WITH a name like "Velabahleke", which implies that his birth brought mirth to his family, Velabahleke Njabulo Paul Vilakazi must fancy himself a comedian.
WITH a name like "Velabahleke", which implies that his birth brought mirth to his family, Velabahleke Njabulo Paul Vilakazi must fancy himself a comedian.
He credits "the spirit of hilarity that pervaded my family" for his book, Tender Eating-skollies and Other Puns.
It saddens me to say that this "spirit of hilarity" did not make it to his book. The few pages I managed to read did nothing but annoy me.
I had a hard time finishing the first story titled Uncle Van Reclaimed and Reconstructed, which starts off as a mockery of the South African surnames Van Niekerk and Koekemoer.
The story then goes on incoherently, touching on a Van der Merwe joke supposedly told to Queen Elizabeth, and also dropping names such as Robert Mugabe and Desmond Tutu.
I still don't know what this story was about and how all the people and events mentioned fit together after reading it a number of times.
The same goes for the rest of Vilakazi's puns. They are incoherent and not funny. The book reads like the ramblings of a man who laughs at his own jokes. It is littered with silly and obvious spelling and grammatical errors that should have never made it into print.
Incoherent and just not funny at all
WITH a name like "Velabahleke", which implies that his birth brought mirth to his family, Velabahleke Njabulo Paul Vilakazi must fancy himself a comedian.
WITH a name like "Velabahleke", which implies that his birth brought mirth to his family, Velabahleke Njabulo Paul Vilakazi must fancy himself a comedian.
He credits "the spirit of hilarity that pervaded my family" for his book, Tender Eating-skollies and Other Puns.
It saddens me to say that this "spirit of hilarity" did not make it to his book. The few pages I managed to read did nothing but annoy me.
I had a hard time finishing the first story titled Uncle Van Reclaimed and Reconstructed, which starts off as a mockery of the South African surnames Van Niekerk and Koekemoer.
The story then goes on incoherently, touching on a Van der Merwe joke supposedly told to Queen Elizabeth, and also dropping names such as Robert Mugabe and Desmond Tutu.
I still don't know what this story was about and how all the people and events mentioned fit together after reading it a number of times.
The same goes for the rest of Vilakazi's puns. They are incoherent and not funny. The book reads like the ramblings of a man who laughs at his own jokes. It is littered with silly and obvious spelling and grammatical errors that should have never made it into print.