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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Child of Heaven,
By
This review is from: Kaiulani, Crown Princess of Hawaii (Mass Market Paperback)
"Kaiulani: Crown Princess of Hawai'i" by Nancy Webb and Jean Francis Webb was published in 1962 but has been reprinted more than once because, perhaps, there is always room in our hearts for the story of a princess whose life was as tragic as her nature was beautiful.My first awareness of this princess was acquired as an ignorant tourist strolling back to my hotel along an unfamiliar street after a glorious morning in the water at Waikiki. A short walk from the beach, I passed a tiny park dominated by the statue of a regal looking, young woman. She presides over the pathetic, palm treed remnant of what was once the beautiful garden of her home, Ainahau (meaning a place touched by the cool breeze). In the days when Hawaii was an independent nation, this beautiful girl owned a little, white pony called Fairy and handfed the garden peacocks she regarded as her pets. In 1899, at the age of 23, she passed away there at Ainahau, only a few months after the United States had annexed her country. When she died, the crying of the peacocks woke the town. Today, in place of the lovely house and gardens there is a multistorey hotel, relentless traffic, and the intermittent stench of exhaust fumes. The ugly presence of fast-food litter, callously discarded behind the low wall at the bus stop, offends against the tenderness of the flowers which people still lay in tribute at her feet. Long ago, a dear friend of her childhood, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote to wistfully remind her of the wind which flowed through the palms and the magnificent banyan tree where she used to sit and play. That beautiful tree is no more and the mysterious ebb and flow of the breeze is trapped by modern development and silenced by the machinegun crescendo of jackhammers and roaring motor vehicle engines which accompany the profitable march of progress. In the midst of it all, in that forlorn little park, her statue stands undaunted and the garlands which adorn it whisper of an unforgotten love. Daughter of a Scottish father and her beautiful royal, Hawaiian mother, she was the last hope of a tragically dispossessed and exploited people - her name was Princess Kaiulani. I returned to my comfortable, resort hotel overwhelmed by a haunting and unshakeable sadness which seemed, like Kaiulani herself, very out of place and alien in the frenetic, bustling, tourist trap which is modern-day Waikiki. I had to learn more about her. As a touching but rarely sentimental biography, "Kaiulani: Crown Princess of Hawai'i" will fulfil the need of anyone curious or moved enough to learn about this remarkable and lovely Hawaiian princess. In the process, the reader will gather something of Old Hawaii's struggle to survive in the face of the Machiavellian intrigues of vested big-business interests, and a complex, contradictory American involvement which could be as sympathetic and benign as it was callously insensitive and unjust. American imperialism may or may not have contributed to placing Kaiulani in an early grave but it did ensure Hawaii's national and cultural independence would remain buried there along with her. However, while sympathetic to Kaiulani's cause, this text does not descend into rabid, anti-Americanism nor does it indulge the equally powerful temptation to mythologise a wonderful human being into being something more than human. Indeed, the authors reveal that Kaiulani was very human - the best fairytale princesses always are, for they embody our finest and most noble, human qualities along with our tragic vulnerability and divinity of soul. Thanks to this book, I understand more clearly why I felt so strangely grief-stricken for that sweet, royal personage they called the 'Princess of the Peacocks'. The story of Kaiulani is a biography of loss: of close relatives and dear friends, of a fleeting childhood in a fragile, garden paradise, and, finally, the loss of nationhood and life itself. One childhood incident from many in this book is particularly poignant and revealing. Little Kaiulani was swimming in the clear, sparkling waters of Waikiki so near to her beloved home of Ainahau. All-too-soon, she was instructed to come out by her kindly but determined American governess. Kaiulani reluctantly withdrew and, in keeping with the conventions of the time, put on her very civilised and proper Victorian dress. Suddenly, the little princess turned in defiance and ran fully clothed back into the water. Here was a usually sweet-natured child's desperate attempt to live life to the full. It was a tender longing that went largely unfulfilled throughout the brief and troubled days which lay ahead of her. This previously untold story was researched with deep aloha and sincerity by the authors. No reader with half a grain of feeling will fail to be moved by it. In a way, it is the story of the final days of Old Hawaii itself. Kaiulani died young and childless, and a glance at modern Waikiki might suggest that nothing living remains from the beauty of her passing. All seems tragically lost forever, trampled under the brutal, concrete foot of Time. However, in the conclusion of this biography, we learn that her father took a slip from the old banyan tree at Ainahau and planted it in the grounds of a Honolulu school named in Kaiulani's honour. That tree is still there and still growing. The children know its origins and are taught to love and revere their Princess. If you have any love for or interest in Hawaii then read this book. You may become one of Kaiulani's loyal subjects too. There is comfort in knowing that she still lives in the hearts of her people, just as surely as the life force still flows in ancient continuity through the banyan tree her father planted for the children long ago. Kaiulani means Child of Heaven. This book reveals sympathetically but plainly that Kaiulani was well named. May she rest in peace until the beauty of aloha makes noble, loving children of us all.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Kaiulani of Hawaii,
By
This review is from: Kaiulani, Crown Princess of Hawaii (Mass Market Paperback)
This biography of Princess Kaiulani is the closest to an adult version of her life story as you are likely to find. Kaiulani was a compassionate and refined lady of her times. Upon reading this book one is immediately struck by what a tremendous loss her early death was to her people. Had she lived she would have been a tremendously valuable spokesperson for and defender of her people and their way of life. I feel that no one at the time had the power to stop the annexation of the islands by the United States. However, Kaiulani being born of the islands and educated in the west could have gone a long way in easing the transition. The history of Kaiulani and her family is a history worth knowing.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ka`iulani -- from a haole perspective,
By
This review is from: Kaiulani, Crown Princess of Hawaii (Mass Market Paperback)
You can tell that this book was written from the haole perspective. In describing Queen Lili`uokalani's return to Honolulu from Washington after losing the political battle for her land and her people, the author speaks of the kanaka maoli greeting her at Washington Place on their knees. She then describes the continuing oli as "witchlike". There are many other insensitivities to the Hawaiian culture throughout the book. They are not meant to be slights, I am sure, but are proffered with the usual complete lack of regard and understanding of Hawaiian traditional ways by one who is not of that ilk.All that aside, it was still very well written and sensitively told. It is, indeed, a sad book and a sad story set iin a sad time. But sadness is what the kanaka maoli have been faced with, and this book honestly shows the many injustices done. It lovingly describes how Ka`iulani was schooled and trained to fit into the haole world, living away from the islands so long for schooling and finishing purposes in western ways. From a young age she was taught by western teachers in western subjects. I wonder if Ka`iulani would have been so beloved of the haoles as well, if she had not been hapa...and beautiful by European/Western standards. Would she have been so beloved if she looked like Princess Ruth Ke`elikölani Keanolani Kanähoahoa? I am haole.
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