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English Passengers
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Christopher Columbus was looking for a passage to India when he ran full-tilt into the Americas. One of the narrators of Matthew Kneale's ambitious historical novel English Passengers has more modest aspirations: Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley wants only to smuggle a little tobacco, brandy and French pornography from the Isle of Mann to a secluded beach in England. Yet somehow in the process he and his crew end up weighing anchor for Australia. Worse, they are forced to carry three temperamental Englishmen bound for Tasmania on a mission to discover the exact location of the Garden of Eden. The year is 1857 and the study of geology is beginning to make serious inroads into areas of religious doctrine. When the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson runs across a scientific treatise that puts the age of Silurian Limestone somewhere in the neighbourhood of 100,000 years, he is scandalised: "This was despite the fact that the Bible tells, and with great clarity, that the earth was created a mere six thousand years ago". His many attempts to prove the Bible's accuracy lead, eventually, to a scientific expedition comprised of himself, Timothy Renshaw, a dilettante botanist and Dr Thomas Potter.
Now jump back 30 years, to 1828, when a revolution of sorts is stirring on the island of Tasmania. Over the years white settlers have been encroaching on aboriginal land and relations have deteriorated into violence. At the heart of the action is Peevay, a young half-breed abandoned by his aborigine mother, who had been kidnapped and raped by a white escaped convict. Now his vengeful mother is leading a war against the whites, and Peevay, desperate to win her love, has joined her. Chapters from the past narrated by Peevay and augmented by letters and dispatches from white settlers alternate with the sections told by Kewley, Wilson, Renshaw and Potter. Eventually, of course, the two timelines intersect with momentous results.
War, mutiny, shipwreck and not a little farce make English Passengers a gripping read, but it is Matthew Kneale's literary ventriloquism that renders it remarkable. In a novel with so many different points of view, the individuality of each voice stands out. There is, for instance, the mutinous Dr Potter, whose descent into paranoia and egomania results in diary entries reminiscent of a 19th-century psychotic Bridget Jones: "Manxmen = treacherous even to v. last. Self heard Brew (lashed to mainmast as per usual) instructing helmsman to steer N.N.W. when self questioned he re. this he claiming we = carried into Bay of Biscay by difficult sea currents + must set course to avoid Breton Peninsular. He pointing to distant point of land to N.N.E. claiming this = Brittany. Self = doubtful".
Perhaps the most compelling voice in English Passengers belongs to Peevay, who paints a vivid picture of aboriginal life in a foreign tongue he nonetheless makes his own:
When we sat so in the dark, after our eating, Tartoyen told us stories--secret stories that I will not say even now--about the moon and sun, and how everyone got made, from men and wallaby to seal and kangaroo rat and so. Also he told who was in those rocks and mountains and stars, and how they went there. Until, by and by, I could hear stories as we walked across the world, and divine how it got so, till I knew the world as if he was some family fellow of mine.By the close of this epic tale, the world Peevay knew has gone forever, and the lives of the Manx sailors and English passengers have been irrevocably changed. Based on real events in Tasmanian history, Matthew Kneale's novel delivers a home truth about Australia's brutal colonial past, even as it conveys the wonder and allure of the age of exploration. --Alix Wilber
Pressestimmen
"Jede Seite sprüht vor sprachlicher Erfindungskraft, und wie gekonnte Komödie mit dramatischen Schrecken verbunden wird ist meisterhaft... Die "Englischen Passagiere" verdienen es, mit wilden Beifallsstürmen und Preisen überhäuft im Hafen willkommen geheißen zu werden." (The Guardian)
"Ein fesselndes, geschickt konstruiertes, ernsthaftes und sehr lesbares Buch... Eine äußerst eindrucksvolle Leistung: mal bedrohlich, mal ironisch, und dabei selbstsicher genug, die Geschichte für sich sprechen zu lassen." (The Sunday Telegraph)
"Ein fesselndes, geschickt konstruiertes, ernsthaftes und sehr lesbares Buch... Eine äußerst eindrucksvolle Leistung: mal bedrohlich, mal ironisch, und dabei selbstsicher genug, die Geschichte für sich sprechen zu lassen." (The Sunday Telegraph)
In diesem Buch
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Einleitungssatz
Say a man catches a bullet through his skull in somebody's war, so where's the beginning of that? You might say that's easy. Lesen Sie die erste Seite Ausgewählte Seiten ansehen
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Rückseite
Say a man catches a bullet through his skull in somebody's war, so where's the beginning of that? You might say that's easy. Lesen Sie die erste Seite Ausgewählte Seiten ansehen
Buchdeckel | Copyright | Inhaltsverzeichnis | Auszug | Rückseite
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Kundenrezensionen
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3 von 3 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Format:Taschenbuch
Dies ist kein Roman, den man "mal eben" vor dem Schlafengehen oder in Bus und Bahn konsumieren kann. Die komplexe Handlung und die sprachlichen Finessen fordern die volle Aufmerksamkeit des Lesers, aber er bekommt dafür auch einiges zurück. Selten haben mich Charaktere so gefesselt, fand ich die Borniertheit der Europäer der Kolonialzeit so treffend dargestellt wie in diesem Roman (der weltfremde Reverend fühlt sich mit seiner "professionellen" Ausrüstung "quite fit for travelling in the wilderness" und sieht verächtlich auf Peevay, den "Eingeborenen" herab, der das Land und dessen Tücken kennt wie seine Westentasche).
