Customer Reviews

English Passengers

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you have ever read a work by Umberto Eco you may feel confused, albeit slightly less so, when reading "English Passengers".

Firstly, I suggest starting with the Epilogue. This spoils nothing, as it is a written explanation of historical facts in the book, that when known to the reader, will make reading more enjoyable. The same is to be said for the section "The Anglo-Manx Dialect". The Author does a good job of placing these words in context, but it wasn't until I read this section that I learned this language was not only a true language, but also Celtic with relations to Ireland and Scotland.

These suggestions are not meant to put you off, rather make your read a more enjoyable one than I might have had, and a finish that was more satisfying for me. As I mentioned I felt a bit like I had an Umberto Eco, "What did I miss hangover" but that was my failing not the Author's.

The only item that I could not get accustomed to was the diary style of one of the primary characters. Possibly because he was so annoying, his form of journal notation just reinforced his loathsomeness.

This is a great read. The Author's ability to manage almost 2-dozen different voices, over half a century, that comes together at the end in a brilliant manner, is no small feat.

There is very little in this book that does not involve commentary from the Author, albeit through the voices he either creates, or borrows from History. Empire building, religion, government, race relations, are just a few of the topics. And while I would never suggest this is a light read, or one that constantly lifts your spirits, you will be well rewarded by the conclusion.

The once popular genre, associated with Richardson, Laclos, Scott, Fielding, Sterne and Austen has pretty much fallen out of fashion. Kneale revives it brilliantly here. He employs 19 seperate narrators to tell this tale of exploitation, genocide, greed, adventure and misadventure. In the hands of a lesser artist, such a crazy quilt arrangement would lead to chaos. Kneale manages the seperate voices like a master marionette artist. Each character rings true, even the most eccentric. Each scene, even the most fantastic, remains true to the logic of the book as a whole. No small accomplishment, indeed.

The narrative focuses primarily on the arrival of Europeans (primarily English settlers) to the island of Tasmania and to the expansion of their "civilization" in the middle of the 19th century. In order for this civilization to thrive and expand, the aboriginal population had to go. They just didn't fit in. Several of them, including one of the narrator's (Peavy's)mother, were downright intractable. Conflict ensues. Though the aboriginal peoples come out on the short end of the stick, one half-caste does enact some good old fashioned revenge towards the end of the tale.

The other main thread deals with a scientific exhibition led by a minister (Wilson) in search of The Garden of Eden, and a doctor (Potter) interested in collecting human samples of various peoples in the hope of advancing his theory of a natural order of races, just as Darwin had advanced his theory of the order of species. A third English passenger, a young geologist named Renshaw, doesn't figure as prominently in the plot as the aforementioned, but does provide some clear-headed satirical insight into the goings on.

The funniest and most sympathetic character, apart from the Aboriginal narrators, is Illium Quillian Kewely, an old salty smuggler from the Isle of Man, Captain and proud owner of the uniquely designed sailing vessel "The Sincerity." He, Peavy, and Renshaw provide the only reliable main narratives. He's also one of the most colorful and memorable characters in recent fiction. He and his Manx-speaking crew are involved in an entirely different mission than that of the passengers. The manner in which Keale juggles the intertwining plots is another example of his artistry.

The villains are true rotters. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson is full of conceit and self delusion. His sole preoccupation is with securing fame and fortune by proving his hair-brained notion that Tasmania is the actual location of the Tigris and Euphrates mentioned in Genesis. His stubborn pig-headedness will have dire consequences for the expedition. The manner in which Kneale eventually deals with him is brilliant.

Wilson's mortal enemy is Dr. Thomas Potter. Potter is based in part on Jean-Louis Agassiz, whose evolutionary theories involved a break-down of races into various categories, the dark races occupying the bottom rung. Such categorizing had obvious ramifications on much of the history and conflict of the 20th century. The fact that Potter's top rung of the evolutionary ladder is occupied by "the Saxon Type" is meant as an historical harbinger.

The only enjoyable thing about either of these characters is that they hate each other so vividly. Their animosity sustains many of the humorous episodes of the novel, until it turns more serious towards the end. Potter's fate is another piece of grand invention on Keale's part.

