The Sunday Mail
MANY associate rural life with poverty and hardship, but others align it with adventure and fresh air. In a rural setting, people have to master various skills and deal with serious responsibilities from an early age. The adventures and challenges that are faced by people living in rural Zimbabwe are intricately captured in Daniel Motsi’s “The Beast of Fame”.Motsi’s approach is refreshing, considering he used an animal rather than a person as the main character in the plot. The story revolves around scenarios involving Murombo, the most famous bull in Jacha village.
In “The Beast of Fame”, Murombo is involved in various interesting occurrences that include fights with other bulls, breaking into gardens, and escaping life-threatening moments among other things.
Motsi crafted his story in a way that gives a solid understanding of rural life, showing how while many kids in urban areas depend on electronic gadgets for their entertainment, the former resort to other adventurous endeavours, making use of their natural environment to entertain themselves.
Exploration of mountains, swimming in rivers, hunting small animals, and gathering mushrooms and fruit are some of the activities that they partake in.
In one of the instances where they decide to let the cattle graze without supervision while they climb to the summit of the tallest mountain in the area, some of the cattle – including the famous Murombo – stray from the herd and end up eating vegetables in someone’s garden.
This leads to the headman calling a meeting where the owners of the cattle are fined for the damage caused by their beasts.
In another incident, Murombo strays downriver and almost meets his end after an encounter with a crocodile. By his strength – and no small measure of luck – he escapes the jaws of the deadly reptile.
There are several other interesting shenanigans and eventualities throughout the book that are characteristic of rural life.
The storyline has various subplots, with each consisting of different events involving Murombo; almost making the novel seem like a short story collection.
While the story is brilliant, the major setbacks were grammatical errors, which see the author failing to express himself clearly in some instances.
Choosing to use simple English, the author starved his work of ingredients that could have spiced up the reading experience.
However, setting aside the hiccups the book is a good read for children who will appreciate the adventure.
