Shark Dialogues

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Story
Review:
Having been born and raised in Hawaii I was familiar with Hawaii's history and culture before I read this novel. I would have to agree with many of the previous reviewers that Shark Dialogues does not always represent accurate historical fiction. And I would also agree with those that said that the book sometimes loses its focus and occasionally delves into extreme political activism.

That said, Shark Dialogues is still a wonderful read. You can feel author Kiana Davenport's passion for her Hawaiian heritage which is so strongly reflected in Pono, the powerfully haunting and mystical central character. And you can sense the great beauty of ancient Hawaii through Ms. Davenport's wonderfully rich descriptions of the islands, its valleys and its people.

Shark Dialogues is a saga of a culturally changing Hawaii told through a daughter of a Tahitian chief in the late 1830's through Pono through her four granddaughters and through the pearls that connect them all. Historically accurate? No. A wonderful read? Yes.

Rating:
Summary: A magical saga. I loved it.
Review: "'SAILORS, LEPERS, OPIUM, SPIES--with such a family history, how could we be anyt'ing but sluts?' Dese Jess's last words to her grandmot'er, Pono. Dat night Pono walk into da sea." Thus, begins this wonderful book of story, saga and myth.

As I read Shark Dialogues I grew to understand the power and sacredness of the Hawaiian Islands. Also the complexities of the people who have inhabited them. Complexities presented to us with complex and well defined characters -- Women characters! It was so nice to delve into powerful women characters. Beginning with Kelonikoa, a Tahitian princess on the run in the 1800's. From Kelonikoa came a pouch of black pearls, a diary, and a heritage of strong, tenacious women. Her daughter Emma, Emma's daughter Lili, Lili's daughter Pono, and Pono's daughters and grandaughters.

Pono, the most powerful, like the sea. Pono, who could dream-see and swim with sharks. Pono, who could be so cruel. Pono, who scared everyone, especially her grandaughter's Jess, Vanya, Ming and Rachel, all the fruit of this woman.

This book beautifully shows the continuous cycle and circle of life, as we repeat our ancestors as ourselves. Here, as mothers struggle to love and raise their daughters, and as women seek the same over and over, in their lives, their love and their men. Shark Dialogues is personal, political, historical and magical.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Story
Review: Having been born and raised in Hawaii I was familiar with Hawaii's history and culture before I read this novel. I would have to agree with many of the previous reviewers that Shark Dialogues does not always represent accurate historical fiction. And I would also agree with those that said that the book sometimes loses its focus and occasionally delves into extreme political activism.

That said, Shark Dialogues is still a wonderful read. You can feel author Kiana Davenport's passion for her Hawaiian heritage which is so strongly reflected in Pono, the powerfully haunting and mystical central character. And you can sense the great beauty of ancient Hawaii through Ms. Davenport's wonderfully rich descriptions of the islands, its valleys and its people.

Shark Dialogues is a saga of a culturally changing Hawaii told through a daughter of a Tahitian chief in the late 1830's through Pono through her four granddaughters and through the pearls that connect them all. Historically accurate? No. A wonderful read? Yes.

Rating:
Summary: This Hawaii could not be found as a tourist
Review: Having made three trips to Hawaii and knowing how this book would certainly want me to longingly return it has sat on my shelf for some time. I am sorry now I waited and could not put it down. The Polynesian people are written about with the kind of writing which is so rare these days. My heart broke over and over as I read the history of these magnificent people who were to typically cast aside in favor of the white race and what they wanted. Find the "soul" of Hawaii here and the respect the Polynesian people deserve. I am honored to have read it.

Rating:
Summary: A good mood-setter
Review: I live in Hawaii, have studied Hawaiian history, love all things Hawaiian, loved the beginning of this book... but by the middle I got so bored with it (I thought it was very repetitive) that I just stopped reading it, and then had no desire to continue on. I tried going back to it two times -- it just wasn't what everyone made it to be.

Rating:
Summary: not what you expect...
Review: I love Hawaii, I live here, I study Hawaiiana, and this is a considerable contribution by Davenport, and a good, rich, throbbing story too. And well-written. But why didn't her editor insist that she stop at the halfway point? It's vastly too long, many too many generations. From the great reading at the beginning, it degenerates to repetitiveness and errors and extreme politicism. A lesson to all of us: stop when you're ahead.

Rating:
Summary: Passionate and magical story of Hawaii
Review: Kiana Davenport has written a new story of the Hawaiian islands that takes a fiercely feminine perspective. She introduces us to a seer (kahuna) and her four granddaughters of mixed ancestry, following the family history from early island days to the present. Davenport writes both lyrically in a stream-of-consciousness style and factually, alternating appropriately as she deals with her characters' inner lives as well as the bigger world in which they live.
Shark Dialogues deals, of course, with issues that are well known: white people conquering another culture and decimating it by disease, religion, and power. But it's a good story, and you'll find yourself wallowing in the island tales of tragedy, drama, and romance. Go for it. It's more than the sum of its parts.

Rating:
Summary: Tries too hard
Review: Unfortunately, this book was written in passive voice much of the time. The story line is interesting but the characters lack validity. A mother who doesn't love her children and other flimsy characters live lives of psuedo-Hawaiian activism. This author clearly strives to write in the style of magical mysticism we loved from latin America (Like Water for Chocolate or Love in the Time of Cholera) yet can't quite get it right. The Hawaaiian language glossary in the back of the book is of extremely poor quality and the author continues to annoy the reader by using Hawaiian and Japanese words not in the glossary.

Rating:
Summary: Inauthentic voices
Review: Written by a woman of Hawaiian descent who clearly loves her people, this family saga is the story of Hawaii itself. The central character is the matriarch Pono, whose life includes harsh realities and surreal myths. Her long and passionate love for her husband Duke has caused her great joy, but the situations they had to face together have required strength and courage.

Pono's four adult granddaughters, each born of a different mixed blood heritage and who now live in various parts of the world, come back to Hawaii to visit, forcing them all to come to terms backgrounds.

Their stories are all revealed though flashbacks, going all the way back through seven generations, mixing history with myth in a wonderful array of unforgettable characters. I'll never forget the story of life in a leper colony, or of life on a plantation. I'll long remember the mythical quality of the sea and its ability to both nourish and destroy. There's life and death and passion and joy. There's war and peace and destruction by both human greed and natural forces.

At 480 pages, this is a book to sink into and look forward to reading at the end of the day. A book that brings the story of Hawaii alive to the reader and a fresh retelling of truths and legends