Talk:Laurens van der Post

Movie dates

Movie dates are often hard to pin down, as diffrent sources use different dateing.. the copyright date, or the date of release in the USA, or the date of release in Britain, etc.. different sources will seem contradictory that way. Stbalbach 11:06, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I understand. That's why I gave my source. Paul Beardsell 13:45, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Laurens.van.der.Post.The.Lost.World.of.the.Kalahari.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Laurens.van.der.Post.Storyteller.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Laurens.van.der.Post.Admirals.Baby.gif

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Fair use rationale for Image:Laurens.van.der.Post.bust.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Weasel phrase

"While Jones's book did interpret a darker side to van der Post's life, it did not diminish his popularity and he continued to strike a chord with many people. Nor could many of his wartime accomplishments and his conservation efforts be easily dismissed." - this is uncited and seems to be an editorial attempt to diminish the impact of the previous sentences. This is not in line with NPOV. Zaian (talk) 12:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

No it was appropriate. Van der Post did many different things in many different areas. It's POV without some sort of clarification which areas of his reputation are hurt, and which are in good standing. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

What you've just said may be true, but it needs a reference. Zaian (talk) 06:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Poor Quality

I find this article to be, for the most part, very poorly sourced and highly editorialised. This needs a major clean-up. The "War Years" section is a particularly egregious offender; no sources are cited and it reads almost like a hagiography. Also, from the 'Controversy and reputation' section:

"The appeal of his novels is likewise undiminished; while for lovers of Africa, van der Post's evocations of the atmosphere of the African bush, his celebrations of the many peoples of the continent and their tragic courage in violent times, will remain as testament to his gifts as a writer."

This sort of thing does not belong on Wikipedia. I do not feel qualified to do the deed as I know nothing of the man. I'm sure he was nice and all, but come on. NPOV people. Holydave (talk) 14:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You're 100% right. I've removed the offending sentences from the "controversy" section. Zaian (talk) 07:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Children

Can someone please explain the second lot of "children" in the info box (viewable by going to Edit)? I take it that Jan and Lucia are Laurens van der Post's omly children. ARBrennan 09:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ARBrennan (talk • contribs)

I have no idea who are the additional children who come up in the Box (as mentioned above). However, it would clearly be unsound to assume that Jan and Lucia were his only children. The fact that he fathered a child on a 14 year-old girl is not disputed, even by as staunch a defender as Christopher Booker. Nandt1 (talk) 01:27, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

"The fact that he fathered a child on a 14 year-old girl is not disputed, even by as staunch a defender as Christopher Booker."--maybe not, but I think in needs to be properly cited. The sentences before and after have citations, but this one does not.2602:306:BC71:63C0:BCAF:D4DE:F088:DBA (talk) 02:19, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Van der Post's daughters Lucia Crichton-Miller and Cari Mostert do appear to confirm this in the New York Times article already cited in the bibliography, which looks into the claims made in JDF Jones's book.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/03/books/master-storyteller-or-master-deceiver.html

"And when it came to women, der Post was a bounder. In the early 1950's, when he was 46, he seduced the 14-year-old daughter of a wealthy South African winemaking family, who had been entrusted to his care during a sea voyage. She became pregnant, and although he sent her a small stipend, he never publicly acknowledged the daughter born of the relationship... In The Lost World of the Kalahari, published in 1958, van der Post claimed he had discovered the Bushman paintings of the Tsodilo Hills, when in fact they had been well-known to Europeans for close to 50 years, Mr. Jones writes.

Van der Post also lied to the women in his life, Mr. Jones says. He juggled affairs with numerous women simultaneously, keeping them secret from one another. In 1934, he settled in England with his first wife, Marjorie, and his son, John, on a farm probably bought for him with money from the Queen Mother's cousin Lilian Bowes Lyon, with whom he was having a relationship.

In 1936, the same year his first daughter, Lucia, was born, van der Post met Ingaret Giffard on a boat to South Africa. In 1938 he sent Marjorie and his two children to South Africa with the argument that war was imminent. He didn't see his children for nearly 10 years. He and Marjorie eventually divorced, and he married Ingaret after the war. They lived together even after she became ill with dementia in later life, though for 30 years he also had a mistress, Frances Baruch...

As for Mr. Jones's allegations about her father's relationship with a 14-year-old girl, I'm afraid I think that's true, Ms. Crichton-Miller said. He was not a saint. He hurt people. He hurt me. But by God, he was fascinating.

Bonny Kohler-Baker, whom van der Post seduced and abandoned when she was 14, is the mother of van der Post's other daughter. She now lives outside New York City under a different name, and would not discuss the book. But her daughter, Cari Mostert, in a phone interview from the Eastern Transvaal in South Africa, said she had been brought up to believe that her maternal grandmother was her mother and that her mother was her sister. She said her grandmother had told her when she was 10 that van der Post was her father. Ms. Mostert described meeting her father for the first time when she was 12, when she and her mother had surprised him in Los Angeles, where he had a speaking engagement: I was crying, and he was crying.

Ms. Mostert said she had confronted him once again, as he arrived in Johannesburg airport, and he had said that her grandmother had lied in saying that she was his daughter. She claimed that she had sent her father over 50 letters, but that he had never replied. I thought he is such an upright, a noble human being, Ms. Mostert said, if he would only understand . . . Her voice trailed off."

Jones also contends that van der Post romanticised and falsified other aspects of his life, such as his father's status, the length of time he actually spent with the Bushmen and the strength of his friendship with Jung. He would not, of course, be the only autobiographical writer who ever talked himself up a bit. But the current article is blandly hagiographic, written almost as if the subject were still living and gifted with influential friends, and it tends to make van der Post seem less interesting than he actually was.

A 2013 Guardian article by Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, on Margaret Thatcher's relationship with Nelson Mandela, said of Thatcher: "Advised by her husband, Dennis, who had business interests in South Africa, she felt that anything that damaged wealth creation must be bad for South Africa. She was also a great admirer of Laurens van der Post, the South African writer and traveller later exposed as a fraud, who also opposed sanctions on the country. He introduced her to Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu leader, who played an ambivalent role in the struggle against apartheid, splitting from the ANC in 1979 and accepting "homeland" status for Kwazulu. His movement, Inkatha, helped the South African police repress ANC rebellion in the townships." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/10/margaret-thatcher-apartheid-mandela

                                                                                     Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:04, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Can we take it as confirmed that Cari Mostert is his daughter by the abusive relationship with the 14-year-old? PatGallacher (talk) 23:35, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I think we can. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:40, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

"An intense but brief affair of love letters"

Could we make up our mind here please and avoid beating about the Veldt. Which was it? An affair? Or an exchange of letters? Nandt1 (talk) 22:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

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