his name is spelled. What a villain. I couldn't wait to find out how he would meet his demise. Again, no spoilers if and how...but he's as wicked and cold as they come.
I'm seeing a pattern with Bryce Courtenay where Christians are continuously painted as hypocrites-- cruel and misguided people. Sadly, there are people like that and it makes me wonder what his own childhood was all about. It's a theme I've found in every book of his that I've read. Thank God I don't have friends like that!
I've also learned that I need to expect any characters that I get attached to, might end up dead. I won't say who, when or why... but dang it, it happens.
The ending... what? It left me hanging, to be honest. I had to rewind the last minute, to see if I missed something. There'd better be a sequel. If not, it's too late. Sadly, this author is now gone from his earthly body. I pray he found peace.

South Africa. Apartheid

It was a time when it was better to be born a white man's dog rather than a black human. Tandia illustrated what the non-whites in South Africa suffered, and brutally so. Reading it, I can see why the oppressed would turn to fear and hate (and who would not? when life is nothing but misery and humiliations).

Yet the books also showed me why the oppressors did so. The white people honestly believed that they were decent, God-fearing, law-abiding people. How could they be capable of such inhuman cruelty? The answer was simply that they consider the non-whites as lesser people ("They were not like us! Those dumb violent kaffirs!") and therefore not "one of them". There was also the paranoia and fierce belief of keeping the purity of the blood. Those two reasoning combined was enough justification for them.

Then, how could one break this system of hate and violence? This was what one of the protagonist, Peekay, struggled to do. He entered law school, became a barrister, and did his best to protect the oppressed using the law despite the law itself being unfair. His effort was ultimately futile, for hate and madness has consumed the entire nation.

But in the end, haven't we become a better people? The apartheid was eventually abolished (I have to read more to find out how) and so did slavery in other countries. And yet, the economic disparity now is such that the poor live like slaves. Even the hate come back easily. The inequality between the blacks and the whites in the US is a dangerous symptom. The right wing extremists are now taking hold of the Europeans, even in Germany the nation that already went through Nazi. It seems people can forget the past quite easily (I think migrants is a dirty word in US and Europe now). The seed of hate has been sown, and when the violence ripened and exploded, will there be any hope left? I remain skeptic, for hate comes easily, while forgiveness is hard to find. I can only hope that it won't happen in my lifetime.

I have so many thoughts. I don't think it should have ended the way it did, but it did so.. I don't see the purpose of Gideon Mandoma's life in the grand scheme of the way things played out. I think the villain could have suffered more, there was more that should have been pinned to him. It started out intensely, I was enjoying it, then somewhere somehow things got lost. A string of bad decisions were made by the main characters that landed them in their final ending. A lot could have been avoided but I suppose the author made those decisions for the plot. I think it was well written, and the audiobook reader did a fantastic job. I just wish it turned out differently. By chapter 30/41 I started to wonder how the author could possibly reconcile what's happening for a happy ending, and well, he didn't so that made sense I suppose. Chapter 40 and 41 were unexpected, but not in the way that one rooting for the characters might want. There was no grace and justice for the characters in the end. Again I ask, what purpose was Gideon Mandoma's life compared to the characters we were supposed to be in love with?

For me, this started really strong but didn't end so well. I liked the opening chapters, alternating between Tandia's story and Peekay's, giving time and attention to both characters and their experiences. I found myself constantly wanting to read on. But once the stories merged, it lost something. For the most part, it was Tandia's perspective. Despite the title, the story hung on Peekay and his work. He got to vanquish their common enemy, got the climactic final scenes. Tandia ended up only as the vessel for his foreshadowed eventual triumph in changing South Africa. Disappointing.

This book was very unexpected, I felt the blurb on back of book rather misleading, it made it sound like an uplifting romance? I recently read The Power of One, which was a really magical uplifting journey (with a few dark places). This book was the opposite! It is a real dark & gritty journey into the shameful and shocking recent history of South Africa and Apartheid. The plot never did what you thought it might. I'm not sure I'm happy with the ending... and was the author leaving it open for a sequel which I don't think materialised?

So the first part of the book is all about Tandia - right from the word go it was such a truly shocking shocking tale!

