English Passengers

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD BOOK AWARD 2000

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2000

'Deeply impressive. . . Every page fizzes with linguistic invention' Guardian

An electrifying modern classic - Kneale's sweeping adventure story vividly brings a past age to life

In 1857 when Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His travelling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a sinister thesis about the races of men. Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people's struggles against the invading British.

'A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices . . . The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain' Daily Telegraph

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

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. That little moment has its start the day our hero goes marching off to fight with his new soldier friends, all clever and smirking and waving at the girls. But does it, though? Why not the moment he first takes the shilling, his mouth hanging wide open like a harvest frog as he listens to the sergeant's flatterings? Or how about that bright sunny morning when he's just turned six and sees soldiers striding down the village street, fierce and jangling? But then why not go right back, all the way, to that long, still night when a little baby is born, staring and new, with tiniest little hands? Hands you'd never think would grow strong enough one day to lift a heavy gun, and put a bullet through our poor dead friend's brain. If I had to choose a beginning for all these little curiosities that have been happening themselves at me, well, I'd probably pick that morning when we were journeying northwards from a certain discreet French port, where tobacco and brandy were as cheap as could be. Not that it seemed much like the beginning of anything at the time, but almost the end, or so I was hoping. The wind was steady, the ship was taking her weather nicely, and as we went about our work I dare say every man aboard was having a fine time dreaming money he hadn't yet got, and what pleasures it might buy him. Some will have been spending it faster than a piss over the side, dreaming themselves a rush of drink and smoke, then perhaps a loan of a sulky female's body. A few might have dreamed every penny on a new jacket or boots, to dazzle Peel City with fashion for a day or two. Others would have kept cautious, dreaming it on rent paid and wives quieted. And Illiam Quillian Kewley? As the Sincerity jumped and juddered with the waves I was dreaming Castle Street on a Saturday morning, all bustle and everyone scrutineering everyone else, with Ealisad walking at my side in a fine new dress, both of us holding our heads high as Lords, and nobody saying, "Look see, there's Kewleys--don't you know they used to be somebody." Or I dreamed my great-grandfather, Juan, who I never met, but who was known as Big Kewley on account of being the only Kewley ever to make money rather than lose it. There he was, clear as day, leaning out of heaven with a telescope, and calling out in a voice loud as thunder, "Put a sight on him, Illiam Quillian, my own great-grandson. Now there's a man who can." Then all of a sudden our dreamings were interrupted. Tom Teare was calling down from the masthead, where he was keeping watch. "Sail. Sail to the northwest." Not that anyone thought much on his shout then. The English Channel is hardly the quietest stretch of ocean, so there seemed nothing too worrying in discovering another ship creeping along. The boys went on scrubbing down the deck, while chief mate Brew and myself carried on standing on the quarterdeck, making sure they kept at it. But you should know a little about the Sincerity, as there was a wonder all made of wood if ever there was one. Truly, you couldn't imagine a vessel that looked more normal from the outside. I dare say she was a little old--her prow was round and blunt and well out of fashion, and her quarterdeck was too high for modern tastes--but other-wise she seemed as ordinary as seawater. I'd wager you could've spent all day aboard and still been none the wiser. Unless, that is, you had a particular eye for the measure of things. Or you happened to take a look above the inside top rim of the door to the pantry. And that would be hardly likely. Excerpted from English Passengers by Matthew Kneale All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

