Tapu

by Judy Corbalis

A novel set between 1790 and 1825 which provides an account of the meeting of the first English settlers in New Zealand with the Maori. The story is told by its principal characters, who are all caught together and held by the conflict of ideas and cultures.

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Judy Corbalis was born and grew up in New Zealand but now lives in London. A former Hawthornden Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Women Leaders at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, she has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and was the inaugural Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art where she currently holds the post of Academic Support Tutor.

She has adapted her own work for radio and has written and fronted television programmes for children. Her children's books have been published by Deutsch, Hodder and Scholastic — children love them for their humour and the fact that no character behaves as expected. Her new children's book, Get That Ball, illustrated by Korky Paul, will be published by Andersen Press in 2016. Her adult novels include Tapu, and Mortmain, shortlisted for the 2009 Encore Award.

She is married to the sculptor Phillip King, PPRA, and makes frequent visits to New Zealand.

Reviews

[Zeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since there is only one review so far, I Thought I add another, all the more since mine would be quite different. I do not remember anything lighthearted about the book, but a pretty grim depiction of the harshness of life and the brutality of both the cultures clashing in the book, the pre-assimilated New Zealand Maori and the pre Victorian English - on the mission to baptize and civilize the world, poor buggers. (about 1830 )I guess the book has remained more or less obscure because neither culture is very much flattered by the book, which nevertheless seems very realistic to me, and well researched too. I regret it is not better known. I loved the authors ability to tell a tale from changing viewpoints, several characters get their say, or have the story told through their eyes. I loved the book. I think the lesson could be: we all have a need to evolve! Stop bickering about ethnic superiority this way or that, for goodness sake.
Or, in the words of a Maori I heard here introduce himself to an audience , tongue in cheek: "On my mothers side I come from a long noble line of Cannibals, while on my fathers side from a line of very fine Pirates."

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in New Zealand at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Tapu is the fictionalised account of Jane Kendall, wife of the hapless missionary Thomas Kendall who sails to New Zealand with the intention of converting the heathen but who becomes converted himself by their culture, their language and their religion.

Kendall is an idealist whose passion to serve the Lord leads him to neglect his own wife and children. Jane, a naive Lincolnshire peasant woman, has followed him to the other side of the world out of wifely duty. However, the hardship both she and her children are forced to experience transforms her unquestioning love into a stony contempt.

It's a book with a serious intent but one that is full of an engaging humour. The characterization is vivid and pithy, the voices of the characters intense and utterly convincing.

Tapu opens a window onto a chapter in history that was completely unknown to me. Reading it, I felt both entertained and enlightened. This is the kind of book that stays with you.

[Grant Hodgson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting attempt to imagine what first contact would have been like for early missionaries to New Zealand, and makes a worthwhile start on depicting the clash of cultures, and different world views of Maori and pakeha.