Customer Reviews

Islands

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This novel transcends the category of fiction (which tells a story) and deserves to be classified as literature (a story that yields profound insights into the human condition). Though told primarily from the Dutch viewpoint, there are a few key sympathetic indigenous characters here and Sleigh's contempt for the Dutch strategy of conquest by means of deliberately addicting native Africans to alcohol and tobacco (that they can only get by cooperating with the Europeans) is evident. The "Islands" of the title are both individual human beings and small outlying settlements of colonists struggling to survive and to gain economically. Looming over all these stories is the all-powerful Dutch East India Company a behemoth of unbending, beaucratic greed that grinds down employee and foe alike. Maps would have been very helpful. It's also true that the language of this book is at times demanding (there are too many untranslated terms), but even this adds a tang of authenticity and reminds us that this story could only have been told with such depth and understanding by a South African.

The epic novel Islands, by Dan Sleigh is an ambitious first novel covering the first fifty years of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It is a fascinating novel thoroughly researched by Sleigh and constructed from factual accounts, official records and personal letters.

Islands is the life stories of seven men who are all connected in one way or another to the beautiful Pieternella, the daughter of a Dutch surgeon Peter Havgard and Eva, a Hottentot woman. Pieternella is the offspring of the first mixed marriage in the new colony.

Islands is a haunting drama filled with excitement, greed, power, intrigue, war and individual courage. At times the novel is absolutely spectacular and at other times the story seems to drag a bit. The book is well over 700 pages so it takes commitment to begin the story. But overall it is a mesmerizing saga; one that will keep you turning the pages and have you considering the story and history long after you've finished it. This is a novel that will be appreciated by those who particularly enjoy historical writings.

A prize-winner in its native Afrikaans language, this edition has been translated by Andre Brink. Dense, rich prose (very hard to read but worth the effort) and detailed historical facts are crammed into this book (the author worked in the National Archives in Cape Town). Recommended.

If you are familiar with James Michener, then you can get an immediate sense of the scope and magnitude of what Dan Sleigh is trying to accomplish in his historical novel, Islands. Set in South Africa in the first several generations of Dutch colonization, Islands follows several characters over the course of 150 years and details their journey as they struggle to help their native homeland, the Netherlands, establish a remote colonial outpost on the tip of Africa. Without making apologies or in any way trying to rationalize the Dutch's actions, Sleigh chronicles their conquering of both the land and the indigenous people who lived there when they arrived. At the center of this stylized history lie two islands, Robben Island, which was essentially a 18th century Dutch version of Alcatraz, and Mauritius, a more ideal island distanced from the politics and brutal bureaucracy of the Dutch Empire.
Unlike the aforementioned Michener, who himself wrote an excellent novel, The Covenant, about South Africa's brutal history, Sleigh's novel is driven by the characters, primarily the native Hottentot Eva and the men who cross her path in various capacities. The only limitation on the novel's scope is that Sleigh invests so much time into certain characters that the essence of south Africa- the land, not the country- gets lost. While the facts make it clear that this is a tale of the Dutch, Sleigh's character-driven writing risks sacrificing the expanse and overwhelming nature of Africa the continent, an aspect which Michener captured so well in his epic.
Regardless, this is a compelling read. Informative, illuminating, and emotionally engaging, Dan Sleigh's Islands paints a vivid portrait of one the most brutal and greed-driven chapters in 18th century colonization.

This is essentially a history of South Africa from the first Dutch outpost built to service their ships in post. It is a familiar story: civilization is rife with such tales, the indigenous lands overtaken by a superior force with the tools to outlast those who have depended on the land for their livelihood. When the Hollanders first arrive on the shores of South Africa in 1650, the natives are guided by their English-speaking Chief Harry (Herri), who interfaces with the Dutch for the benefit of the tribe, the Goringhaicona. The natives expecting the Dutch to sail away; instead they plant their flag, designating this place a Dutch port. The natives are expected to abide by the same law as the settlers, Haerlem's Law: work first, then eat.

The pivotal character in the novel is Pieternella, daughter of a Dutch surgeon and a Hottentot woman, Eva (Krotoa), who lost the allegiance of her tribe by working for the newcomers on what was formerly grazing land. The surgeon, Peter Havgard, was attracted to Eva, renamed by the Hollanders. When Eva becomes pregnant with their child, she loses her place in both worlds, belonging fully to neither. In an effort to supplement their income, Peter goes on a series of expeditions to explore the South African land the Dutch are determined to make their own. The Dutch overcome the more primitive Hottentots after a few cruel winters, gradually wearing away their opposition, reducing their numbers by attrition, the usual manner one civilization usurps the lands of another.

It falls to Pieternella to monitor the story of the following years, via her tangential relationship with various characters, contrasting the devastation of her own country with the success of the burghers, who continue to build upon the land, cultivate, breed cattle and establish a presence that overwhelms the few scattered tribes left to oppose the occupation.

In excess of 700 pages, what begins as an interesting turn of history's pages is flattened by detail, in the retelling of a history that is devoid of passion. Perhaps it is the weight of the Dutch personality. With stubborn obsession, the Dutch, once determined upon a course, simply flattens anything that stands in the way. With typical European hubris, it is assumed that the settlers are superior to the natives, that one way of life must dissolve under the onslaught of another. There is a kind of avid brutality in these pages, the determination by the Dutch immutable and unchallenged by an inferior scattering of natives who lived in a simple societal structure. Instead, God and the Company rule this land from the first.

As the various characters evolve in the novel, their voices are eerily similar, the Dutch determined, the natives bewildered and depressed, no one to challenge the might of God or Company. It is hardly shocking that this continent should suffer such violence and political upheaval in later years, finally raising up to challenge the first settlers who claimed the land, denying the rights of indigenous peoples. Luan Gaines/ 2005.