COMMANDO - A BOER JOURNAL OF THE BOER WAR
R 320.00
This is Deneys Reitz’s classic account of his experiences during the Boer War, as published in the 1929 first edition.
General Jan Smuts said of Commando: ’The exciting incidents, the hairbreadth escapes, the daredevilry are literally true, and the dangers he passed through and courted are such as to make his unvarnished record read like one of pure romance. The effect is all the more striking because the story is so simple and unadorned and objective.’
Thomas Pakenham, author of The Boer War, said the following: ‘Reitz had the uncanny knack of living through the war as though leafing through the pages of an adventure story.’
More recently, Justice Johann Kriegler expressed himself as follows: ‘Reitz’s unforgettable Commando-odessy is for me an unforgettable treasure which belongs in the pantheon of Tolstoy, Remargue, Hemmingway, and especially George Orewell, in his Homage to Catalonia, an enticing, factual but deeply moving personal account of momentous events.’ He adds: ‘Commando must be treated with respect and caution.’
The following, written in a review of the first edition in 1929, remains as true today as it was then: ‘It is difficult to speak of this book in anything but a string of superlatives. The spirit of it is magnificent.’
The calm intensity and absorbing human interest of Deneys Reitz are both timeless and immediate.
ISBN 9781049203959