Then we rejoin Peekay. His tale is picked up seamlessly from where we left him - down the mines - at the end of the last book.

And finally their lives join in a most unexpected way. In fact, there are many surprising character links from one book to the next. The author is genius in crafting such varied & interesting characters. The names he gives them are fabulous - Juicy Fruit Mambo! Too Many Fingers Bembi! Love it! Peekay's fabulous granddad was sadly largely absent. As is his father (again), I can only conclude Peekay was illegitimate? Really love the Twins Dee & Dum, what beautiful souls! The you have the pure evil Geldenhuis, who is the perfect nasty villain to Peekay's uniting character. I couldn't help thinking that Gideon Mandoma was inspired by (not pretending to be) Nelson Mandela.

But the truly shocking thing about this work of fiction, which will haunt me, is that it must have been inspired by things the author witnesses or researched about his own country! The things that must have gone on during apartheid just defies belief to some one like me, who is of mixed heritaege and was lucky enough to have had the freedoms and relative peace to be me in England. This book has given me plenty to think about.


With The Power of One, there are some fabulous little nuggets in there that I just have to share. (Page numbers are from the edition I read ISBN 0 7493 0576 2).

Page 432 - 'I don't love Jackson, I just don't hate him because he's black. Give me another reason to hate him!'

Page 433 - I'm sorry, but I can't build up an emotional reaction to Jackson based on his colour. My life, my future life, is dedicated to the proposition that all men should be born equal. What happens to them after that is up to them. But they must be given equal social and intellectual opportunity based on their minds, their skills and their personalities. When you declaire a man or a woman inferior, second class, because of pigmentation, then you sin beyond any possibility of redemption.

Page 545 - When I went overseas, I mean to the university, I thought I'd find people, maybe even a whole nation which was free from prejudice. But, of course, I was wrong. The English were no better than the rest of us. The English working-class mother points out the runny-nosed kids from the Irish fmaiky who live further down the lane and warns her children not to play with them. When her kids ask "why, mummy?" She replies, "They're dirty, you'll catch something bad. Stay away from them, they're different from you!" Or if it isn't the Irish, it's the middle-class mother talking about the working-class family at the end of the street. Prejudice is a universal condition, whether it's the colour of your skin, the difference in your accent, the length of your nose, the way you dress or the food you eat.

Page 545-546 - anybody can be the target for prejudice, all you have to be is too something. Too short, too fat, too clever, too big, too small, too slow, too new, too different from what others think of as normal.

Page 546-547 - The only way to eliminate prejudice is to eliminate the differences which create the fear, and with the fear gone, the hatered will go too. We must integrate society.

I felt like this book just went on and on, without any real aim...A lot of things could have been left out. Also I felt like it was skipping through time without any real explanation, leaving me with a sort of whiplash.
It was only at the end that it began to get interesting, and quickened the pace which was to my liking. Overall ths book left me feeling unsatisfied.

Another great book by Bryce Courtenay, read by Humphrey Bower. I didn't like this quite as much as The Power of One, maybe because life was so dismal for so many of the characters. At the same time, characters like Mama Tequila and Juicy Fruit Mambo were full of life, despite the hardships and I felt the emptiness in Tandia's life when they weren't around.
Actually, that may be the difference between the books. Usually, Courtenay replaces characters with others who are just as interesting in his narrative. This time, I just felt loss.

Rating: ?? stars

My interest in this book waxed and waned. I was quite invested at first, then it was kind of a slog, then it got interesting and came to a natural climax like 3/4 of the way through, and the rest was a bit of a meandering... nothing. I think I'll sit on it for awhile and see whether the pros outweigh the cons in my mind before giving it a rating. In any case, it was just too long.

As I understand it, this is the sequel to The Power of One, which I loved!!! But I couldn't get more than about a 3rd of the way through before I put it down. It was dark, depressing (yes, the Power of One isn't a 'happy-ever-after' story either) and the first part of the book focused too much on sex and prositution. I understand that this is Tandia's story therefore we need her background, but how many pages can we read about her working in a brothel.

