Teller Of Many Tales: The Lives Of Laurens Van Der Post (2002) By J. D. F. Jones
 
Those who know Sir Laurens van der Post as the celebrated dignitary who advised Prince Charles, counseled Margaret Thatcher, advocated passionately for the cause of African peoples, and authored twenty-three popular, award-winning books (several of which were made into films) will be startled by the revelations in this biography of a consummate fabricator. For Sir Laurens van der Post wove a fabulous life out of lies -- and ultimately imprisoned himself in a fiction of his own creation. Among the romantic highlights in van der Post's version of his life are an Afrikaner childhood that featured a Bushman nursemaid, distinguished service in the military alongside Lord Mountbatten, a brutal stretch as a POW in the Pacific, a close friendship with Carl Jung, and his championing of the Kalahari Bushmen. Probing the sources and meticulously dissecting the substance of van der Post's stories of personal heroism and distinguished accomplishment, J.D.F. Jones's biography (surprisingly authorized by van der Post's family) shows that most of the great man's tales were tall -- designed to dazzle and to gull. In reality, van der Post had no Bushman nanny; his World War II military service, which prompted him to abandon his wife and children, was not particularly notable; and his relationship with Jung was tenuous at most. Van der Post did, however, copiously and sympathetically chronicle the plight of the Bushmen. And he did advise Britain's power elite, although his credentials amounted to little more than a tissue of invention that he managed to keep aloft before the public until his death at age ninety in 1996. While unsparingly disclosing the many fictions with which van der Post reinvented his life, Jones never loses sight of the very real charisma that the illustrious Sir Laurens generated and the widespread devotion that he inspired. In his words many people found wisdom, and many took strength. If, as van der Post liked to say, the history of the twentieth century was also his own, it was so because he wrote it that way -- boldly, grandly, incredibly, and convincingly.
 
Hard Cover With Dust Jacket
505 pages
In Good Condition