Book description
This is the story of a South African boy, Peter, who grows to manhood
through a hard course of physical and emotional experiences.
The scene, a heroic one, is set both on sea and on land. Peter is
exposed to the conflicts set up by other characters, chief amongst
whom are a dedicated and fanatical whaling captain, a Zulu stoker, a
famous white hunter and his daughter. He learns how men can become
obsessed by greed and the will to power; and he witnesses the struggle
of natural man to come to terms with the demands of contemporary life.
Peter's developing relationship with captain and crew; the fury and
beauty of the chase; the fanaticism of the two great hunters - these
are the leading motifs in Laurens van der Post's stirring narrative.
His remarkable knowledge of whaling, and the force of his imagination
sounding deeper then leviathan himself, carry the reader irresistibly forwards.
Laurens van der Post was born in South Africa in 1906, the
thirteenth of fifteen children in a family of Dutch and French
Huguenot origins. He grew up in the heart of Bushman country, a
thousand miles from the sea, before going on a long voyage to Japan
that was a to prove a formative experience and vital in later life. He
settled in England in the 1930s, writing and farming until the
outbreak of the war, when he joined the British army and served with
distinction in the Western Desert, Abyssinia, Burma and the Far East.
Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he was held in captivity for three
years before returning to active service as a member of Lord
Mountbatten's staff in Indonesia and, later, as military attaché to
the British minister in Java.
Since 1949 he has taken part in many official expeditions and
missions to Africa, and his journey in search of the Bushmen in 1957
formed the basis of his famous documentary film, 'The Lost World of
the Kalahari'. Other television films he has made include 'A Region of
Shadow', 'All Africa Within Us'. And a three-part series on the life
and work of Carl Gustav Jung, whom he met after the war and grew to
know as a close personal friend. The highly acclaimed film 'Merry
Christmas, Mr Lawrence', released in 1983, was based on his book
The Seed and the Sower.
Laurens van der Post was awarded the C. B.E for services in the
field, and in 1980 he was knighted. With his wife, Ingaret Giffard,
Sir Laurens divides his time in England between his home in Chelsea
and a cottage in Suffolk.
