A Far Off Place

A Far Off Place is the sequel to the bestseller by Laurens Van der Post, 'A Story Like The Wind'. Hunters Drift is a farm in Matabeleland (today part of Zimbabwe) It is the home of Pierre Paul Joubert known affectionately by all who live there as 'Ouwa', where European, Matabele and Bushmen live in harmony with each other , and with the great flora and fauna of Africa. This is before the forces of destruction and death, Marxist terrorists, massacre the whole population of Hunter's Drift , as they carve a path of blood through Southern Africa. The only survivors are Ouwa's teenage son, Francois, Nonnie, the young daughter of a colonial governor and his Portuguese wife, both murdered by the terrorists and Francois' beloved hunting dog, Hintza. They are joined by a young Bushman, Xhabbo, and his wife, Nuin Tarra. The four young people and brave dog , must pass through bush and desert , to safety , while pursued by the cold-blooded killers.'A Far Off Place' is a heartwarming story of love hope and courage, and of survival against overwhelming odds. It is about the fine balance between all living creatures. Not least it highlights the death and suffering caused so many times by those forces of evil that hide behind the slogans of revolution and 'Liberation'.

I read A Far Off Place while on a trip to Africa. Wow! I'm hooked on Vander Post! I read A Far off Place before I read A Story Like the Wind. A Far Off Place moves faster - the first book sort of sets the story up and gets the characters ready. Also try Flamingo Feather by Laurens Van Der Post.

This book begins where A Story Like the Wind ends. The home deep in Africa, where young Francois Joubert had grown to near manhood, was overrun by a well equipped army of black Africans led by a Maoist Chinese officer with Africans and two Europeans as subalterns. The Maoist officer ordered that everyone be killed at Hunter's Drift, where Francois had grown up, and at nearby Silverton Hill, where a retired British Naval officer, along with his half Portuguese daughter, known to Francois as Nonnie, were having a home built by South African coloureds. With impeccable logic, the Chinese officer wanted no survivors, because 1)Hunter's Drift was to becme a staging point for an assault on a mining city, requiring secrecy, and 2)a survivor could tell the tale of what had been done. Francois was a special target. But Francois and Nonnie were not at the scene when the attack wiped out the settlements. They had been called from the immediate area by a Bushaman whom Francois had earlier freed from a steel animal trap. The Bushman, Xhobba, had now returned with his wife, Nuin-Tara, and the four, and Francois' hunting dog, Hintza, son of great hunting dogs, had now to set off upon a flight across Africa to the sea, a trip which would take more than a year, during which they bonded deeply and were beset by enemies and eventually by disease. When the five reached the sea, there is a celebratory, triumphalist, ending to the book, two such events, in fact, that seem out of place in light of the slow, patient, painful crossing. (Survival would have been celebration enough.) But between these celebrations the words of Mopani, the great hunter turned conservationist, bring to us the spiritual philosophy of Laurens van der Post, most clearly summarized in a short prayer once uttered by Mopani, "Our Father, which art in Heaven, Thy will be done. Our Mother, which art in earth, thy love be fulfilled, and love will be made one"(307). An underlying theme of the book is that the inner and outer worlds are united: "There is a profound interdependence of world without and world within, and experience in either one of them is also valid in the other. Whenever one succeeds in breaking the code wherein their meaning is transmitted from one dimension to the other, this validity is so marked that one wonders whether there are really two different dimensions and not just two aspects of one and the same whole. The visible world being merely the spirit seen from without; the spirit, just the world without seen from within"(153). What the travelers have seen and endured affects them, and what they have done and will do affects the world around them, on and on through time.

After seeing the movie years ago I finally came across book. I loved the movie, but the book even more. It was articulate, passionate, and though provoking. Van der Post expresses the emotions and actions of the characters so vividly it is as if you are there witnessing them. I read this before "A Story of the Wind" and did not have a problem understanding (although the movie background did help). A must read for all ages.