Rating: 
Summary: A Delightful Seafaring Romp
Review: The Captain of a Manx smuggling vessle could not be more inept, or more enjoyable. How hard could it be to smuggle some tobacco into england? Well the Captain and its crew screw it up so bad that they end up fleeing to australia will 2 crazy passengers... a condesending doctor that thinks people will all behave in accordance with his rediculous scientific theorums, a preist that is convinced that garden of eden is in austraia, and that is to say nothing of the madman that awaits them in van diemans land...
buy this book for a fantastic voyage!!
Rating:
Summary: Best Epistolary Novel Ever?
Review: The once popular genre, associated with Richardson, Laclos, Scott, Fielding, Sterne and Austen has pretty much fallen out of fashion. Kneale revives it brilliantly here. He employs 19 seperate narrators to tell this tale of exploitation, genocide, greed, adventure and misadventure. In the hands of a lesser artist, such a crazy quilt arrangement would lead to chaos. Kneale manages the seperate voices like a master marionette artist. Each character rings true, even the most eccentric. Each scene, even the most fantastic, remains true to the logic of the book as a whole. No small accomplishment, indeed. The narrative focuses primarily on the arrival of Europeans (primarily English settlers) to the island of Tasmania and to the expansion of their "civilization" in the middle of the 19th century. In order for this civilization to thrive and expand, the aboriginal population had to go. They just didn't fit in. Several of them, including one of the narrator's (Peavy's)mother, were downright intractable. Conflict ensues. Though the aboriginal peoples come out on the short end of the stick, one half-caste does enact some good old fashioned revenge towards the end of the tale. The other main thread deals with a scientific exhibition led by a minister (Wilson) in search of The Garden of Eden, and a doctor (Potter) interested in collecting human samples of various peoples in the hope of advancing his theory of a natural order of races, just as Darwin had advanced his theory of the order of species. A third English passenger, a young geologist named Renshaw, doesn't figure as prominently in the plot as the aforementioned, but does provide some clear-headed satirical insight into the goings on. The funniest and most sympathetic character, apart from the Aboriginal narrators, is Illium Quillian Kewely, an old salty smuggler from the Isle of Man, Captain and proud owner of the uniquely designed sailing vessel "The Sincerity." He, Peavy, and Renshaw provide the only reliable main narratives. He's also one of the most colorful and memorable characters in recent fiction. He and his Manx-speaking crew are involved in an entirely different mission than that of the passengers. The manner in which Keale juggles the intertwining plots is another example of his artistry. The villains are true rotters. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson is full of conceit and self delusion. His sole preoccupation is with securing fame and fortune by proving his hair-brained notion that Tasmania is the actual location of the Tigris and Euphrates mentioned in Genesis. His stubborn pig-headedness will have dire consequences for the expedition. The manner in which Kneale eventually deals with him is brilliant. Wilson's mortal enemy is Dr. Thomas Potter. Potter is based in part on Jean-Louis Agassiz, whose evolutionary theories involved a break-down of races into various categories, the dark races occupying the bottom rung. Such categorizing had obvious ramifications on much of the history and conflict of the 20th century. The fact that Potter's top rung of the evolutionary ladder is occupied by "the Saxon Type" is meant as an historical harbinger. The only enjoyable thing about either of these characters is that they hate each other so vividly. Their animosity sustains many of the humorous episodes of the novel, until it turns more serious towards the end. Potter's fate is another piece of grand invention on Keale's part. If you're in the mood for a big, grand read, by a novelist at the top of his game, look no further. This one definitely moves to the top of my chart for novels read in 2004. It's thoroughly enjoyable, absorbing literature of the first rank. BEK
Rating: 
Summary: Very well written, and well worth reading
Review: This lengthy book attempts to combine two separate stories within one novel:
(A) A serious account of how the indiginous Tasmanians - aborigines - had to suffer their country being invaded, stolen away and colonised as part of the British Empire between 1820 and 1870, and see their people wiped out by maltreatment and newly introduced diseases in that process; and
(B) (In contrast and as light relief) an amusing fictional story of a funded 1857 expedition, led by a bumbling English vicar, to rediscover the Garden of Eden, which, peculiarly, he supposes to have been situated in Tasmania. By chance of circumstances, Manx sailors on board the good ship `Sincerity' end up transporting that expedition from England to Tasmania and back again, with fun and frolics.
