Madison Fields's Ownd. This is not a book for the squeamish, if you love children. Whitethorn is another example of Bryce Courtenay's innate ability to tell a story from the POV of a young boy. The time is White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people frantical. Format ebook. Author Bryce Courtenay. Publisher Penguin Random House Australia. Release 08 January Subjects Fiction Literature.
Search for a digital library with this title Search by city, ZIP code, or library name Learn more about precise location detection. View more libraries From Bryce Courtenay comes a novel of Africa.
The climax and denouement are understated. Courtenay finds the voices for a score of characters from different backgrounds and treated as they are from Fitzsaxby's perspective we find some of them unsympathetic; life is a nasty business in Courtenay's work, but marvelous when we learn to stand up for ourselves and overcome the prejudices in other people which trap us.
Apr 27, Sharon rated it liked it Shelves: tried-failed. Wavered between love and then just boredom. Gave up at page of pages but did skim read pages to find out what happened to Mattress. If I had no other book ever to read I think this one would have been a winner as it just took forever to get to the point. I don't really know why it didn't work as it could have been amazing if it had been condensed. It was just far too lengthy and repetitive for my liking. Seven hundred pages of brilliant storytelling!
Not hard to fall in love with the main character. Very moving. Highly recommended. View all 4 comments. Jan 27, Peter rated it it was amazing. It was only Bryce Courtenay's death which led me to read this book - the first of his works I have ever tried.
Reading his obituary in the Times I was surprised I had never heard of him and wanted to make up for that deficiency. I'm so glad I did. Whitethorn is a sweeping work which deals with many of the issues of today, set in the recent past of South Africa and Kenya.
It's a doorstop of a volume - it could easily have been two or three books - and so it's taken me 3 weeks to find enough time t It was only Bryce Courtenay's death which led me to read this book - the first of his works I have ever tried.
It's a doorstop of a volume - it could easily have been two or three books - and so it's taken me 3 weeks to find enough time to complete it. But I have found it compulsive reading - picking it up at any opportunity.
In some respects Courtenay is an African Dickens - his main character grows up from a bullied orphan in a hideous Afrikaans institution to being a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. Dec 06, Amanda Patterson rated it really liked it. Whitethorne is passionate, demanding and unputdownable. Tom Fitzsaxby is an orphan. It is and the eve of World War II.
Some Afrikaners believe Hitler will liberate South Africa. Tom is six years old and has an English name. He is open to abuse from the Afrikaans staff at the orphanage. The boys work together to hide his beloved puppy, Tinker. After Mattress is murdered, Tom promises that will avenge his friend. A teacher visiting the town Whitethorne is passionate, demanding and unputdownable. A teacher visiting the town tutors Tom in English. He eventually wins a full scholarship to an excellent school.
Tom achieves his goal, avenges Mattress's death. He also fallis in love love, finds friends along the way. Another superb book by Courtenay. What I found most remarkable about the writing style was that he was able to write in the style according to the age of the main character, Tom Fitzaxby, so we get less detail and clear recollection of events when he is younger and then greater detail and smarter language as he grows up.
A terrific r Another superb book by Courtenay. A terrific read and highly recommended. Feb 19, Robert rated it it was ok Shelves: i-own , uni-days , africa , bildungsroman , south-africa. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Pretty much a re-hash of Power of One. There are plot and character elements which are so similar it's ridiculous - growing up as the lone English boy in an aggressive Afrikaner community, boxing, a murdered black friend, becoming a lawyer and so on.
Sep 22, Lauren rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites. Possibly the best novel I have ever read and especially from a South African perspective. I could not put it down! Dec 07, Sean rated it it was amazing. I must say that all these nonsense reviews are from people comparing one book to another. I'm quite willing to wager than none of them have written anything worth buying and their opinions are their own.
No more. Whitethorn was a great read. Correction-- I have "listened" to each of these books, because I'm a fan of Humphrey Bower. Bower is one of my favorite audible narrators of all time, and I thoroughly enjoyed each of these books. I love Humphrey Bower's voice, and how he makes so many of the characters come alive. This book is, so far, one my favorite of Bryce Courtenay's. I have yet to read the rest of his books.
It's sad to read that Mr. Courtenay has recently passed away. He is a master storyteller, who weaves in a lot of history about South Africa. A South African friend of mine winced, when I told her I was reading this book. She said she couldn't handle it, because it was just over-the-top with violence. I get that, but how can avoid the cruely and mistreatment about an orphan, Tom Fitzsaxby, who is so poorly treated at an orphanage?
Shades of Oliver Twist, you will definitely feel angry, sad and even shocked at what this young boy endures at the hands of the cruel adults who run the orphanage. Yet, Tom finds a few adults who change the twists and turns of his adult life. Tom's childhood is the foundation that builds his determination and character.
I found a tugging at my girlie-girl heartstrings, as I read about his dog, Tinker and a few people that Tom learned to both love and trust. There were plenty of tearful moments, for me as well. This story line took me on plenty of emotional twists and turns. To me, this story is about Tom, who has a dedication to making many injustices right. I found him to be a totally believable character. As the story comes to it's climax, I dreaded listening to a court trial-- these aren't usually my favorite story lines to read.
In this case, I couldn't stop listening to the book. I had to know the outcome. The ending left me feeling deeply touched, and opened my eyes to some of the historical events of South Africa-- the bigotry and injustices from the British. Historical fiction, like this, makes me want to do more research in learning about this very sad chapter in that country's history.
Great read, fantastic narrator. Jan 11, Marissa rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: everyone! Shelves: historicalfiction. I couldn't put this one down. Yes, i missed my subway stop more than once becuase I was so wrapped up in this one. It took Bryce about a decade to find a way back to write about South Africa again. The Power of One and Tandia were his only books set in S.
With Whithorn he revisits many of the themes found in the Power of One. In fact his character, Jack, is eerily similar to Peekay, the protagonist in the Power of One. Dare i say it, but Jack is more fully described and more carefully structured to be more believable.
While he is not a boxer, he is an orphan English boy persecuted by the Afrikaners. Instead of boarding schools, it is an orphanage which sets the stage for his troubled childhood. Both Jack and Peekay work in the copper mines as grisley boys. They eventually choose the same careers, too.
Maybe too similar for some- but a welcome reminder of what was once Peekay's story and is now Jack's story. Bryce really mastered the pace of his story, with Whitethorn.
I felt really intrigued and I really really cared about Jack's sucesses and failures. I wept with him with each and every loss in his life and mentally cheered him on with every new direction he decided to take his life. If I could I'd give this one 10 stars!! Sep 07, Donna Johnson rated it really liked it.
This book was excellent, although not as good as The Power of One. One of the frustrations was that the narrator begins as a 7 year old boy.
He is a little unreliable because he either forgets important information and fills in the blanks later or he rambles on and on about unimportant things - but I guess that's how a 7 year old's mind works.
My only other issue with this book was that the ending was very abrupt. Courtenoy builds you up for the ending and the climax takes place in one chapter This book was excellent, although not as good as The Power of One. Courtenoy builds you up for the ending and the climax takes place in one chapter and without any fanfare. The ending also seems like he got tired of writing and he ended the story almost like a movie where all the loose ends are tied up in the last 5 minutes.
It's a little disappointing because I got to the end of the book and turned the page expecting more and there was no more to read. I had to reread the last chapter because I wasn't quite sure how it ended.
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