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The Seed and the Sower

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Wikipedia article




'The Seed and the Sower' is a book by South African writer Laurens van der Post, consisting of three interrelated stories blended into a novel, first published in 1963.http://catalogue.bl.uk The novel was filmed in 1983 as 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence', directed by Nagisa Oshima and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano.

Plot



The first story is set in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Java during World War II and is a first person account of the relationship between John Lawrence, a British officer, and Sergeant Hara, one of the camps senior guards. This segment was initially published as a short story in 1956 as 'A Bar of Shadow'.

The second, lengthier story is also set in the P.O.W. camp but is narrated in the third person from the diary of Major Celliers, a South African officer serving in the British Army, who perished in the camp and his relationships with his disabled brother and with the camp commandant, Captain Yonoi. Both of the first two stories attempt to convey the conflicting feelings the principal characters felt towards each other and their attempts to understand each others cultures and their widely opposed codes of honour.

The final segment is Lawrences reminiscence of a brief affair with a woman whose name he never learned, shortly before his capture by the Japanese.

Film adaptation



* 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence'

Reviews



* https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/laurens-van-der-post-6/the-seed-and-the-sower-2/

*http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=11760

References



Category:1963 novels

Category:Novels set during World War II

Category:Novels set in Indonesia

Category:South African novels adapted into films

Category:Hogarth Press books

Category:Japan in non-Japanese culture


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