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| Plot Summary of Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life |
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"It's South Africa in the 50s, and John is a first-in-his-class high school student with an afrikaner last name in a classroom of English boys. He feels different in many ways. He's not a lonely kid, he just happens to have different preferences, such as liking the russians more than the americans. He's got problems with his father, he doesn't love him, and the struggle with his mother is of a love and hate relationship.
This memoirs soon become a rich-in-details story of a boy growing up in the country of apartheid. There's discrimination for being white, black or afrikaner, for speaking English or Afrikaans, and for living in the province or Cape Town. There are not many hints of John as the future author of 'Waiting for the Barbarians' or 'Disgrace', but the young John is seen going frequently to the public library and even faking illness to read books (borrowed from there) lying in bed. Shakespeare's 'Titus Andronicus', 'Coriulanus' and 'Macbeth' are among his readings here, along with an 'Encyclopedia for Children'."
Augusto Wong Campos, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Kids growing up/acting up?
Yes
Kids:
- general coming of age story
Ethnic/regional/gender
Yes
ethnic of society (outside)
- South African
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- a kid
Biography of famous person?
Yes
Ethnicity
- White
Nationality
- British
How sensitive is this person?
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Physique
- healthy but a geeky weakling
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 4 (a fair amount)
Africa
Yes
Kind of Africa:
- White Enclave
Century:
- 1930's-1950's
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Book makes you feel?
- concerned
Commentary on society?
Yes
Commentary on
- race
- justice system
- wicked men
- religion
Writer's slant towards subject:
- favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of set of events during life
Autobiography?
Yes
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more descript than dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 0-25% of book
How much is philosophy rather than life story?
- 0-25% of book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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