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Tsotsi by Athol Fugard

Posted on 12 July 2007

ReviewColumn's rating :
1 star

Tsotsi When Athol Fugard first wrote Tsotsi back in 1961, he abandoned it almost immediately, feeling that it was "not worth publishing". However, in the late 1970s, this novel was rediscovered by research students who were going through South African playwright's papers. After which, it was then edited and polished for publishing, thus allowing the whole world to discover this "lost novel". However, in my opinion, the publisher should have stood by Fugard's initial reluctance to publish this book, as this novel would have been better off if it had remained "lost".

The first few chapters of Tsotsi are interesting enough. To start off, Tsotsi is a young gang leader in the middle of South Africa, he has no recollection of his past, does not even know his own age and is insistent on letting the past stay hidden from him. At the beginning of the book, Tsotsi and his gang immediately pull off a job in a train, killing a random commuter after stealing his wallet, and of course escaping safely. That opening chapter really had me hooked on to the book, since I was expecting even better things to come. They did when Tsotsi suddenly receives a baby after he tries to attack a woman who pushes the baby into his hands. He then brings the baby home and tries his best to look after him, however, this baby has a tremendous impact on his life, as he invokes feelings in Tsotsi like he never felt before, like actually "feeling" for another one of his victims who he eventually let escape.

However, from then on, the entire book just goes downhill. Page after page after page is filled with emotions that are invoked within Tsotsi, and it seems to go on forever and ever. Sure, there is some amount of development in the plot, but on the whole the book starts to get extremely repetitive and seems to be heading nowhere at all. Regardless, I continued to plow through all the minute details, hoping that all would make sense once I reached the ending. However, I was left with my mouth open by the time I finished reading the last paragraph of the book, as I had absolutely no idea where that ending suddenly came from. I won't mention how it ends here, just in case you might still want to read this book, however I should warn you that the ending is relatively abrupt and there is practically no build up to it at all, and by the time you finish the book you'd be scratching your head wondering why you even bothered to plow through the entire book.

Still, the overall plot of this book is something pretty rare and not one which you would find in most books nowadays, thus making for a pretty interesting read at times. The twists in the plot and the eventual revelation about Tsotsi's past will get you excited in the book for awhile as well. However, such highlights of the book are immediately succeeded by the usual pointless fillers in between which add almost zero value to the overall plot.

As a side note, this book was adapted into a major motion picture film of the same name which eventually won an Academy Award for "Best Foreign Language Film" in 2006. While the overall plot remained the same, a lot of details were tweaked to make it suitable for the big screen. Unfortunately I have not watched the film and am thus unable to comment about it.

All in all, I would advise almost everyone to stay away from this book. Despite it's short length, it can become boring for many very quickly. However, for those of you who would like to step into the mind of a young gang leader in South Africa who is rediscovering his past and thus at the same time having emotions pent up inside himself, you might want to check out this book.

Pros: Interesting and unique overall plot
Cons: Gets extremely boring and repetitive midway through, most of the book seems to add little value to the plot, ending will have you scratching your head.

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