Thoughts on our journey through Oceania from Australia to Samoa

World Book Group Edinburgh, first UNESCO World City of Literature Australia - "Rabbit-proof fence" by Nugi Garimara (Doris Pilkington) - "Score 6.2) The book opens on a peaceful scene of a camp in the early morning. We see a man going to the river to bring the fish which his traps have caught overnight. It is not long, however, before the outside world intrudes on this relative idyll and we begin to hear of the atrocities carried out on the native peoples by the settlers, soldiers and escaped prisoners of the British Empire. Later we watch as they are deprived of their culture and their inheritance, as well as having their lands taken from them, and turned effectively into beggars. We have seen this so many times in our fictional odyssey when a dominant culture intrudes into the lands of a less technologically advanced people. On page 35 we learn that Maude was betrothed at birth. To most of us this would probably be shocking. However, it should be remembered that this has always been practiced among small isolated groups to avoid inbreeding by ensuring that mating takes place outwith the close group. On page 38 the insulting of the newborn child to ward off evil spirits is common throughout the world. We are beginning to have inklings of the tragedy to come, which later formed the basis of the eponymous film. The taking away of native children “for their own good” by the dominant culture was widespread. As well as Australia it has also happened to the Mauri, Native Canadians and Americans and to Gaelic speaking Scots. For all I know it may have happened elsewhere too. The result was to deracinate the culture and the people. On page 43 the story changes from the general tale of the inhumanity shown by one type of people to other types caused here by sheer naked greed for the land and its resources to the specific case of these young girls being taken hundreds of miles from all that they know and love. The most horrific thing about this is that it seems genuinely to have been done with good intentions, at least from the perpetrators point of view. The school at which they arrive seems, though, to be run by people at least some of whom do not share these so called high ideals. For example, the practice of incarcerating young children for days on end in the “boob” is horrendous. We are talking about children, not mass murderers. Even the children’s language is being stolen by being forbidden to them. Destroy the language and you destroy the people and their culture. The settlers who take in the girls on their trek home, bath them and feed them and give them supplies show true humanity, consideration, and love of their fellows. This consideration and a genuine concern for the well-being of the girls seems to be what drives them to report their presence (after the girls have gone on their way) to the authorities. I was disappointed that I found the story of the actual trek much less interesting than the introductory section which give the background to the arrival of the white settlers and the first contact. Although I found the film a good interpretation of the trek from the book, it would, I feel, have benefited greatly had the earlier introduction been retained. One final point is that one member of the group pointed out that, relative to the text of the book, the back cover blurb in the edition which we read contains several errors. New Zealand - "The Bone People" - by Keri Hulme (Score 8.7) he Prologue is strange. It doesn’t seem to do anything, or hang together in any way. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the story we are expecting. When the first chapter proper arrived, I enjoyed the section where Kerewin Holmes is on the beach, jumping between the wooden piles of an old jetty, and spearing her dinner with a sword cane. Then we move into her house where, in her library we, and she, are surprised by a child in the window “like some weird saint in a stained glass window” – what an image. I enjoy her play with words, merging them to make one long word which doesn’t mean quite the same as either, or both, of the roots. I like the way in which the internal monologues break in. It helped me to understand the characters of Kerewin and the boy, Simon. We are left wondering, for a while only, I hope, why Simon has a reputation. Are the missing teeth a gift from an abusive father or an accident; is he short of a loving relationship; is his silence physical or psychological? Presumably all will be revealed as the story develops. On page 72 we have a hint of abuse on Simon by a young bearded man. On page 73, how is Simon seeing Keri? Has she an aura? Is Simon one of these people who have synaesthesia? We get a pleasant surprise when we meet Simon’s father, Joe. He is not at all how the hints led us to expect. He clearly loves Simon very much. New Zealand must get a very much better class of Liebfraumilch than we get in the United Kingdom. On page 78 we have the auras again. On page 99 we learn that Kerewin has Hebridean in her ancestry. Taken together with the similarity of her name with that of the author, just this suggest that the story can be autobiographical in any way? On page 122 I found the incident in the tobacconist shop really amusing. I have been feeling that these three people are entirely real, each possibly modelled on someone, and this incident reinforced that feeling. On page 136 we find that Joe, the father, is a brutal animal, obviously beating Simon severely “for his own good”. On page 190 I begin to feel that there is something seriously wrong inside Joe’s head. This book contains three mysteries – 1) Where did Simon (Haimona) come from? – 2) Why is Joe so brutal to a child whom he clearly loves deeply? and – 3) Will Kerewin and Joe get together, or won’t they? On page 256 we are not told what the message which Simon wrote with the holed stones said. I know that I said earlier that I like her wordplay, but “smokering” rather than “smoke ring” catches me out every time. One page 308 Simon’s punishment is vastly out of proportion to his offence. No child should ever be beaten like that, for anything. I really hope that part is not autobiographical. Why won’t Kerewin