<![CDATA[English Passengers: A Novel]]>

false <![CDATA[English Passengers: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166585980m/14257.jpg 14257 18 Christopher Columbus was looking for a passage to India when he ran full-tilt boogie into the Americas. One of the narrators of Matthew Kneale's ambitious historical novel English Passengers has more modest aspirations: Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley wants only to smuggle a little tobacco, brandy, and French pornography from the Isle of Mann to a secluded beach in England. Yet somehow in the process, he and his crew end up weighing anchor for Australia. Worse, they're forced to carry three temperamental Englishmen bound for Tasmania on a mission to discover the exact location of the Garden of Eden. The year is 1857, and the study of geology is beginning to make serious inroads into areas of religious doctrine. When the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson runs across a scientific treatise that puts the age of Silurian limestone somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand years, he is scandalized: "This was despite the fact that the Bible tells, and with great clarity, that the earth was created a mere six thousand years ago." His many attempts to prove the Bible's accuracy lead, eventually, to a scientific expedition comprising himself, Timothy Renshaw, a dilettante botanist, and Dr. Thomas Potter. Now jump back 30 years, to 1828, when a revolution of sorts is stirring on the island of Tasmania. Over the years, white settlers have been encroaching on aboriginal land and relations have deteriorated into violence. At the heart of the action is Peevay, a young half-breed abandoned by his aborigine mother, who had been kidnapped and raped by a white escaped convict. Now his vengeful mother is leading a war against the whites, and Peevay, desperate to win her love, has joined her. Chapters from the past narrated by Peevay and augmented by letters and dispatches from white settlers alternate with the sections told by Kewley, Wilson, Renshaw, and Potter. Eventually, of course, the two time lines intersect with momentous results. War, mutiny, shipwreck, and not a little farce make English Passengers a gripping read, but it is Matthew Kneale's literary ventriloquism that renders it remarkable. In a novel with so many different points of view, the individuality of each voice stands out. There is, for instance, the mutinous Dr. Potter, whose descent into paranoia and egomania results in diary entries reminiscent of a 19th-century psychotic Bridget Jones: "Manxmen = treacherous even to v. last. Self heard Brew (lashed to mainmast as per usual) instructing helmsman to steer N.N.W. When self questioned he re. this he claiming we = carried into Bay of Biscay by difficult sea currents + must set course to avoid Breton Peninsular. He pointing to distant point of land to N.N.E. claiming this = Brittany. Self = doubtful." But perhaps the most compelling voice in English Passengers belongs to Peevay, who paints a vivid picture of aboriginal life in a foreign tongue he nonetheless makes his own: <blockquote> When we sat so in the dark, after our eating, Tartoyen told us stories--secret stories that I will not say even now--about the moon and sun, and how everyone got made, from men and wallaby to seal and kangaroo rat and so. Also he told who was in those rocks and mountains and stars, and how they went there. Until, by and by, I could hear stories as we walked across the world, and divine how it got so, till I knew the world as if he was some family fellow of mine. </blockquote> By the close of this epic tale, the world Peevay had known is gone forever and the lives of the Manx sailors and English passengers have been irrevocably changed. Based on real events in Tasmanian history, Matthew Kneale's novel delivers a home truth about Australia's brutal colonial past, even as it conveys the wonder and allure of the age of exploration. --Alix Wilber 1805006 2000 English Passengers: A Novel total:463|5:199|4:169|3:66|2:26|1:3| 463 1924 747 107 5 4 false false Sun Dec 02 04:22:28 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 02 06:00:06 -0800 2007 English Passengers is one of the best novels I have ever read. A story told by multiple narrators, it initially focuses on a Manx smuggling vessel which sets off for England only to get chartered to set sail to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) because some crazy reverend is convinced that Van Diemen's L...more...]]> 5 3 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 12:55:33 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 18 06:38:34 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 2 false false Mon Mar 24 09:47:09 -0700 2008 Wed May 21 07:09:49 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Mar 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 14 17:00:14 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 05 10:06:35 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Nov 25 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Tue Aug 11 10:45:08 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 10:45:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Nov 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 19 19:54:03 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 22 18:07:33 -0800 2009
There's Captai...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 11:45:08 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 12:00:36 -0700 2009
Its a novel of adventure, smuggling and attempted mutiny ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Wed Sep 30 08:55:30 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 10 11:12:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Mon May 28 05:58:41 -0700 2007 Mon May 28 09:27:08 -0700 2007 rocks. It lurches here and there, like a ship on choppy seas, full of hilarious absurdity, disastrous clashes of cultures, and somehow it all works. Very satisfying.]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu May 21 14:30:50 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 14:34:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sat Nov 01 12:53:37 -0700 2008 Thu Dec 04 16:41:22 -0800 2008 Loosely based on the development of Tasmania in the mid-nineteenth century, the novel is told from the point of view of several d...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Aug 19 13:59:02 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 19 14:05:22 -0700 2009 once more...]]> 1 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 18:33:06 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 18:45:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 22:17:58 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 22:17:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jun 28 11:19:39 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 11:21:58 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 14:41:26 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 14:47:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 13 06:06:23 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 06 09:46:09 -0800 2009
The great ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 28 20:10:31 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 29 04:23:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sat Jan 26 17:21:12 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 17:34:03 -0800 2008
In any case, the book is about a self satisfied minister who decides to v...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 16 09:02:57 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 22 12:36:30 -0700 2007 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=14257