If you're in the mood for a big, grand read, by a novelist at the top of his game, look no further. This one definitely moves to the top of my chart for novels read in 2004. It's thoroughly enjoyable, absorbing literature of the first rank.

BEK

Matthew Kneale's "English Passengers" is the best novel I've read all year and the best historical fiction since "The Sot-Weed Factor." Comedy and tragedy mix comfortably in this tale of a hapless Vicar's irrational belief that the Biblical Garden of Eden was located in Tasmania. His obsession brings together an uproarious mix of Englishmen, Manxmen, and Aborigines, as Vicar Wilson's voyage of discovery turns into an indictment of empire and racism. The novel offers a rich tapestry of plot and character, with the Manx sea captain, Illian Quillian Kewley, a true original, as its emotional center. It is Kewley's humanity that keeps the book--as well as the Sincerity, his ship--on course, even when events turn tragic, as in the genocide of Tasmania's aboriginal population. Kneale's ventriloquism has been noted elsewhere; read "English Passengers" to experience it yourself. Here, indeed, is God's plenty.

In 1857, Illiam Quillian Kewley, captain of the Sincerity, sets sail from the Isle of Mann with three mysterious English passengers who hope to discover the Garden of Eden. There is the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, bent on proving the literal accuracy of the Bible against atheist geologists, Timothy Renshaw, a "sometimes" botanist, and the sinister, egomaniacal Dr. Thomas Potter, who is developing a revolutionary theory on the races of man. Each passenger has his own agenda, and, unknown to all three, Captain Kewley has desires of his own--he just wants to smuggle some tobacco and brandy, with a little French pornography thrown in for good measure. After the Serenity sets sail, the book jumps back thirty years, to 1828 Tasmania where a revolution is in the making. At its center is a young, half-breed boy, Peevay, whose mother was raped and abandoned by a white convict. This rightfully embittered aboriginal woman is now in the midst of a war against the encroaching whites and Peevay, so anxious to win her love and approval, can't help but join her. When Kewley's timeline intersects with Peevay's, worlds collide and lives are forever changed. English Passengers is told from the point of view of more than twenty different narrators, each distinct, yet recognizable and each adding his own necessary piece to a seamless and beautiful whole. That the individuality of each voice shines through, yet never disrupts, is testimony to Kneale's extraordinarily artistic storytelling ability. The most compelling voice, however, belongs to Peevay, who tells a fascinating and vivid story of aboriginal life. This is a novel of epic proportions, spanning forty years, replete with adventure and rich with historic detail. The mutinies, wars and the melodrama aplenty are finely handled and well-balanced with high comedy bordering on farce. English Passengers is definitely a novel to be savored, and afterwards, long-remembered. It lacked nothing.

Few books manage to provide a hilariously wry and cynical view of things and yet retain the solemn ampathy and decorum which befits perhaps the treatment of a dark chapter of history -- in this case that of colonial exploitation. 'English Passengers' achieves that difficult distinction in true style. Mr. Kneale sets his highly enjoyable novel against the backdrop of the genocide in Tasmania. I realize that it sounds rather obnoxious when I use the words genocide and enjoyable in the same sentence but allow me to explain myself. Mr. Kneale seems to be an exponent to the belief that in order to do justice to a harrowing period of history, one does not necessarily have to write an unreadable book. Therefore, inspite of his great sensitivity to the subject, his poignant sympathy for the vanquished and bitter contempt for the conquerors, his novel manages to be not only touching and thought provoking in a very profound sense but hilarious because of his great talent for creating self-righteous and smug characters brimful with dogma and pettiness. The cast of characters is colourful and engrossing and he manages to give them distinctive, believable and highly individual voices so that the beautifully flowing narrative is simply a treat to read. I seldom laugh out aloud while reading a book and apart from Mark Twain I can't think of anyone else ( at least gauging from what I have managed to read over the past few years --maybe the fault lies in what I am reading) who has provided so much joy out of clever turns of phrase and incisive exploration of the eccentricities of human character. Written like a traditional sea voyage yarn, the novel provides colourful settings and great interplay between the characters while it unfolds a heart rending rendition of the worst of colonialism. 'English Passengers' thus has an appeal at multiple levels and Mr. Kneale displays a strong sense of mood setting, charcterization and the narrative voice. Writing humour, in my opinion, is the most difficult of all writing forms and to do it so successfully against the backdrop of such sombre history is all the more arduous. Captain Kewley, Reverend Geoffrey Wilson and Dr. Thomas Potter are just a few of the beautifully crafted characters who provide their perspective on this remarkable voyage. Peevay -- the aboriginal boy tells of what befalls his people and Mr. Kneale has taken pains to achieve historical accuracy. The novel also explores the horrible experience of convict life, the cruelties and kindnesses of the early settlers and other individual experiences in the newly conquered territory All in all a highly engaging (still a vital ingredient in my view for a great book), enjoyable and satisfying reading experience.

