English Passengers - Softcover

Kneale, Matthew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141003596 ISBN 13: 9780141003597

Publisher: Penguin, 2000

Synopsis

'A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices. Its subject is a vicar's ludicrous expedition in 1857 to the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, [as] meanwhile, in Tasmania itself, the British settlers are alternately trying to civilise and eliminate the Aboriginal population ... The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain' - Daily Telegraph

About this title

Review:

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

From the Publisher:

What the press have had to say about English Passengers:
"A book shouting with life...a novel that would be intriguing just for its ambition, but is deeply impressive in the fine grain of its achievement. Every page fizzes with linguistic invention, and the interleaving of high comedy with dramatic terror is expertly handled... English Passengers deserves to be welcomed into port with a riot of bunting and prizes." The Guardian

"An engrossing, deftly constructed, seious but very readable book...a very impressive performance: angry and ironic by turns, and confident enough to let the story speak for itself." The Sunday Telegraph

"Kneale covers a lot of ground, but the meticulously researched historical details and background are artfully deployed and always keep the novel afloat rather than threatening to sink it. What is really striking about the novel, however, is its structure and technique...A jolly good yarn, a careful and vivid historical re-enactment and, above all, a tour de force of technical control and stamina." The Spectator

"[A] breathtakingly good novel...funny, savage, compassionate, a brilliant enactment of ideological clashes and the opportunism and sacrifice of the colonial adventure, this is a big, mind-expanding book in every respect." Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail

"A dashing historical novel, grand in conception but carefully and steadily executed...one of the most impressive things about English Passengers is the extent to which it revives our interest in history and truth...The voices and information that crowd English Passengers have been marshalled to support a compelling adventure story with subversive undertones...expertly told." The Times

"One of the most enjoyable and interesting reads I have had in a long time... One of the most shameful events in the history of the British Empire...is fearlessly explored with clear-sighted intelligence and unfliching imagination...English Passengers is a fascinating story, richly told: a major work by a major talent." The Independent

"An engrossing and enjoyable read, the sort of novel that few comptemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain." The Daily Telegraph

"Triumphant...Although it contains much that is harrowing, English Passengers is also often hilarious. Tart wit generates caustically funny scences. Relishably ironic fates are dealt out to the book's more dislikeable characters...From Patrick White and Thomas Kenneally to David Malouf and Peter Carey, colonial Australia has been fortunate in the quality of its literary chroniclers...English Passengers takes Kneale into this distinguished company." Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times

"Fantastic. One of the best books I've read since we started doing this programme. It's an absolute cracker. Run out everbody and get copies." - Susan Jeffries, Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0141003596
• ISBN 13: 9780141003597
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480