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Loading... English Passengers: A Novel (original 2000; edition 2001)by Matthew Kneale
Work InformationEnglish Passengers by Matthew Kneale (2000)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. What a hoot this one is. A rollicking story of a hapless band of smugglers who get to Tasmania. Very funny and entertaining but also touches on the dark history of Tasmania and the treatment of the aborigines. Part historical, part fiction, a bit of both and a lot of both. Unlike other books that end up neither one thing nor the other, this one gets both right at the same time. Interesting window on history where the surgeon character is based on Robert Knox who wrote The Races of Men, a profoundly influential bestseller of its age which helped form the racial views of Adolf Hitler amongst others. Highly entertaining read! A cast of bumbling Manx rum-runners is forced to charter their boat in order to pay fines. They agree to take three Englishmen from England to Tasmania. This unlikely trio is led by a reverend who believes the Garden of Eden is located there. At the same time, we have the story of the terrible effects of colonization on Australian aborigines, centered on Peevay, who has vowed to learn the white man's ways in order to better fight him. As the pirates and the garden seekers approach, it easy to see there will be a clash. The story is told from multiple perspectives, which gives is a richness of depth. Multiple perspectives has become a common style, but in this book, it works especially well. Great story, wonderful characters...I really enjoyed it. Holy rollicking sea adventure! Matthew Kneale managed to tell a tale of high adventure while at the same time relating the story of the horrors the English visited on the aborigines in Tasmania and the horrific penal colonies established by the British state. Historical fiction at its best. I could not put this book down. Set between 1828 and 1858 and told in alternating chapters by the individuals on board the ship, or residing on the island we hear from the ship’s owner, the three individuals who hired the boat to explore what their leader thought was the garden of Eden in Tasmania, and one very savvy aborigine boy who was the real star of the narrative. An irresistible mix of adventure, horror, violence, humor and the indefatigable human spirit make this book a sure winner. For me anyway. Very highly recommended. This is definitely a unique novel of historical fiction bringing together a cast of blundering individuals thrown together on a foolish mission. Captain Kewley is a Manxman (man from the Isle of Man); he has his first ship, the Serenity, staffed with fellow Manxmen. He has no love for the English and their tariffs and gets himself involved in a smuggling operation. The Reverend Wilson is a sanctimonious Englishman who believes he has figured out that Eden was in Tasmania. Finding no one else to search for Eden, he decides to go on the voyage himself. Dr. Potter, an anthropologist joins the voyage as does Tim Renshaw, an unmotivated young biologist whose family thinks this voyage would help him settle down. Put these together and the events are something like the three Stooges on a seafaring voyage across the globe. If one thing goes right, two things go wrong. All the while Rev. Wilson is proudly praying and directing. In Tasmania, we meet Peevay as a child. His mother apparently hates him and wants nothing to do with him. His background becomes clear that he is a child of rape of a Tasmanian aborigine by a cruel white man named Jack Harp. Each chapter is told by different narrators so the reader gets accounts from different angles. We meet prison guards, Governors, and governor's do-gooder wives, more natives, and a host of minor characters. Each providing a small part of a complicated, dark, violent, and sad picture of Tasmania. Unusual book, but loved it. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesPenguin Celebrations (12) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
A Manx crew and three English passengers arrive at Tasmania in the 1850s to discover that the aboriginal way of life is gone forever. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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This is divine timing for the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who needs a ship to go to Tasmania to prove his theory of Divine Refrigeration. His discourse offers the rather surprising argument that the Garden of Eden is to be found within Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). Wilson has been inspired by the writings of Darwinists, who believe that the Bible is not to be taken literally when it comes to the question of Genesis and the Origins of Species. Unfortunately, Wilson's sponsor is the infantile entrepreneur Jonah Childs whose notion of a good idea would be to use wallabies as pack animals. Childs further demonstrates his poor judgement when he chooses the odious Doctor Potter as botanist for the trip who also volunteers as ship's surgeon. It doesn't take long for Wilson and Potter to realise that they are natural enemies, and it seems that we could be in for a battle of the survival of the fittest, as each take turns to try to convert Kewley's crew. No matter how he tries, Kewley is unable to dump his passengers, so off into the New World they sail.
Another storyline retreats in time to the 1820s to detail the narration of Peevay, a Tasmanian Aborigine, who relates how the 'ghosts' take over the land of his people, and drive them to extinction. He is the product of a rape: his mother was snatched by a white sealer and imprisoned on his island. She escaped, but is forever haunted by the seething hatred she feels for the man who did that to her. When his mother rejects him due to his mixed blood, Peevay yearns for his father. One might think that a novel full of individual narrators would be difficult to navigate, but Kneale handles this well with vivid and vital characters who are engaging for the reader, even when they are as unlikeable as Potter is. I found Kneale's narrative always quite stimulating as did the rest of our Thursday evening book group. He artfully brings all of these narratives to life in a masterful display of black comedy. ( )