Uneingeschränkt empfehlenswert, wenn man mal wieder Lust hat, sich wirklich auf ein Buch einzulassen!
3 von 4 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Format:Taschenbuch
Schon allein der Name des Kapitäns reizt die Lachmuskeln. Und mit welcher Energie und Finesse er mit seiner Mannschaft von der Isle of Man Schmuggel betreibt lässt nur noch Bewunderung zu.
Kneale erschafft ein Panorama, das er so lebendig schildert, dass man wünscht, das Buch würde niemals enden.
Einzige Schwachstelle: Die teilweise etwas nichtssagenden, sich lange dahinziehenden Beschreibungen der tasmanischen Ureinwohner
Kneale erschafft ein Panorama, das er so lebendig schildert, dass man wünscht, das Buch würde niemals enden.
Einzige Schwachstelle: Die teilweise etwas nichtssagenden, sich lange dahinziehenden Beschreibungen der tasmanischen Ureinwohner
Die hilfreichsten Kundenrezensionen auf Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 Rezensionen
5 von 5 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Delightful, picaresque adventure--and hard-edged tragedy.
14. September 2005
Format:Taschenbuch
Nominated for the Booker Prize in 2000, English Passengers is, on the surface, a picaresque adventure of sailors going to Tasmania, but it is also the vivid, sorrowful drama of the extermination of the aborigines there. With a cast of characters engaged in all manner of mischief during their voyage from the Isle of Man to Tasmania, this engaging and thoughtful novel uses nineteen different voices, four of them major characters, incorporating personal memoirs and/or letters which provide depth and interest. Through the wide variety of characters and their attitudes and beliefs, the seemingly incompatible plot lines, both comic and tragic, come to life and provide focus for the ship's meanderings.
Illiam Quillian Kewley, the irrepressible ship captain from the Isle of Man, is always just a heartbeat away from apprehension by authorities. Rev. Geoffrey Wilson, his Bible-thumping passenger, believes that a literal interpretation of Genesis puts the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, and he's about to prove it. Dr. Thomas Potter, another passenger, is a phlebotomist who believes that his own success is proof of his high position on the chain of being, with the Manx crewmen far below him, and the aborigines just a step up from the apes. Peevay, a minimally educated aborigine with whom the reader greatly identifies, is a foil to show how the tunnel-visioned, British colonial/missionary spirit produces everything but "improvement" for the aborigines. The story and setting are further fleshed out with entries from Tasmanian colonial governors, landowners, schoolmasters, prison inspectors, prison superintendents, and their wives.
