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The Colour
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The Colour
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Read in 2016
I loved the ease with which I read this book. The words seemed to leap off the page. I adore historical fiction and this trip to New Zealand 1864 was wonderful. Joseph and Harriet Blackstone along with his mother Lilian head off on a grand adventure from England to New Zealand. As life begins to form in the new house they will all share we learn why each has left, forcibly or not, and bits and pieces of their past that form their identity. It is a complex story that unfolds gently with each new character that joins the story. I was invested in all the characters, likable or not, and couldn't wait to read what was going to happen next. The title of the book is in reference to what the locals call gold in New Zealand. Even though the main part of the story takes place in the gold rush of 1864, the book is really about the unfolding of lives, friendships in unlikely places and relationships; the good, bad and ugly. Highly recommend this book.
I also was transported by this historical fiction and the relationships that knitted together a group of people who find themselves in New Zealand during the 1864 gold rush. Like Diane, I liked how the author introduced each new character's background so that we slowly learn of how it is that they have found themselves half way round the world from where they were born. I also felt that it was very important to introduce the Maori character Pare with her completely different way of seeing the world, but I did not think that the author was as successful at that as she was with the colonists. Pare's world was interesting and unique but I didn't trust that she was at home in that world. I also was appreciative of how drama was approached. The gold fields were full of rats and selfish greed mixed with hard dirty work. Death and what was worth dying for just arrived rather than building up to a resounding dramatic moment. The romance also, was treated as part of an on-going life and not a culmination. "Unfolding" was a good way of describing the flow of this story and the characters relationships with each other. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
It took a little bit for me to get fully emerged in this story, but once I did I found it to be very engaging and immersive, and caring about the fates of the characters. I even found the irredeemable characters like Joseph to produce a sense of sympathy in me for what the cruel world of the colonial frontier does to them. The struggle and the tensions between the characters felt very real and made for a compelling read. The part where Harriet and Joseph realize there is no longer and can never be love between them again felt so devastating and believable. I'm tempted to think the Maori and magical realism elements assist in setting a division between the indigenous viewpoint of their land as glorious and remarkable, compared to the colonial viewpoint of it as brutal and a place that largely destroys dreams. Their view of land as for consumption and exploitation probably plays into this.
Personally, I loved Pao Yi's narrative and was happy whenever it shifted to him. His pull between his sense of familial duty and his created life of independence and isolation he becomes attached to, his realization (really before the European colonists) that the perusal of riches and 'the colour' is not a path of fulfillment, his gold in the garden, and his relationship with Harriet were some of my personal highlights.
I gave it 4 stars.
Published in 2003, this book is set in the 1864 Goldrush of New Zealand. It is the story of Joseph and Harriet Blackstone and Lillian Blackstone, Joseph's mother who immigrate to New Zealand. For Joseph it is an escape, for Harriet it is an adventure and for Lillian it is loss of all her life was. I think the author's early chapters were the best. She used weather; the wind and rain to create context. We slowly are let into the secrets that Joseph harbors in his soul. We learn from Harriet that she finally realizes that she married a selfish man. We see a marriage that never really comes together because Joseph only used Harriet for the strength to take this daring trip to New Zealand like he used the boy to go to the gold fields to seek his fortune. I liked how the story was crafted but I felt that the weak parts were the parts that involved Pare. There was an element of magical realism but I never really got why it was included other than to give us a picture of the Maori people. The strength of a good marriage that Dorothy and Toby had was a good contrast to the sham of marriage of Joseph and Harriet. The section that actually was about the gold fields was ugly. Dark and ugly. The picture of dirt, mud, clay and the dirty, foul conditions of the human beings that were digging for the gold was an ugly picture. Glad I finally read this book. It's been on my shelf a long time, I missed reading it the first time it was chosen but got it done this year.