the boy who stole the leopard's spots by Tamar Myers #bookreview @WmMorrowBks‎

the boy who stole the leopard’s spots 
by Tamar Myers 
(Wm Morrow 2012)

What do you believe?  Is it information that you have accepted uncritically or what you have carefully thought through?  What is truth?  Must truth and information be the same thing?

Are you a heathen?  What is a heathen?  Are sophisticated European religious leaders the enlightened and local Africans the heathens?  Or the other way around?  Are Catholic priests representatives of the truth or native witch doctors?  Does it make any difference whether these questions are asked in 1935, 1958, or today?

In the boy who stole the leopard’s spots, Tamar Myers has written a brilliant story about identical twin boys born at a time when it was assumed by tribal witch doctors that one of the two must have been inhabited by evil spirits so should be murdered.  At the same time, their father, the chief, combined the killing of a huge leopard with the birth of his sons in a way to avoid the murder of an innocent child.

When the boys become adults, they are reunited, though needing to conceal their history our of respect for the same tribal shibboleths.

The collision of white, Belgian religious leaders in the Belgian Congo (prior to independence) with the supposed heathens, as well as interesting side-stories of jungle romance and fallen leaders, creates the dynamic of vivid fictional contrast.  The contrast of Christian belief with the resurrection of one of the boys is vivid.  What is real?

As I read this lovely story, I wondered how the illusions would be drawn to conclusion.  At the same time, I was reading C.S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, which has its own allegories (to be reviewed in due course).  I was also on board a ship in the Baltic Sea, so had plenty of time to think about the contrasts in the boy who stole the leopard’s spots.

The illusions play out.  In the end, I was delighted with a cleverly narrated story.  Yet, many of the contrasts remained unaddressed in my mind.  As usual, I jotted notes on a pad of paper as I read along, anticipating how the relationships and issues would be resolved.  Certain critical elements of the story were resolved, as others remained to the imagination.  I then found myself re-reading the beginning, end, and my notes to see if I missed something about the mysteries that remained.  Hopefully, there will be another story picking up where this one ended.

In any event, that hope is mute praise for a wonderful story.  I plan to use the boy who stole the leopard’s spots as my story in my next turn for our Philosophers Club (a male version of a book club).

  

Warms, Cym

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