As the characters come alive, interact, brawl, and otherwise reveal the colonial and philosophical attitudes of their day, the novel's broad scope and action are alternately very dramatic and very funny. Finely constructed and thoroughly enjoyable, the journey and explorations around the island would have been easier to visualize if the publishers had included a map of Tasmania. Not a book to be read in dribs and drabs, this book benefits from being read in big chunks to keep the action and all the characters in focus and to allow the scenes to develop fully in all their humor and drama. Also recommended for those who are interested in Tasmania: Peter Conrad's Behind the Mountain: Return to Tasmania (ISBN 0671705733), a stunning memoir and excellent source of information about the island, including maps. Mary Whipple
Illiam Quillian Kewley, the irrepressible ship captain from the Isle of Man, is always just a heartbeat away from apprehension by authorities. Rev. Geoffrey Wilson, his Bible-thumping passenger, believes that a literal interpretation of Genesis puts the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, and he's about to prove it. Dr. Thomas Potter, another passenger, is a phlebotomist who believes that his own success is proof of his high position on the chain of being, with the Manx crewmen far below him, and the aborigines just a step up from the apes. Peevay, a minimally educated aborigine with whom the reader greatly identifies, is a foil to show how the tunnel-visioned, British colonial/missionary spirit produces everything but "improvement" for the aborigines. The story and setting are further fleshed out with entries from Tasmanian colonial governors, landowners, schoolmasters, prison inspectors, prison superintendents, and their wives.
As the characters come alive, interact, brawl, and otherwise reveal the colonial and philosophical attitudes of their day, the novel's broad scope and action are alternately very dramatic and very funny. Finely constructed and thoroughly enjoyable, the journey and explorations around the island would have been easier to visualize if the publishers had included a map of Tasmania. Not a book to be read in dribs and drabs, this book benefits from being read in big chunks to keep the action and all the characters in focus and to allow the scenes to develop fully in all their humor and drama. Also recommended for those who are interested in Tasmania: Peter Conrad's Behind the Mountain: Return to Tasmania (ISBN 0671705733), a stunning memoir and excellent source of information about the island, including maps. Mary Whipple
Astonishing richness in a novel
19. Januar 2011
Format:Taschenbuch
There are two points about the book that makes one think maybe it ought not to have five stars. One is that there are no maps; a map of Tasmania showing the places mentioned would have given more depth to the moral and other issues covered in the book. Secondly, the book could have been organised in a different way. Jumping from one group of people to another in consecutive chapters was not initially appropriate as the time settings were different. It was much better reading if the historically earlier part ( chapters 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) were put together, then a new section with the current chapters 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9). Chapters 11 onwards could have remained where they are, as the two strands come together.
Once we have sorted out these points, the novel is a must. The amount of research undertaken is astonishing, and so is the range of issues covered.
Sometimes the Aborigines from Australia are in the news, but usually when there is a problem. Matthew Kneale's book describes in detail the process why the original people who lived in Tasmania, have completely disappeared. Imperialism always has its victims, but to follow the process by which the systematic wiping out of a group of people is heart rendering. Yet, the author's style is such that one cannot put the book down.
The hold and effects of a religion are very well illustrated. For some people, all the problems that people had were brought upon themselves because they were not Christians. The belief in religion also led people to undertake horrendous journeys, in this case to find the location of the Garden of Eden.
The author has been able to portray the human characteristics of the local inhabitants very well- their inter-relatedness with nature, and their belief in human kindness. Taking all the different characters in the book, this novel should be a must for all students, not just those studying literature.
There is a lot of information about ships, navigation, the work of smugglers and human adventures at sea. At the same time there are very funny moments - like no child in school when the inspector appeared.
This is a book that will arouse strong reactions in people, for different reasons.
Once we have sorted out these points, the novel is a must. The amount of research undertaken is astonishing, and so is the range of issues covered.
Sometimes the Aborigines from Australia are in the news, but usually when there is a problem. Matthew Kneale's book describes in detail the process why the original people who lived in Tasmania, have completely disappeared. Imperialism always has its victims, but to follow the process by which the systematic wiping out of a group of people is heart rendering. Yet, the author's style is such that one cannot put the book down.
The hold and effects of a religion are very well illustrated. For some people, all the problems that people had were brought upon themselves because they were not Christians. The belief in religion also led people to undertake horrendous journeys, in this case to find the location of the Garden of Eden.
The author has been able to portray the human characteristics of the local inhabitants very well- their inter-relatedness with nature, and their belief in human kindness. Taking all the different characters in the book, this novel should be a must for all students, not just those studying literature.
There is a lot of information about ships, navigation, the work of smugglers and human adventures at sea. At the same time there are very funny moments - like no child in school when the inspector appeared.
This is a book that will arouse strong reactions in people, for different reasons.
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