FIELA'S CHILD

Rating:
Summary: Such a good story - so true - so beatiful
Review: Dalene Matthee has long been regarded as one of the masters of the (Afrikaans) Romantic Novel. When we were given Fiela se Kind (English translation: Fiela's Child) as a setwork, I like most students viewed the book with trepidation. After 10 pages, I went and bought myself a copy of the book.

This is the story of a white baby, abandoned by his natural parents, who is found and 'adopted' by a Coloured woman (Fiela), who raises the child, Benjamin, as her own. It explores the joys of Benjamin's childhood, the education that he gets from Fiela (so very different to what he would have got in a white household), and eventually the heartbreak when he is torn away from the only mother he has, and is given to a white wood cutter, who claims that Benjamin is his child who went missing in the forest.

This is a story told with a great sensitivity of the life styles of the people who inhabited the Cape in the mid 1800's. It is a compelling book, heartwrenching at times, humerous at times, but always, it gives the reader a feel for what was happening in the hearts of the people involved. The Characters may come across as being very simple, but that is the essence of the book. Fiela's simple, but pure, love for her child, the woodcutter's simple, but hard way of life, and Benjamin's simple non-understanding of why he was taken away from the woman he loved, and given to a man he hated. His lack of understanding that he is "better" than Fiela because he is white, and she isn't, and his stuggle to adjust to a new and totally unfamiliar set of rules.

This book could be described a bit like a prison, because once it gets hold of you, it doesn't let go, not until it has finished with you, and not you with it

Rating:
Summary: Movie
Review: I read this book in Grade 11 at school in South Africa. As part of the course we watched the movie, so I thought I'd just let the earlier reviewer looking for a movie know that one exists. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that there's only an Afrikaans copy, as the book was originally written in Afrikaans (as with all Dalene books) before being translated into English.

Rating:
Summary: Movie
Review: I read this book in Grade 11 at school in South Africa. As part of the course we watched the movie, so I thought I'd just let the earlier reviewer looking for a movie know that one exists. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that there's only an Afrikaans copy, as the book was originally written in Afrikaans (as with all Dalene books) before being translated into English.

Rating:
Summary: The Life & Struggles of the Kimoeties
Review: I read this book last when I was in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, for my English class. I loved it, and could not put it down.
Reading how Benjaman lives with Fiela and her family and then is suddenly thrust into his 'real' family, the Van Rooyens, and having to go through the struggles of finding out who he is, versus who others see him as. I loved how intense it got when he moved in with the Van Rooyins, and was coming to grips with being called Lukas, instead of Benjiman.
If you like this book, you also might like the book written by an African-American woman named Octavia Butler, who wrote a book entitled "Kindred". It is similar as far as how the whites treated the blacks, and how segragation was so apparent .

Rating:
Summary: The Life & Struggles of the Kimoeties
Review: I read this book last when I was in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, for my English class. I loved it, and could not put it down.
Reading how Benjaman lives with Fiela and her family and then is suddenly thrust into his 'real' family, the Van Rooyens, and having to go through the struggles of finding out who he is, versus who others see him as. I loved how intense it got when he moved in with the Van Rooyins, and was coming to grips with being called Lukas, instead of Benjiman.
If you like this book, you also might like the book written by an African-American woman named Octavia Butler, who wrote a book entitled "Kindred". It is similar as far as how the whites treated the blacks, and how segragation was so apparent .

Rating:
Summary: This book teaches you right from wrong. You WILL cry.
Review: If you are racist and icy-hearted you will hate this book. If you are human it will move you and outrage you like few things you have ever read.

This is the story of Fiela and her 'hand-child', Ben, who she found as a toddler, crying at her door. Set in South Africa in the mid-nineteenth century, the book draws attention to the immense power white colonialists have assumed over black native citizens, and how easily white authorities can exercise and abuse this power. This story, though, could happen in any racist society, at any time.

A weak, white woman, forced by her tyrannical husband to make a certain decision, thoughtlessly, in a life-changing court case, displays how one so weak can assume so much power simply because she is white. As a result of her words, the white, happy Benjamin is stolen from the place he knows as home and the black people he knows and loves as family. He is forced to live with this new, white family, who claim him as their lost child from several years earlier, despite the facts of the case demonstrating that this cannot be so. Ben's happiness is destroyed. His faith in humanity is destroyed. He even begins to doubt the love his black family feel for him.

As he matures, Ben's instincts tell him that this white family cannot be his, and he begins to search relentlessly for his true identity, fighting racist assumptions all the way.

The story teaches you to trust what you know is right, to follow your dreams, be strong, and never give up the fight - whether you are a man or a woman, black or white.

Rating:
Summary: a mundane read
Review: the themes of this book could be classified as "vaguely" interesting, but the writing was extremely mundane and the story plodded along tediously with heavy, dragging footsteps. i also found the story to be overly sweet and cliche. highlights of the book, if they exist, could be fiela's depth of character and her hypocrisy, but even this spark of hope is eradicated by the saccharine content. the ending was predictable from the first sentence of the book, stooping to the level of a soap opera. too bad, but an amusing read at times.

Rating:
Summary: a mundane read
Review: There is so much to be learned and so much to be absorbed inwhen reading Fiola's Child. The perfect love and acceptance between amother and a child, although different races, the still-presiding conflicts between the black and white race, the need we all have as human beings to understand who we really are, the wreched and empty lives gained by those who take and do not give, and the heartfelt passion between a man and woman, thought at once to be siblings. The plot is thick, and the end is thought provoking. I think somebody should make a movie from this book. It's truly a must-read.

Rating:
Summary: Heart wrenching scenes and some that make your veins boil!
Review: This is one of the three books that I had to study for during my O-levels two years ago. I think that this book is absolutely fabulous with many heart wrenching parts, for example when Benjamin is taken away from Fiela and her loving family and given to the cruel Elias or when Benjamin finally gets the truth out from Barta the he is indeed not her son. The author also beautifully describes the feelings of the different characters, like the guilt that Benjamin felt when he realises that he loves his "sister" Nina in a romantic way. A must read for everyone!