Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Vela

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We can sense in this novel some ambivalence on Wendt's behalf towards the legacy of his work. Our storyteller Vela, who dies but continually ages says
[the modern] world's terror is beyond . . .
. . . my tongue's ability to represent it . . .
but because it is your birth and future right you will continue storying it for our mokopuna
and anyone else who wants to understand [it] . . . (225).

A similarly ambivalent remark about his legacy was made by Wendt in an interview: "people shouldn't take this novel seriously, in the sense that . . . it is fiction." ([...]) But here he seems to be emphasising the remarkable aspects of his novel, and above all else, inviting us to read it a state of suspended disbelief sensitivity.

I feel there is tension in these quotes over how Wendt wants us to novel to read it. In one sense the novel is serious heroic verse, embracing a transgressive nobrow aesthetic; it is a demonstration of the past as a subjective "creation of our remembering" (23). In another sense the novel feels quite flip. It has been pasted together erratically from ten years' output (and yet this means we can't really say Wendt is trying to `reinvent himself' either). In both cases, it is evident that Wendt feels artistically free in this novel. He maintains an inventive Samoan oratorical style, and a wicked sense of humour. The question this novel leaves me with, is how it will age, and how other, younger Pacific writers will eventually respond to this magnum opus.

The Adventures of Vela is one of the many books that Albert Wendt, a predominant voice in Pacific Literature, has published. The novel is in the form of an epic poem; but, thankfully, Wendt chose to vary the forms of verse he was writing in throughout. The story spans hundreds of years, describing within them the Samoan landscape and lifestyle before, during, and after the arrival of the Europeans. Some of the subject matter is obscure; I might even go so far as to say slightly disturbing, but such is life. Overall, it paints an interesting picture of Samoan mythology and the ways in which it was eradicated (almost completely) by missionaries of the varied Christian faiths.

To quote Paula Green's article for the New Zealand Listener, "...to reduce the book [The Adventures of Vela] to a skeletal synopsis is to undermine the scope of Wendt's achievement." Wendt addresses a wide verity of topics from the influence of hip-hop culture in Samoa to colonial and post-colonial issues. I find there are many similarities in his written and ideological approach to Haunani-Kay Trask's assertion, taken from an article by April K Henderson Gifted Flows: Making Space for a Brand New Beat: "I do not perceive the world of creative writing as divided into categories of prose and poetry or fiction and non-fiction. Nor do I imagine myself crossing from political resistance into artistic creation and then back again. Life is a confluence of creativities: art is fluid political medium, as politics is metaphorical and artistic..." (12). I found Wendt's complicated and many layered writing refreshing from both an academic and recreational standpoint. His challenging expansion of the boundaries of form (the epic poem format of the book also includes songs, the description of the final chapter in a series of film shots, and a section on Feetistry - i.e. foot palmistry) is original and also inspiring - as I am a young writer myself. If you are looking for something different then I would recommend you put this book at the top of your list.

References
Green, Puala. "Layer by Layer." New Zealand Listener. Web. [...]
Henderson, April K. "Gifted Flows: Making Space for a Brand New Beat." ProQuest. Web. [...]