Reviews

hierdie boek het my soveel emosies laat voel. die band wat saul en oupoot het, die liefde en woede wat hy teenoor die bos en die mense daar binne voel is so mooi geskryf dat jy saam met die karakter lag, huil, skree en jouself soek. saul wat vir homself opstaan en weet dat hy beter verdien maar ook dat hy verward is oor wat om te doen tref jou in jou eensame siel en jy word, nee jy is, saul barnard.

christineventer_cv's review against another edition

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5.0

Find me crying at the end. Matthee knows how to pull at the heart strings as usual but this was even more heart wrenching on my little environmentalist heart. Gives one a lot to think about regarding our relationship with nature and how we see ourselves. A though everyone needs to have especially in the age of rhino poaching and environmental catastrophes happening one after the other.

mariannestrauss's review

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emotional informative inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

slyallm's review

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1.0

So completely awful. I have to assume that the high ratings are for the Afrikaans version, which might not have all the anachronisms -- like a mid-19th century woodcutter describing himself as "shell-shocked" -- or the comically wooden dialog.

The biggest flaw has nothing to do with translation, though: Mathee villifies the racism of English versus Dutch, without even acknowledging the broader context of racism that would become Apartheid. There is one significant black character, who serves as combination witch doctor, gun-bearer, and manservant. At one point a young woodcutter, mocked by the English townspeople, asks his father, "are we even white?" For 1984, this is an appallingly tone-deaf book.

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