I plead with people to read this book. Matthew Kneale's "English Passengers" is a romping, hilarious and tragic historical fiction novel. Currently nominated for England's top literary prize, this import deserves a Beatlesque reception here in America. Extremely well-written with a cavalcade of delightful (Capt. Kewley), deceitful (Dr. Potter) and tragic (Peevay) characters, this book gives the historical fiction genre a much-needed boost. Kneale has done his research, so his Manx ship-captain, English priest, and Tasmania aborigines seem very real to the reader. With clarity and a strong purpose Kneale takes the reader on a journey of forty years of history told from multiple points of view all coming together in the jarring collison of English and Aborginal cultures. Read this book and learn about England's settlement of Australia and Tasmania. Enjoy great character development, a fast-paced plot and a climatic ending. Read and enjoy a great book.

What a wonderful book. This is truely historical fiction at its best - provoking you to learn and think about a place (Tasmania!) and a time very different from our own, yet completely engrossing as a story and extremely well written to boot. Kneale also pulls off the difficult trick of telling a story through many powerful voices - from the pious delusions of the Reverend to a convict's chilling hardness to the tragic anger of Peevay, Tasmania's "last" native. The themes that run through this book - extinct cultures (Manx, native Tasmanian), the Victorian urge to "civilize" both convicts and natives, the twin delusions of science and religion of the "English Passngers" are all thought provoking, yet are deftly woven into a page-turning thrilling adventure story. I agree with a previous reviewer that the silliness of the smuggling plot seems a bit contrived and some might quibble with the "happy" endings afforded some of the book's more sympathetic characters, but I found these light touches a relief from some of the book's more harrowing scenes -- incredibly brutal moments in history are depicted in a simple way that I found deeply chilling and saddening. Overall, a great read that is "deep" without being ponderous or overly self-conscious.

This novel was by far the most readable on the Booker 2000 shortlist, but sadly, as we all know, such books often don't win the prize. It was also the best-written and most consistent book: thankfully, justice has now prevailed and Matthew Kneale has deservedly walked off with the Whitbread.

Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley starts off this magnificent, polyphonic novel. He's the leader of a crew of Manx smugglers. This is where you get the first hint of the authenticity and complexity that Matthew Kneale has worked into this tome. Kewley's a brilliant, lively character along with his fellow Manx shipmates. If you bother to look at the census returns for the Isle Of Man for the nineteenth century, you'll see that there are Kneales mixed up with the Kewleys and the Mylchreests (indeed, the Arts and Books section of the Telegraph recently divulged that Matthew Kneale was born on the Isle of Man). So, Kneale, with his glossary of the Anglo-Manx dialect, seems to start off writing about characters that are fairly close to home. However, historical sources do relate that Manx smugglers did wander widely and that some were forcibly transported to the New World, where they endured the experimental hospitality of Port Arthur prison in Tasmania. This is an interesting story in itself, and very amusing as Kewley and crew try to offload their ill-gotten gains. But then their ship, the Sincerity, attracts the attention of the Customs, and Kewley is forced to consider the indignity of taking on board paying passengers.

