This trio of Englishmen are a squabbling group of explorers seeking the Biblical Garden of Eden, which they believe to be in Tasmania. This psuedo-scientific notion sprang from the wholly delusional backwater vicar/amateur geologist who leads the expedition. The picture of Victorian self-righteousness and hubris, he irritates everyone he comes in contact with his smug piety. The other two members are a sinister doctor with definite ideas about racial superiority, and a feckless, young London botanist. Each embodies one of the worst traits of the Victorian era: the vicar is a model of religious and moral bigotry, the doctor is a zealot whose belief in quack science is dangerous to all, and the botanist is a dissolute and limpid soul.
The other storyline takes place some thirty years earlier, in the late 1820s, and provides a depressing social history of Tasmania. The colonization and transformation of the island into a penal colony by Victorian administrators comes alive through the narration of half-caste Peavay and various English convicts and colonizers (including landowners, schoolmasters, governors, prison superintendents, and their wives). Kneale has taken a little-known topic and brought it to vivid (if sordid) life, as he details the genocide of the Tasmanian aborigines at the hands of brutal British colonists. It's as brilliant an indictment of the "white man's mission" as any work of history could hope to be.
Structurally, the travails of the Manxmen and their grumbling passengers are juxtaposed with the tragedy of the colonization of Tasmania. Either one on its own would have grown stale--the first too picaresque, the latter too grim--but by switching back and forth, Kneale is able to present both and maintain the page-turning pace. The third section of the novel tells of the English passengers arrival in Tasmania and their quest for the Garden of Eden. This all dovetails with the aboriginal attempt to survive, and climaxes in a thrilling wilderness chase. The action doesn't stop there however, as there's the trip all the way back to England, which is its own adventure.
Yet, for such an elaborate and sprawling narrative, Kneale does a wonderful job of maintaining a page-turning pace by creating distinctive voices for each character. From Captain Kewley's straightforward narration (peppered with Manx idiom and dialect), to Dr. Potter's hilariously quirky shorthand, to half-caste Peavay's indignant aboriginal cadence (which grows more and more sophisticated as he grows older and more learned), Kneale has complete command and artistry. The historic detail is wonderful, and the entire book is one that begs to be reread every few years. Simply stunning.
The story of English passengers is rather odd though enjoyable. One day, a priest after reading a book of geology formulated an idea of "divine refrigeration" an idea that seeks to abolish the un-bibical idea of a long creation. After much argument, he comes up with the idea that the Garden of Eden lay on a special rock with allowed life to flourish on it and that this rock must be in Tasmania. So, he then sets off to discover the Garden of Eden with a Doctor and a Biologist. They charter a vessel, which happens to be trying to make a profit smuggling but not doing a very good job, to get them to Tasmania where they can search for the Garden of Eden. Meanwhile on the other side of the world, an orphan aborigine boy dreams of his mother, and later finds her, though she's not what he expected. In the end the rather unexpected happens giving the book are rather nice ending. Overall, English Passengers is an enjoyable novel with no bad points.
This book is written in first person from the perspective of multiple characters. How book differs from other books I've read with multiple perspectives on how each character is unique and distinct, and how each is in his/her own story-line. The differences in the characters lead to several story lines that interact with each other, weaving a complex tapestry of events. While there are many story lines, the book is never confusing. This is due partly to the distinctness of the characters, which helps you keep in touch with what the character is talking about. Most of this is due to the difference in writing style for each character. For example, the Aboriginal boy narrates in broken English with the doctor writes journal entries in shorthand. This allows for a complicated but clear story line, which keeps boredom to a minimal.
Another notable feature is how the characters reveal themselves over the course of the story. You first begin the story with only a vague knowledge of each characters views and ideals, however, as the story progresses it becomes clear what each character is trying to achieve. This makes your perception of the characters change over time and shifts your loyalties for one character to another. To facilitate the creation of a large amount of distinct characters means that many of the characters are far extremists, which while not exactly reasonable, allows for a humor in an otherwise humorless environment.
This book is also rather deep in its views of how Europeans during that era viewed other races. Its portrayal of extremists allows you to get a feel of people during that era might have been like. This books portrayal of social ethos of the time period making this book enjoyable on an intellectual level as well.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a gripping, amusing, and thought invoking novel.
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.
I admit that ENGLISH PASSENGERS is not a perfect book. There are several elements that could have been improved. For example, some of the characters were stereotypes of the times such as Dr. Potter and his theory of the hierarchy of men. There is no doubt that this type of thinking was prevalent during the 19th century (and even today to a lesser degree), but his characterization includes no other features or elements. He was simply portrayed as a man with a crude agenda. Second, there was no reasoning provided for the manner in which Potter's narratives were written. It got boring real fast with all the symbols (+, =, v, etc.) that Kneale included. One more aspect that irked me was the constant use of the phrase "hither and tither" by Peevay. Notwithstanding this isn't a perfect book but I have to admit that it was a highly entertaining one. Putting the faults aside I enjoyed reading this book and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to others. Kneale provided a convincing yet grim account that hooked me from the first chapter. Enjoy!
