The Ebbing Of The Tide

by Louis Becke

This second collection of Louis Becke's stories highlights the rough side of paradise. Love, lust, honor, betrayal, passion, indifference, honesty, and villainy--all these traits are shared by native and foreigner alike in these tales of adventure, greed, and passion. First published in the late 19th Century, Becke spoke to an audience hungry for information about the South Seas. But even as it was being penned, the region he knew so well had become more settled by Western culture and "civilization" had begun to take its toll on the native population, both physically and psychologically.

Genres: Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1896

About the author

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Becke

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Echoes of Conrad fill the pages of Louis Becke's short story collection. The same even conversational style that Conrad so often uses predominates in these tales. Becke was a contemporary of Conrad, publishing his work at almost the same time. And what makes Becke so important and revealing is that he picks up on the ordinariness of life in the South Seas and yet makes into something exotic and special. And he does so from the perspective of both White sailors, traders, captains, and fortune hunters as well as native peoples of the islands. Sometimes customs merge; other times they conflict. But most of the time the encounters of White civilization with that of the Pacific Islanders shows the same motivations at work: jealousy, greed, redemption, and the search for happiness and acceptance, if not love.

[Big Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't speak for the Kindle edition, but this is the one everyone is rating and I can't find a page for the actual 1896 printing of the book (it kept me company at the courthouse while waiting to be called for jury duty one summer), so I guess I'll be the first one to leave a review of sorts here. This is a collection of stories from the South Pacific, set during the later half of the 19th century. It was, simply put, another time. The casual use of racial slurs can be found at a few points, but swear words of every sort are usually completely censored or sometimes omitted entirely with polite descriptions. Each story is written a little differently. The stereotype of Australians as vulgar and contentious was already alive and well in the 1890s, I was amused to find. I think the peoples of the South Pacific get as fair a treatment as they can expect from an American author of the 19th century, there are some questionable moments as expected (this book is a product of its time, there's no doubt), but they aren't constantly derided as savages and subhumans either, as I initially feared. Going by memory, characters are primarily defined by their personalities, for better or for worse. I never got bored with this book while reading and if there was anything distasteful (as you will often find in books that weren't written with 21st century values in mind), it wasn't distasteful enough to remember. The casual racism mentioned above is about as bad as it gets, and I might go so far as to say that the racism was coming from the characters, not the author. It's been a while since I read it, so I'm not gonna make that a statement of fact. It was a fun read, and an interesting look at how people 120 years ago wrote and thought about the world.