I wanted to find out the ending to Peekay's story and I didn't get far enough into the book to know how Tandia even relates to the story line of Peekay. I did skip to the end and read part of that and still didn't get how they relate, though once I read that Peekay died, I didn't care to find out.

I loved The Power of One and really looked forward to reading Tandia. An excellent book and fitting sequel for Pekay. His fight against Apartheid is heartbreaking (how could it not be?) and watching him throughout the story is inspiring. The African mythology and tribal stories bring such depth and meaning to the present-day action in the book. The only criticism I would have of this wonderful book is Tandia herself. She felt very real and was very compelling at the beginning, but as the book goes along she gets thinner and more distant in character. I think, because there isn't quite enough from her point of view, or deep enough point of view, I don't connect with her as closely. Still, brilliant book that is huge in scope and theme, and Bryce Courtenay is an incredible writer. I intend to read every book he has written!

This book starts of very interesting with Tandia’s rape, and how she becomes involved with selling her body for money. Tandia meets PK and then I’m lost as there are way too many characters, even more than The Power of One. The author is exceptional, but he loses me with his lengthy descriptions and endless characters.

"But I started to realise that it doesn't begin like this, that anybody can be the target for prejudice, all you have to be is 'too' something. Too short, too fat, too clever, too big, too small, too slow, too new, too different from what others think of as normal."

Tandia is the sequel to the author's The Power of One and in this novel Courtenay attempts to look at South African political situation during the 1950's and 1960's through the eyes of a teenage girl. Tandia is a mixed-race bastard, the result of an affair between her Indian father and his black house servant. Tandia is brutally and raped by a South African police man, tossed from her home by her father's jealous wife and finds herself having to take refuge in a brothel deep in the veldt under the watchful eye of Mama Tequila.

Meanwhile, Peekay, the young 'white' protagonist from The Power of One, is now at Oxford, reading law and furthering his boxing career as he endeavours to become the world boxing champion. As he matures he is compelled to explore not only himself but also his interactions with those around him.

When Peekay returns to his homeland he finds a country divided by racial segregation, where oppression of the non-white population is rife, but one that can rally behind their love of boxing. Peekay is fairly unusual in his country, he is not prejudiced by race, instead is willing not to look at the person inside rather than the colour of their skin and who, despite being 'white', is revered by the 'black' population as the 'Tadpole Angel'.

On his return to South Africa Peekay opens a legal practice, trying to defend the disenfranchised. With race relations at fever pitch, to do so he must lock horns with apartheid system. Tandia is extremely beautiful but also has an extraordinary mind, so when she too graduates from law school she joins Peekay at his practice. As they work ever closer together so they also become ever more emotionally attached, a big taboo in a country where mixed race relationships are outlawed.

In many respects the title of this novel is a bit of a misnomer as it actually features more of Peekay's life than it does Tandia's. It is also a pretty hefty tome, my own copy was 900 pages long, but this does at least allow the author to combine well-developed characters with a plot that is rich with detail allowing the reader to immerse themselves in the political events and police implementation of them as they come to life on the page. There is a long list of minor characters, who all add to the richness of the narrative. As the story builds the reader can see Tandia’s growth, personal and emotional, as she battles to find her place in South Africa’s repressive political system whilst also adding to Peekay's own life story leading the reader on two winding but gradually converging paths.

The story is full of twists and turns, there is a mixture of hope and despair, love and hatred, politics and witchcraft. One can only imagine South Africa during the 1950s and 60s, where the Afrikaner population is willing to defend their way of life at any cost, the subjugation of the black population and the brutality that is inflicted upon it. I have always been interested in history and in particular social history, so, not that I would ever condone it, found myself being drawn into the apartheid mentality and how the Afrikaners justified it. This makes it all the more remarkable that the country has managed to reform itself without imploding into sectarian retribution. You can only stand back and admire the willingness of people like Nelson Mandela and the other black leaders who have been willing to work with their oppressors, for the better good of the country, rather than simply drive them into the sea.

Due to it's length and scope I found this novel to be not quite up to the standard of it's predecessor and, as with the former, could have benefited from a little judicious pruning, as parts of it was excessive and repetitive. The ending came as a bit of a shock and overall I enjoyed reading it.