see a doctor? Does she have a death wish? The basic goodness in Joe shows through again in his dealings with Tiaki, and in particular in the care and respect with which he buries him. Joe really is a complex, contradictory character. We had a hint about the mystery of Simon near the beginning. The author peels the onion slowly, making us beg for what lies under that layer, and the next. This is magnificent writing. I really care about these people and I want a good result for each of them, but not a soppy obvious one. This is one of those rare books which I just want to keep reading to see what happens next. Sleep and work really got in the way this time. I have kept silent about the ending of the story because I feel that the book should be read without any clue as to what happens eventually. This book received my highest score yet, beating the selection from Albania. The average vote was enough to put it straight to the top. Tahiti - "Frangipani" by Celestine Hitiura Vaite (Score 5.75) Collecting her husband’s pay is something which I remember from my childhood in Glasgow in the 1950s. We lived in a tenement building and the wives vacated the building on a Friday afternoon to go and wait outside their husbands’ works so that they could pay the rent and feed the family, otherwise the money would have been spent “putting fur coats on the publican’s and bookie’s wives. Luckily my mother never needed to do that since my dad didn’t drink or gamble. On page 9, telling the sex of a baby by using a needle is common, but it has to be an untwisted thread. In paces where wedding rings are worn, it is done with the ring. Apparently it works, like dowsing. I know dowsing works since I have done it. I was taught to use two bent welding rods which I still have. I’m a civil engineer, and I used them to find underground metal bars, water and gas pipes and electricity cables on the construction sites. I suspect that electric fields are involved in some way. On page 11 we have the planting of a tree to mark the birth of a child. This was common in Gaelic Scotland. On page 91 we find another example of the cultural destruction which we have come across so often as a result of colonialism. Among her talents, Materena’s daughter Leilani can speak French, English, Spanish “and a bit of Tahitian”. This is the native language of her people, for goodness sake, supplanted by French. In several places in the book it becomes clear that the educated people are aping the French and have effectively lost their language. Only the poor people speak Tahitian. How sad that is! There is much gentle humour in this book. Towards the end the story becomes rather episodic as if it was being serialised. One chapter bears no relation to the one before other than that it is clear that the time line is later. Each vignette is a pleasant read in itself, as is the whole book. All in all I found it to be rather lightweight. I certainly won’t be tempted to buy the other three books of the story, unlike when I completed the Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer of Burma. Samoa - They who do not grieve - Sia Figiel (Score 4.7) By the second page (page 12 in my edition) the triple repetition of many words is already beginning to annoy me. On page 16 we have the more or less deliberate introduction by immigrants from New Zealand into Samoa of disease. This is the first time I have come across this anywhere but the USA where smallpox and other diseases were used to weaken, or wipe out, Native American resistance to the invaders. On page 21 the attitudes expressed are precisely what has given Americans their generalised, hopefully rare, reputation of knowing nothing, and caring less, about the rest of the world. I have heard it said of someone, by another American, that “he (a fellow countryman) couldn’t find America on a map of America.” Surely a considerable exaggeration. The point of view has changed to that of Mrs Winterson, an American, at a time when she is still at college – but the voice does not change to reflect this. It still uses the pointless doubling and tripling of words, and so is clearly that of the author. I think this is shoddy, careless, writing. Is Malu’s long hallucinatory passage, from page 38 to page 67, the result of a drug assisted coming-of-age ceremony. I wish that I had read “Coming of Age in Samoa” by Margaret Mead. On page 93 there is an echo from “Gone with the Wind” which I imagine Ela has been saving for the right moment. On page 101 the German doctor, Herr Weiss makes an unexpected return after a long absence from the story. I had completely forgotten about him – he was not at all memorable. I have decided at this stage that I really am not enjoying this book. I’m only finishing it for the discussion at our meeting and for this entry on the blog. The writing seems to me to be precious and pretentious. It’s a long time since I have read anything which I dislike so much. I can’t relate to the characters (see the last paragraph in the middle of page 108 just before the break). This is typical. I have read many hundreds of books, so I think I know when I find good writing. On pages 108 and 109 Ela has a nightmare, but tells no-one about it. None of the book is told from Ela’s viewpoint. Malu is the narrator. How does she know about the dream. The second part of the book does say good, and pertinent, things about cultural alienation and the desire for the “good” things brought by western contact. It’s a pity they are lost among the verbiage and purple prose of the rest of the text. There is also the pain of exile (in this case unwilling emigration). On page 190 we find that racism in New Zealand works in a hierarchy and is white on Mauri on Samoan and other Islanders. This puts the lie to any suggestion that people of European descent are the only racists around. On page 201 there are two incidents involving Alofa. In the first a white woman makes a brutal racist remark. In the second, an old white man apologises for the white woman’s behaviour and takes onto himself all of the racist slurs and attacks which have been suffered by Alofa and, by extension, all Islanders from anywhere. This seems a Christ-like act. I know which of the two I would prefer to call a friend.