Customer Reviews

Solomon Time: An Unlikely Quest in the South Pacific

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Will Randall, though a high school teacher for ten years, is really just a kid--thirty-two years old, but still young in his attitudes and in his views of what life, and his own life, in particular, are all about. Unsophisticated and incurious, he has been content to let life happen to him. When his friend Charles suggests that he give up his job and go to the Solomon Islands for a year, he demurs, but Charles is an executor of the will of an Englishman known as the Commander, who has left money for the benefit of the islanders, if someone will go there to develop a reliable industry that will provide the villagers with income they can use for community improvements. Eventually, Randall finds himself agreeing to go, not making a decision so much as just going with the flow.

Randall experiences a delayed coming of age on New Georgia Island, a process he documents in this good-humored tale, filled with delightful characters and observations about life in a community in which there is little change. Ingenuous and unambitious, he enjoys the lullaby rhythms of life in the tropics, but he eventually determines that raising chickens would both provide income and expand the limited diet of the villagers. Describing how he sets up this business, he also comments on village mores, including the cannibalism which existed until the early 20th century. He briefs the reader on the World War II history of the nearby island of Guadalcanal, retells the story of JFK and PT-109, which went down in the Solomon Islands, and describes his own personal disasters, mocking himself at one point, after he falls overboard in shark infested waters and watches as his motorized canoe continues on its way.

Far more interested in telling a story than in contemplating his inner growth or making weighty observations about what he has learned, Randall pokes fun at himself and at the one or two "villains" he encounters with the chicken-business, and he concentrates on telling amusing episodes rather than developing any deep or universally meaningful conclusions. His decision to return to England comes suddenly, with no fanfare and even less explanation, and he offers few clues about what he has learned or why he has chosen this particular time to leave.

Though the author is very entertaining, he sometimes mixes metaphors and similes into a colorful but almost incoherent jumble. At one point, he describes Honiara, the capital, as "the unsightly boil in the navel of the islands." In the next sentence, he says Honiara is "reminiscent of the cardboard set of a low-budget spaghetti Western," and describes it also as "slouching like a hungover vagrant against the foothills of Tandachehe Ridge." Despite such confusions in imagery, however, he succeeds in writing an enjoyable, good-natured, and often charming story which will amuse readers of all ages. Mary Whipple

This book tells the rather self-deprecatory tale of an English school teacher who becomes a volunteer in the Solomon Islands. A chance meeting with an ex-colonial identified as "the commander" sends Will Randall to Rendova Island in the Western Solomons with the vague intention of helping the local villagers create some sort of income-generating project. Randall's first weeks are spent acclimatizing to the slow pace of Solomons life, until a divemaster in nearby Munda suggests he help the villagers set up a chicken farm to supply meat to the local guest houses. Despite the ethnic conflicts raging in the capital Honiara, Will Randall manages with difficulty to locate the correct breeding hens, and Chicken Willy is soon dispensing fried fast food to one and all at Munda Market. Solomon Time is a case study of the naive Westerner in a tropical location who arrives to do good and stays to go native. It's appropriate reading for anyone considering doing something similar.

I read this book because I love travel writing, because I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (in Ghana, West Africa), and because I have been to the Solomon Islands.

So when I read some of the descriptions of the book I became excited about Will Randall's "Solomon Time." Well, I was not too impressed. Not entirely disappointed either. It was refreshing to read conversations in pidgin English and read descriptions of Honiara and Munda (though I disagree that Honiara is a horrible place). What I was hoping for was more closure to the story and more lessons learned as a volunteer. It sounds like Will had a good experience with his chicken project and the follow up restaurant, but what became of these ventures? I, for one, don't remember Chicken Willie's in Munda when I was there in 2009, but perhaps I missed it. I don't know how I could have, but perhaps...

Some of the descriptions are quite contrived, too. I love a good descriptive travel narrative, and if your job is to describe the Solomon Islands, you'd better be ready. It is a brilliant place with more colors than anywhere else in the world. His description of the chicken crowing and the sun coming up like a big fiery disc... blah blah blah... was just not up to par with how other travel writers could have dealt with it. I'm a fan of Theroux and Bryson, so perhaps I was expecting too much.

The book also reads like a choppy set of chapters all thrown together with little links between them. There is a story, but it runs as an undercurrent to different self-contained chapters. I found this to be a little annoying, especially considering the fact that the main story doesn't really conclude itself. Okay, the project becomes something of a success, but then what?

