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Why BOOKPOODAH Is
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This book MUST be read by every living soul. Period. It wires the brain forever with a pre-disposition to skeptically view any fad, fashion, just cause, accepted wisdom, media hype or sure thing. Reading this book can immunize you against mailing money to heating oil futures investment services, as well as wearing leisure suits and platform shoes. Read it NOW or risk remaining part of the aphid farm.
I suppose I should do some research before publishing this review. I should consult the opinions of professional historians, probably. What I am about to say may be total nonsense, but this is my page, so what the heck?
My earliest awareness of South Africa was that it was one of many parts of the World colored red on the map pulled down in front of the blackboard during Geography time in the fourth grade. Part of the British Empire. That was as far as it went until a few years later when I picked up a vague notion of the Boer War that occurred there and that a lot of diamonds and gold were mined there. In my middle teens I read Something of Value and thought it a very fine book, indeed.
That was about it until I read "The Covenant". I now know a lot about South Africa. At least it is a lot relative to what I knew before. It is not the historical poodah, however, that causes me to include this book in the "Important" category. It is the deeper understanding and appreciation of the social and cultural forces which made South Africa what it was and is. And, I am amazed to watch, Michener predicted a very important component of the nature of post-apartheid South Africa.
The original Boers were Dutch Reformists. They were fundamentalists who took their religion seriously and their Bible literally. When they first assayed to press eastward from north of the Cape and inhabit the land of the Zulus, they met, as one might expect, stiff resistance. Their wagon train of four hundred people (including women and children) was soon surrounded by 17,500 very agitated Zulu warriors. They had a day or two before hostilities began and made use of the time by writing a contract with God, which all signed. This document, the "Covenant", promised that if God would see them through the pending confrontation, they would forever heed His injunctions as given to the Hebrews upon entering Canaan after their forty-year trip from Egypt to the promised land, i.e., they would make the indigenous population their slaves ("hewers of wood and carriers of water") and would never mix with them - they would forever remain apart from them. In Dutch, apartness is "apartheid".
During the ensuing hostilities, which lasted, as I remember, two days, several thousand Zulu warriors were killed and they retired from the field. The Boers suffered two minor wounds. Well, hey! A deal's a deal, right? Specially with God! According to Michener, this "Covenent" with God was the bedrock of national and social policy which guided The Union of South Africa thenceforth. So now we understand it in part.
Michener's other important observation is that the m'Beles (the majority indigenous population) are remarkably gentle and, by European standards, forgiving to a fault. He advised that the whites were at risk of eventually exhausting this forebearance and that they should dissolve the policies of apartheid, and, if they were to do so, they would be surprised at the leniency that would be displayed. Subsequent events have borne him out. To me, the performance of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee is one of the most astounding and heartening developments of all time.
Click here for more books by Michener
What a shame this book has of late been denounced as racist. When I read it in the third grade I enjoyed it as a great adventure story and was unconscious of the gently implanted message that racism was not only cruel, but absurd.
Seriously funny.
The fascinating story of his days in the Nevada silver fields. The funniest tale was about his lining up with the other sex-starved miners to peep at a new woman in town through a knothole in the wall of a cafe kitchen - when he got his turn, he was treated to the sight of a ninety-year-old woman cooking pancakes. He didn't get rich there, so he had to go to Sacramento and write for a living. Lucky us!
Starr, Clinton and Lewinsky - The Official Poodah!
If you are looking for informal, non-professional, irreverent and entertaining investment advice, check out the "Drooling Oatmeal Investment Club". Poodah (of this site) contributes occasional pieces there.
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