Spud is what it says on the cover, “a wickedly funny novel”, and its running spring of humour makes the first half of the book irresistible. It is written in diary form, in this tone: “I hate to admit it, dear diary, but I’m a hero! Destined for greatness, with ‘the luck of the devil’.”
Set in 1990 at posh private school Michaelhouse, in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, John Milton — alias Spud — is the narrator-diarist with the singing voice of an angel. A young boy from a dysfunctional middle-class home, he is at the school on an academic scholarship. Spud is an average 14-year-old who loves cricket, fumbles through rugby and manages to have more than average relationships with most of his teachers, particularly the cussing, quaffing English master who introduces Spud to his favourite authors.
We also come to know Spud‘s dormmates, the Crazy Eight. They are an amalgamation of all the eccentric characters that seem to be present in boarding schools: the glutton, the bully, the valetudinarian, the thief, the pervert, the researcher who’s obsessed with nefarious aspects of the school’s past, and the semi-detached observer (Spud). Fun or, rather, chaos ensues. It’s the usual stuff of young adolescent minds starting to master their behaviour amid hormonal changes — or lack thereof, in the case of Spud.
What’s fresh about this novel is the use of quintessential South African language and parlance, telling this tale of initiation rituals, competitive sport, scouting for mischief and the like.
But it is, perhaps, impossible for a black person in this country to read a book by a white South African without finding something that sticks in one’s craw. For me it was the black prefect character Luthuli, the supposed grandson of Albert Luthuli. The character seems contrived, to say the least.
Just beyond halfway, things get repetitive and slightly cloying. I found myself wishing it would end, before things got out of hand.
That said, anyone with an interest in South African life will be affected by Spud.