It is 1857, and Reverend Geoffrey Wilson sets out on his mission to prove scientifically the literal historical truth of the Bible by locating the Garden of Eden. However, the Reverend has placed Eden in Van Diemen's Land or Tasmania, a British prison colony. This sets the stage for Kneale's Whitbread-winning examination of mid-19th-century British colonial life. The work mixes a wide range of participants with their own agendas, e.g., the ship's captain, who attempts to sell his contraband cargo of tobacco and brandy while dealing with his passengers, and Peevey, a mixed white aboriginal who bridges the gap between the two worlds. English Passengers is further highlighted through the use of seven readers (Ron Keith, Simon Prebble, and Davina Porter, among others) to tell the story from multiple perspectives. Kneale's deeply researched work provides an excellent window into the British colonization of Australia and the savage treatment of the natives. Recommended for all audio collections. Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. at Parkersburg Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The brutal hand of British imperialism provides the foundation for this broad historical swashbuckler about the English colonization of Tasmania in the early and mid-19th century. U.K. author Kneale debuts stateside with this lengthy novel of hapless smugglers, desperate convicts, simpering bureaucrats, mad vicars and displaced aborigines. The English passengers are the Reverend Wilson, a vicar determined to prove that Tasmania was the site of the original Garden of Eden, and Doctor Potter, a ruthless scientist equally determined to prove Wilson wrong and gain fame in the victory. They're on their way to Tasmania aboard the good ship Sincerity, commanded by Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley, a high-seas smuggler and rascal of renown. This is an unpleasant voyage for everyone, especially Kewley, for he has been forced to charter his ship in order to escape punishment for dodging customs duties on his illicit cargoes. Storms, pirates and foul tempers, however, are just the prelude to the hardships that await everyone when they land in Tasmania. British self-righteousness in forcing civilization and Christianity on the aborigines causes wholesale slaughter and subjugation of the islanders, and the natives are more than just restless. Wilson and Potter's overland expedition is guided by Peevay, a wily aborigine not about to knuckle under to the white man. Of course, the expedition is a bloody disaster. Murder, madness, betrayal, mutiny and shipwreck spice up the action and provide intricate plot twists with surprising and satisfying resolutions, particularly for Captain Kewley. This rich tale is told by 20 different voices skipping back and forth across the years, but somehow Kneale manages to keep the reader from becoming confused. Kneale's careful research and colorful storytelling result in an impressive epic. BOMC featured selection. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

In his American debut, Britisher Kneale employs a deliciously sly and clever wit to tell his story about the colonization of both the land and the mind. Two plotlines trace the action: one set mostly on a ship sailing to Australia with the mixed mission of smuggling and finding the Garden of Eden; and the other the story of Peevay and the genocidal elimination of his tribe while he grows from a boy into a man. The use of more than 20 narrative voices, each a perfect realization of character, allows for multiple perspectives of the same event as seen at different times. Captain Illiam Kewley is struggling to bring the Sincerity to a port where he can sell his contraband and offload his passengers. Kewley is also unwittingly bringing to Peevay, whose tribe is all but wiped out before Sincerity even sets sail, his ultimate horror and final restitution. Through Peevay's viewpoint readers witness the destruction of the aboriginal people and the piety, vapidity, and maliciousness of those who sought to bring English "civilization" to the outback. As Kewley sails the Sincerity closer and closer to Tasmania, Kneale tightens his story with the elegant precision of a mortise and tenon joint and reveals the stunningly ironic fortunes of his main players. A delight to read. As Peevay would put it, this is a book for "cherishings." --Neal Wyatt

Kirkus Book Review

A richly satisfying debut, comparable in many ways to Andrea Barrett's The Voyage of the Narwhal, that uses nearly 20 carefully distinguished voices to tell the convoluted story of a 19th-century expedition to Tasmania and a stalemated conflict between ``civilization'' and ``savagery.'' It's heavy going at first. In 1857, Captain Illian Kewley blandly relates the misadventures of the ship he commands, the (rather grandly named) Sincerity, seized for smuggling, then ``put up for charter,'' and hired to sail to Tasmania by an unlikely pair of ``passengers.'' Reverend Geoffrey Wilson aims to disprove the claims of geology by demonstrating that the biblical Garden of Eden did exist: on this remote island off Australia's southern coast. His partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, motivated by what Potter terms ``scientific interest,'' seeks evidence to support his notion that Tasmanian aborigines represent ``the very lowest of all the races'or species'of men, being bereft of even the most rudimentary skills.'' The answer to Dr. Potter's theory emerges in several narratives dating from 1820 and thereafter, in which we meet a number of Tasmania's colonial governing officials and their families; ``sealer'' (and sailor) Jack Harp, for whom aboriginal women are sexual game ripe to be taken; and, most importantly, a wily native named Peevay, whose intimacy with the ``visiting'' English will test his people's innate gentleness and threaten their very existence, and Peevay's choleric ``Mother,'' who swears revenge on the white men who have abused her (and, in fact, becomes a kind of warrior queen whom her white educators will, in their innocence, rename ``Boadicea''). Kneale blends together their several stories adroitly, in a suspenseful piecemeal narrative that climaxes when those begun in the 1820s extend 30 years into the future, the ``English passengers'' arrive at the port of Hobart, and the destinies of two opposed cultures inexorably work themselves out. Despite minor echoes of Great Expectations and Thomas Keneally's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith: an original, impressively knowledgeable, and very moving historical novel.