THERE is a barrier, a divide between myself the humble reviewer and that master storyteller of the African veld Wilbur Smith which is as enormous as that continent's great Rift Valley.
We are so disparate in wordly stature and life experiences that an equation of our contemporary existence is risable.
And yet there remains a strange simbiosis between us for we are both men of Africa.
And Wilbur Smith writes only of that which he know best --Africa.
He was born in the metallic treasure house that was the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia.
I was born in the old Transvaal of the South African union but was nurtured in the wealth of Kimberley's diamond fields.
And here's the rub.
Wilbur Smith wanted to be a journalist - but became an office clerk.
I was a humble airline clerk who became a journalist.
Wilbur Smith's wordcraft made him one of the top novelists of our time.
I became a newspaper editor.
In Wilbur Smith's memoirs that go under the title On Leopard Rock, taken from the name of his Karoo ranch in South Africa, the author pays tribute to Kevin Ritchie for extensive sessions of memory jogging and extensive research.
When I was Editor of Kimberley's Local newspaper in the 1980s a young man came asking for a position.
I gave Kevin Ritchie his first job in journalism.
Twenty two years later Kevin became Editor of The Star, South Africa's leading daily at the time.
Kevin gave me his impression of working with Wilbur Smith.
"I was warned he was quite chary of reporters given his much storied life - as he was when I first met him, but I found him to be an incredibly generous, kind and courtly man.
His life plays out in his books; When the Lion Feeds is a pastiche of his family while the two main protagonists; the brothers Sean and Gary are his ying and his yang.
He has hunted dangerous animals on foot, been trapped underwater beneath predatory sharks, almost died in aircraft he was piloting and caroused with the best of them - and yet he’s oddly bookish all at the same time."
And it the book man that we now focus on in On Leopard Rock.
This is not a biography, no linear account of his life and times but an episodic peek into the poitjie pot of memories that nestle in the embers of a smouldering author's mind.
(A "poitjie" is a three-legged tribal cooking pot that is the custom use of South Africa's indigenous people.)
These memories are endearing and reflective vignettes that showcase his fascinations, his influences, his obsessions.
One influence on Wilbur Smith was Stuart Cloete, a towering figure in the South African literary world who advised Smith not to value reviews on what they say, but on what they weigh. "The more they write, the more its importance.
One obsession, a very negative one, was his schooling at Michaelhouse.
This private school in the Natal Midlands was an upmarket Eton-style establishment and held in high esteem.
Except for Wilbur Smith. HE hated his time there and writes with vitriol his contempt for its ethos and cruel environment.
I did not read the first of the Wilbur Smith books for in an apartheid blighted South Africa they were banned.
This counted heavily against Wilbur who found contamination by association with anything to do with that country.
Later Wilbur Smith was to meet and enjoy greatly his link with Nelson Mandela.
He writes of his admiration for the first democratically elected president of South Africa, something almost universally expounded.
I once met Mr Mandela, an imposing figure soon after his release
My views of the man and his legacy are more tempered, but that is an aside.
This book is about Wilbur Smith and his tales of adventure.
The extended narrative and other components of his writing are a salutary lesson in litery form and expression.
I found it a delight to read.
S