Shame and the Captives in Aussie Readers

Aug 01, 2013 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it really liked it

Shelves: aussie-author, arc-are, netgalley-reviews

I was eager to read Shame and the Captives, not only because I haven't read anything by Keneally since highschool, which seemed remiss of me given his status in Australian literature, but primarly because I was particularly intrigued by the premise.

It was only a few months ago I learned (thanks to Hannah and Emil) that during World War 2 Australia interred thousands of residents of 'enemy blood' . For some reason, I didn't consider that Australia would also have hosted Prisoners of War, largely
I was eager to read Shame and the Captives, not only because I haven't read anything by Keneally since highschool, which seemed remiss of me given his status in Australian literature, but primarly because I was particularly intrigued by the premise.

It was only a few months ago I learned (thanks to Hannah and Emil) that during World War 2 Australia interred thousands of residents of 'enemy blood' . For some reason, I didn't consider that Australia would also have hosted Prisoners of War, largely I suppose because of the relative distances between the main fighting fronts and our country, excepting the attempted Japanese incursions in the north.

The story of Shame and The Captives closely follows the events of the Cowra Breakout in 1944. Camp B of No. 12 Prisoner of War Compound (Cowra) was the scene of a bloody skirmish when many of the 1,104 Japanese prisoners of war tuned on their captors and attempted to escape. While Keneally clearly states in a foreword titled "Where the Tale Comes From" that the Shame and The Captives is, "a parallel account, or a tale provoked by the events that unfolded in Cowra" and further that his characters "are not designed to reflect any virtues, sins, follies, fevers and acts of courage evident in any of the real actors in the Cowra outbreak", this novel is a blend of fact and fiction.

Keneally's representation of the events and the people involved may be fictional but it seems an entirely plausible account, with the histories, personalities and motives the author ascribes to the characters seemingly authentic in light of what we know of history. Delving not only into the lives of the men in the camp, the Japanese prisoners like Tengan and Aoki, the camp commander, Colonel Abercare and his subordinate Suttor, Shame and the Captives extends beyond the camps boundaries into the community, represented primarily by Alice and her father-in-law Duncan.

Exploring the themes of shame, honour, belief, loyalty, cultural disparity, compassion and respect, Keneally provides context for the Cowra Breakout and Australian society in the period of war.

One of the interesting ideas Keneally explores is Australia's trust that if they treated their prisoners with care (according to the Geneva Convention), their soldiers in the custody of enemy nations would be treated with equal fairness. Suttor and Alice, whose respective son and husband are POW's, cling to this ideal. Unfortunately the Japanese mostly despised the Australians for their compassion, since their honour code insisted that death was preferable to imprisonment. The Breakout then, was essentially a mass suicide attempt, a means for the Japanese to die with the honour their beliefs demanded of them.

While I was utterly fascinated by the story of the Shame and The Captives, unfortunately I found the writing, with very little dialogue, often dry and dispassionate. I was in some ways reminded of a school history lesson worksheet where an attempt is made to enliven the learning of facts by couching them in a story. Had I not been so intrigued by this period of history, Keneally's prose may have resulted me in abandoning it.

Nevertheless, I consider Shame and the Captives to be a compelling and thought provoking novel, one I particularly would recommend to Australians interested in our country's history.

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