An unlikely quest? Yes. I just wish it was a more vivid quest with a few good lessons learned.

Hem alright lelebit.

I fell in love with the Solomons during two visits in the mid-1980s. Will Randall has captured the spirit of the islands very well.... the casualness of the process, the friendships of the locals, the dubious expats who drift in and out.

You will enjoy his British wit and laugh at his adventures and fellow islanders. A great holiday read, especially if in the tropics.

As an american i found the book to be very intresting not only for the relaxing journey though the south pacific but also for Randall's british ways, Reading solomon time made me think of Will as Hugh Grant. The conversations with the islanders were very good , the desciptions of the island scenery and people was great and i feel like i came away knowing a remote village in a far flung corner of the map, which is always an indication of a good book.

Absolutely charming book: a great read - very funny, interesting, even a bit of adventure. Tells of the author's time spent in the Solomon Islands - mainly living on Rendova island (where John F. Kennedy's PT-109 was based during WWII) and trying to help the village develop some sort of better income. I've been to Solomon Islands, but only Guadalcanal, and last (mid 1990's) some few years prior to the period Will Randall writes of (late 1990's). I can say that his characterization of the people and culture is accurate and affectionate. I enjoyed the Pijin (one of the "Pidgin English" languages spoken in Melanesia) used in the book (you can usually figure out what it means by reading phonetically - but the author translates most anything complex into English). "Solomon Time" is a reference to the lack of the tyranny of the clock which is fairly common in the tropical parts of the developing world: there are no cold seasons, the days float along and life is what happens. The descent of the Solomon Islands into a failed state was well on its way when I was there, by the time of this book you can see the collapse of the country at the edges of the story. I was sorry to hear of the old Henderson Field being turned in to a more modern "Honiara International Airport" by the Japanese in 1996. The old airport was my favorite in the world - you felt like you were back in the 1940's: comprised of Quonset Huts and slowly rotating ceiling fans you had your passport stamped in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke and rotting vegetation.

The only negatives are the often erratic nature of the narrative (he occasionally jumps forward and back in time and this is sometimes difficult to follow), and his almost subconscious dislike of people from the United States (every one he meets is described as some form of moral cripple). It is definitely an English book - references and expressions that North Americans may find hard to follow (or would plain read over without comprehension - example: aside from me, Who reads Tintin in the US or English-speaking Canada? The author uses a quote from Captain Haddock at one point as a jest, but which is lost on a person who doesn't know Captain Haddock's unique form of cursing) but I would find this part of the book's charm, although I don't know if others would.

As a young boy, I used to delight in the books of Lillian Beckwith. She described her adventures, as she left her life as a teacher in England, to be plunged into a totally new culture as a crofter in the Western Isles of Scotland. I can remember laughing out loud as I read about the antics of some of the characters.

In Solomon Time, Will Randall describes how he leaves his life as a teacher in England, to become immersed in the very different culture of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Lillian made the change on doctor's orders. Will made the change due to the strange will and testament of a character who is universally referred to as The Commander.

His task is to set up a viable business to sustain and improve the life of the villagers amongst whom he lives.

This is an enjoyable adventure. There are short passages, describing mixes of wildlife which appear to view simultaneously, which I simply do not believe. But I put this down to the author's artistic license. There are plenty of laughs, and one can't help but like many of the characters. You can't read this book without coming to envy Will's circumstances.

Whilst it didn't set my world on fire, I would still thoroughly recommend it to all my friends.

This book has some hilarious moments. I recommend it highly to anyone wanting to learn more about the South Pacific

Sean O'Reilly
Editor-at-large
Travelers' Tales

Editor of 30 Days in the South Pacific

I was highly impressed with this terrifically real, but straightforward recital of events in really unusual circumstances. For example, the author did not editorialize on whether the village people working throughout the night to process their chickens, so they could obtain more material goods, was a good or bad thing. Likewise with the picture of them working in (I presume) a hot, smoky kitchen in Chicken Willys.

As a typical capitalist American, I of course would have set up the same, but I also want to ask the author: Are these good people better off as they were, or after taking up the reins of commerce?

This new author has real talent.

This is a good read. The book has many interesting episodes about the author's (mis)fortunes. It also introduces us to the life in the Solomon islands. But the author tries to add a lot of fluff to very small incidents and forces us to skip pages.