This is divine timing on the part of 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. Wilson has been fired up 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' judgement seems lacking when he chooses a rather lacklustre botanist for the trip, and a rather too eager volunteer as ship's surgeon in the shape of the odious Doctor Potter. 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. Try as he might, Kewley is unable to dump his passengers, so off into the New World they sail.

The book also goes back in time to the 1820s to present Peevay's narration. Peevay is 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 seal hunter 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. Much of Peevay's early life has been without both his mother and his father. When his mother rejects him due to his mixed blood, Peevay cannot help but yearn for his father. Peevay's jealousy is roused when Mother lavishes affection on his weakly half-brother Tayaleah. Soon the ghosts launch the notorious Black Line. In the event of its ludicrous failure, the Tasmanian Aborigines are dispatched to Flinders Island under the protection of an Angel of Death: Robson. To the casual observer, a novel full of individual narrators might be a nightmare to navigate, but Kneale is a superb Captain. It helps that his characters are so vital, so engaging to read, even if they do write the vilest of polemics, as Potter does. It could seem that this is an awful mishmash to put into one novel. However, Kneale's thinking is always quite stimulating and naturalistic. From my background reading, it looks as though Kneale's not the first author to have approached Tasmania from the perspective of the Garden of Eden: Brian Castro's novel 'Drift' had the 'Intercostals' sealer McGann stealing Pallawah women, utilizing the analogy of Adam and Eve.

Although Kneale employs locations and institutions exceptionally well, I was a bit disappointed that he didn't use the real names of the historical figures. Governor George Alder was possibly the historic Governor George Arthur; Robson was based on 'bricklayer' George Augustus Robinson. However, this gives Kneale a necessary dramatic license: this is a very entertaining book after all. In his epilogue Kneale mentions that the odious Doctor Potter was based on the real life 'disgraced' surgeon Robert Knox (who, whilst in Edinburgh, employed the notoriously work-shy Burke and Hare - why then didn't Channel 4's Booker prize pundit Ian Rankin choose this novel as his favourite?!!). It's shocking that the notions of such a vile man should ever have been taken seriously after that disreputable scandal. However, although the genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines is shocking in 'English Passengers', the real life stories of Truganini and William Lanney are even more so. As it is also sickening to see Darwin quote from Knox in 'The Descent of Man' and Darwin's own thoughts on the Tasmanian Aborigines. Yet Kneale is such a skilful novelist that you cannot help but feel some pity towards the deluded Wilson and Potter. Matthew Kneale comes from the Evelyn Waugh school of black comedy, with the added bonus that he's merciless to the evils of racism. Unlike many other literary novelists this year, Matthew Kneale hasn't put a foot wrong in his travails.

Using a challenging technique of sharing the narrative between around twenty different characters, Matthew Kneale has made an ambitious attempt to inject a balanced realism into his book. The central problem is that the novel is ultimately undecided in its intentions and leaves the reader uneasy. While straining for verity in some scenes, others are rendered in a spirit of high camp. This may be possible, and at times the tones ARE perfect (the voice of the young aborigine struck me as particularly convincing), but Kneale's true problem lies in the changes, or lack thereof, that his characters undergo. We are presented with stereotypes, the self righteous clergyman, the sanguine doctor, the dissipated youth and while they begin the book as both colorful and entertaining, their traits are merely exaggerated, never developed or changed. This eventually takes what I was considering one of the best books of the year and reduces Kneale, in my eyes, to a writer of immense promise, a novel or two away from perfection.

I didn't realize how much I was enjoying this book until I finished it, and wished there was more. The beginning was beguiling, but I found it kind of tailed off in the middle. By this I mean that, while I continued to read the book, I found it quite easy to put down and move on to something else. Frankly, after their third failure, the adventures of Captain Kewley and crew became a little too Basil Fawlty-ish for me: I started to squirm with embarrassment for them, and was reluctant to learn the outcome of their future attempts to unload that "certain cargo." However, once the Reverend Wilson et al arrived on Tasmania, I was unable to stop reading! Mr. Kneale certainly knows how to whip his characters into a climax. On the strength of the last 100 pages alone, I would heartily recommend this novel to anyone who likes a cerebral adventure as much as a seafaring tale.