Following on from its best-selling predecessors, Spud and Spud – The Madness Continues, the third instalment of Spud Milton’s schoolboy diaries charts his diabolical stagger through adolescence and the mayhem that ensues during his year in boarding school as a senior. Spud, now 16 and in his own words “practically a man in most areas”, has to cope with a vindictive arch enemy, a garrulous Malawian, and the crazy antics of his friends – the group of misfits known to all as the Crazy Eight. Along the way he also has to deal with eccentric school masters, an unpleasant discovery concerning fried fish and Wombat (his grandmother), and the trials and tribulations of his semi-arid love-life. In coping with these and other challenges thrown up by boarding school, Spud leads the reader on a hilarious journey through teenagerdom, complete with his own candid observations of his physical, sexual and social development. Spud’s teenage angst is set against the background of 1992 South Africa, where, despite the unmistakable scent of radical change in the air, Spud fears the return of “a government of twelve seventy-five-year-olds in safari suits” and is determined to convince his conservative parents to Vote Yes for Change in the upcoming referendum. South Africa’s bumpy road to redemption mirrors Spud’s comic journey as he finds his way through another trying year and takes his first cautious steps towards manhood.

This is an interesting story book with a wide range of stories that contain the wisdom of the African people.  The stories range from those that attempt to explain the origin of striking features found in selected animals to those that explain certain relationships between animals and people.  The stories contain strong messages that are important in teaching life skills that will help people to avoid pitfalls in life, for example, teaching people to learn to do things for themselves and not to rely on others.  Other stories emphasize that life demands that people should always be alert in order to avoid being led to destruction by cunning individuals.

It might seem outrageously trite to suggest that reading Mandla Langa’s fifth book, The Lost Colours of the Chameleon, was akin to meeting the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, but having had the privilege of both experiences, I unashamedly defend it. It is also tempting to attach a swatch of “-ists” to this accomplished South African author - lyricist, activist, humanist – but while they are appropriate to Langa’s genius, these, among others, are precisely the tangled pretensions his tale seeks to unpick.   

Other reviews of the book have outlined its triumph as an allegorical satire, based on intense research and set in the post-colonial quagmire of a developing democracy on Bangula, a fictional Indian Ocean island. Its parallels with the South African experience are obvious: social anguish wrought by unrelenting poverty and disease, racial discord, institutional neglect, wastefulness, greed and denialism, and a prophetic vision of governance by death squad as both a remedy and a railcar for rampant crime and political anarchy.  

This novel has had plenty of praise from its publisher, and has apparently been a hit with ‘younger’ readers. For me, though, it was a slow starter. Early in the story, for example, the dialogue was horribly formal. “Morning Frank”, “Hello, Daniel” – teenage boys speaking to each other on a school bus like businessmen in stilted suits. With such stylistic tics, I was skeptical about how the narrative was going to pan out. But things did get more exciting for the reader, and for Daniel Fox.

Daniel Fox is a dead boy. Even when he was alive, things were tough: he lived with his mom, and constantly had to fend off his nemesis, the aptly-named school bully, Levi D’Arc. (I had some fun toying with the anagram.)

After a dodgy encounter at the museum, Daniel is hit by a truck (yeah!), and he comes to pretty messed up in an underworld waiting room, where he must prepare to be rated. In this strange, segregated environment in which he will come to live, ostensibly the most noble city of Arison, capital of the underworld, each new arrival is evaluated by number, depending on how his previous life has been lived. You stick your head in an ordinary cardboard box, and whoa! your memories are read, and assessed. (Keep that in mind if you check some old carton lying around at the back of the supermarket. Careful. The choice is yours. . .)

In the Arison ratings, a score of 1 is the best, 5 the worst, and Daniel is given the rare distinction of a numero uno. Then, in addition to a top lifestyle as a Number 1, he is invited to become a Lower Lord, one of the crew that runs the whole underground show.

So far, so good, but Daniel soon discovers that his status is a demonic curse; all is not what it seems. In fact, all the other Number 1s have mysteriously disappeared. . .