The Isles of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

he Islands of Unwisdom is an historical novel by Robert Graves, published in 1949. It was also published in the UK as The Isles of Unwisdom. It is a reconstruction of an historic event, the voyage of Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira to find the Solomon Islands. Graves tells a story with many surprising twists, in which some characters turn out to be quite different from how they are first portrayed. In Graves's telling, when the Spanish first come into contact with Solomon Islanders, the relationship is cordial. However, the Spanish expedition's need for fresh food and water quickly leads to tension and conflict, the Solomon Islanders’ subsistence economy being unable to provide continuous supplies. The real prizes are pigs, desperately needed by the Spanish, while vital to the local people’s economy. The tensions cannot be resolved, and so the Spaniards sail home. Graves also considered that the story summarizes the reasons Spain lost its early lead in exploring the world.
(Source; wiki)

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, British Literature

417 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1950

About the author

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. Born in Wimbledon, he received his early education at King's College School and Copthorne Prep School, Wimbledon & Charterhouse School and won a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford. While at Charterhouse in 1912, he fell in love with G.H. Johnstone, a boy of fourteen ("Dick" in Goodbye to All That) When challenged by the headmaster he defended himself by citing Plato, Greek poets, Michelangelo & Shakespeare, "who had felt as I did".

At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.

One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.

Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".

Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).

In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.

During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart

Reviews

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of those funny books that was fascinating while reading it, but that you could put down for days without missing it. Having known nothing about this expedition, I appreciated all the research and hard work that Graves put into the tale. It was very well-told. It felt more like a documentary than historical fiction. The characters were very vivid, and disturbing. The way that they could murder, rape and pillage without a second thought, and the way the priests were so understanding of this insanity...crazy disturbing.

[Ricardo]

Robert Graves es muy conocido por sus novelas históricas. En especial "Yo Claudio" adaptada hace años para la televisión.
En esta obra se trata de una expedición española en 1595, apenas un siglo despues del descubrimiento, por el pacífico sur, en busca de las Islas Salomón, que habían sido descubiertas unos años antes por el Jefe de la expedición, Alvaro de Mendaña. La flota parte de Lima y desde el comienzo da señales de ir abocada al fracaso. Los españoles del siglo XVI orgullosos, pendencieros, codiciosos, indisciplinados e imprevisivos estan muy bien retratados. La hazaña que se proponen es realmente desmesurada, la novela describe muy bién lo rudimentario de los medios de navegación, las embarcaciones, los instrumentos de orientación, el conocimiento de las distancias. Hay adicionalmente una clave muy interesante que el autor pone en evidencia desde el comienzo: en los buques expedicionarios españoles los marinos y los soldados son oficios diferentes e incompatibles. Para los soldados y en general para los que tuvieren alguna pretensión de nobleza, el trabajo es un deshonor. Para ello están los esclavos. Cuando la navegación somete a los navíos a peligros graves, todos estos hombres de honor son completamente inútiles. Esta mentalidad, junto con su naturaleza pendenciera, estan entre los factores que llevan al fracaso la expedición. Muy recomendable.

[Emma Glaisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpected delight. Funny and chilling in equal measure, an insight into the politics and conflict behind the ‘noble voyages of discovery’.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

At a certain level I found this a dreadful boring repetitive read

I had taken 4 books away with me on my Far Eastern holiday. The first - Saul bellows xxxz - had found itself in the waste bin after 40 pages of gruesome annoying ness. So there was heightened expectation and hope for this Robert graves history of a random 16 c assault on the Solomon Islands

But boy o boy one rancid tale of human depravity and petty misdeed after another. Again at another certain level it’s entertaining , I mean as a short story of say 15-20 pages. But 300 pages worth ?

Sorry Robert I loved your heartfelt tales of the trenches in the Great War. I loved the tale of your life on Mallorca as told by your son. But your jaunt over the pacific in historic costume - not for me

[SaraB · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars for the story. 0 for the misogyny and character assassination. Abrupt style annoyed me too. Please read anything else about Isabel/Ysabel. I LOVED Je te vois reine des quatre parties du monde

[Angel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Expedición de 1565 de Álvaro Mendaña y su mujer Isabel Barreto a las islas Salomón.
Tenía un buen recuerdo de las novelas de Graves que leí hace mucho tiempo pero este libro no aporta nada. Las descripciones no son buenas y los diálogos de los personajes peor.

[Zifra Ra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy Graves. Y contando una hostoria que casi seguro que desconoces, la conquista del Pacífico por los españoles.

[Alison Vardy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn’t finish as was in Spanish and just toolaborious and bloodthirsty

[La Buhardilla de los Libros · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitivamente, Robert Graves no es para mí.

[Jesi Salinas · Rating 4 out of 5]

una historia muy interesante. No oculta nada de lo que paso en esta expedicion y narra estupendamente todos los hechos que llevaron a la ruina este intento de descubrimiento.