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simonmee's review against another edition
2.0
The insurgency in (now) Zimbabwe from the 1960s to the 1980s is similar to South Africa's Border Wars in that most literature comes from those protecting the status quo, and who are often white. It tends to leave a skewed portrayal of those conflicts, but the stories remains interesting due to the locale and style of fighting.
Bush Pig is about a policeman, albeit a militarised one. There's certainly policework, along with the drinking and womanising - from one page alone:
My circle of females was wide
My collection of women was wide
my harem was many
My fellow policemen stood in awe at the number of the harem
Smith is unambiguously a dick. While not technically an Afrikaans, he embodies elements of that stereotype. Large, boorish, freely admitting to instances of police brutality (including breaking an insurgent's teeth while under no threat), and dismissive of black rule
The Prime Minister. Ian Smith, and his cabinet, exhausted all other means of keeping the country out of black hands and declared independence from Britain. The declaration was merely restating the Home Rule treaty of 1923...
There are hints that Smith wasn't widely liked among his peers. He's shuffled from post to post, he quits over a long denied promotion, he doesn't really form bonds. He has two children to separate women: One he rarely sees, one whose existence he was unaware of until he was long retired. He has explanations for all these things and I doubt he was a total loner, but I feel the way he saw himself was a bit higher than what others thought of himself.
So there is an interesting dynamic - sure, I am an outsider who never experienced any real discomfort or fear, but when he writes:
At the later stages of the war, some eighty percent of the Rhodesian government forces were black, need more be said?
or
Terror can be fought with terror, but was not done.
...I'm inclined to think "yes, your experiences are valid, and I appreciate the story about wild cats learning to parachute from a thirty foot radio mast, but I kind of suspect we're not getting a balanced overview here."
Unfortunately, while the unreliability of the narrator is interesting, the style is not. Smith has enough stories to write a book, he just needed a competent editor. Even if they were turned into short vignettes it would be an improvement on the walls of text. It rambles too much, and I don't need to know about the voluptuous Australian, or the voluptuous New Zealander, or the farmer's daughter half his age where some basic maths makes that pretty problematic.
It has value, but mainly in a gathering sources sense than enjoyable in itself.
Bush Pig is about a policeman, albeit a militarised one. There's certainly policework, along with the drinking and womanising - from one page alone:
My circle of females was wide
My collection of women was wide
my harem was many
My fellow policemen stood in awe at the number of the harem
Smith is unambiguously a dick. While not technically an Afrikaans, he embodies elements of that stereotype. Large, boorish, freely admitting to instances of police brutality (including breaking an insurgent's teeth while under no threat), and dismissive of black rule
The Prime Minister. Ian Smith, and his cabinet, exhausted all other means of keeping the country out of black hands and declared independence from Britain. The declaration was merely restating the Home Rule treaty of 1923...
There are hints that Smith wasn't widely liked among his peers. He's shuffled from post to post, he quits over a long denied promotion, he doesn't really form bonds. He has two children to separate women: One he rarely sees, one whose existence he was unaware of until he was long retired. He has explanations for all these things and I doubt he was a total loner, but I feel the way he saw himself was a bit higher than what others thought of himself.
So there is an interesting dynamic - sure, I am an outsider who never experienced any real discomfort or fear, but when he writes:
At the later stages of the war, some eighty percent of the Rhodesian government forces were black, need more be said?
or
Terror can be fought with terror, but was not done.
...I'm inclined to think "yes, your experiences are valid, and I appreciate the story about wild cats learning to parachute from a thirty foot radio mast, but I kind of suspect we're not getting a balanced overview here."
Unfortunately, while the unreliability of the narrator is interesting, the style is not. Smith has enough stories to write a book, he just needed a competent editor. Even if they were turned into short vignettes it would be an improvement on the walls of text. It rambles too much, and I don't need to know about the voluptuous Australian, or the voluptuous New Zealander, or the farmer's daughter half his age where some basic maths makes that pretty problematic.
It has value, but mainly in a gathering sources sense than enjoyable in itself.
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