The (A) and (B) plots merge only briefly and tenuously and then diverge again, in a sort of K shape, part way through the novel, so the book is in reality two distinct stories combined into one. Comments/criticisms:
1. Some characters are excessively stereotyped - caricatures rather than people. This would be less noticeable were the book shorter, but it becomes too obvious with a book of this length (454 pages). Invading Europeans are portrayed excessively in one standard mould, as believing themselves a superior race while being foolish and unthinking (the worst was Catherine Price - pages 238-255 - sounding too silly to be a genuine person). Vicar Wilson is made always to appear a self-deluded bumbling pompous twit. The indigents appear merely as oppressed innocents who are being taken advantage of. The sailors are portrayed always as crafty dishonest jack-the-lads. We are left doubtful whether to take the English characters as they are presented to us seriously as real people.
2. The purpose of the explorers' expedition is amusing but rather unconvincing: an expedition organised against mere speculation without supporting evidence that the Garden of Eden was at Tasmania. Would a rich man really take Rev. Wilson seriously and fund this wild goose chase?
3. Colonisers packing a found aborigine boy off to school on the other side of the world without striving to locate his parents came across as peculiar.
4. The book omitted a clear picture of the numbers of Aborigines originally inhabiting Tasmania prior to invasion of their country, and of how many were wiped out purely by introduced diseases (as opposed to other causes). That information would have been useful.
5. Because the book was two stories wrapped up as one, the sailors and explorers ended up spending a disappointingly brief number of pages actually within Tasmania itself (the joint of the K of the two interlinked `A' and `B' plots) before leaving so suddenly on a return sea journey back to England. That sudden departure was dissatisfying. More interplay by the explorers/sailors within Tasmania itself, and a final climax there, might have been more pleasing, rather than having to read a laborious account of a return sea journey so soon after the long outward one and an end to the book split between two locations.
6. Some of Peevay's catch phrases (e.g. a `puzzle to confound' and its variants, or `heinous', or `hither and thither') seemed a little too overused.
7. Tasmania's coastline is about 3,200 km long, so the writer's dependence on a coincidental meeting of the 'Sincerity' with the starving explorers, just at the point where they were about to hang Rev. Wilson, seemed a little far-fetched.
8. The return journey to England, with so many wrongdoers (smugglers, conspirators to murder, body snatchers) compelled to share the ship to return home but having to lock each other away, while still making someone sail the ship, made that part of the book descend from a more serious account into farce.
9. What became of the HH silver cutlery? That loose end could usefully have been dealt with at the end in some way. We are given no clear clue as to its ultimate fate.
10. The humorous fictitious expedition story was a clever way to provide some light relief to the serious genocide story. A book about the latter alone would have been depressing. Overall: Arguably the book could be criticized for having too many viewpoints, being too complex, having too great a compass in space and time, being too long, and for the method of telling the story (by personal retrospective subjective diary accounts rather than a single active account of interaction in the present). The book has little dialogue, for example. The book progresses at only one constant speed, in one gear. Maybe the book was a bit over-ambitious. It covers both halves of the globe. It spans 50 years. Its intended message might be regarded as compromised by trying to describe a sea-faring trip, an exploration, and an inter-racial struggle for territory, all under one cover. Certainly it is an odd mix of tragedy, comedy and farce. And it lacks any sufficient central climax: the separate A (aborigines) and B (travellers) stories each just diverge and then tail off separately in amusing but not-very-exciting ways, rather than giving us a grand climax of everything together. In the end, this book might leave the reader feeling a tad dissatisfied because its spotlight moves around excessively, and it tries to achieve too much and ends up looking too much like two books shoved uncomfortably together, rather than one. But all of those warts are minor, compared to the masterful quality of the writing as a whole and the breathtaking care and effort the author has clearly invested in trying to get this book right. It rightly won the Whitbread Book of the Year 2000. The book is impressive writing of the highest quality by a writer from a family of writers, it attempts what is a difficult exercise (making a genocide account interesting) anyway, the book holds the reader's interest throughout, and the book is very interesting and well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Grand voyage
Review: Though some may disagree about literary value of this book, I can not but say that it has captured my heart. Written in perspectives of main characters, offering two racurses, one of the passengers of the Sincerity and one of the aborigines and inhabitants of the penalty colony in Van Diemens land. Charactesr are presented very convincable, especially the priest, though some may find it as quite unapropriate attack on church and christianity, but that is the debate for some other place. If you're looking for amusement, or just want to spend some quality time read this book, you won't regret it
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