Through the Islands by government handouts

government handouts

I shall never forget, some time after having read and enjoyed Arthur Koestler’s The Lotus and the Robot, the disappointment in discovering that most of his Japanese section in that book was taken from travel brochures.

Then Colin Simpson tried the same thing in his book on Japan from the same brochures but not as skilfully used as by Koestler.

Island Realm by lan Todd and pub lished by Angus and Robertson is in the same category—not travel brochures (some of these make interesting reading) but from govern ment hand-outs, and contains through out the unreality of the government hand-out, the press release, the official report. The book contains an Acknowledgement which does not deny this, but contains no list of any of the actual source material used.

Surely any book purporting to be a book of facts gives details of the source from which the material quoted was obtained. Books not meet ing this requirement must leave the serious reader wondering about their accuracy.

The unreality of this book is illustrated by the bald statement (for instance), “The southern half of Eastern New Guinea became a British

colony in 1888”. True? Well, it is a recorded fact. But how far from the truth is it to anyone knowing the exciting events leading up to 1888.

The statement as quoted here is one which cannot stand on its own and claim reality. Even a qualifying clause inserted to indicate that there were events leading up to this situation would not have greatly increased the length of the book nor its price ($12.50 at that!) and have indicated something of the truth of this event.

The whole book is written in the same hurry with the same unreality.

Nowhere is mentioned the interrela tions between the various Pacific areas which brought about the South Pacific Commission whose entire work was based on this interrelation.

New Guinea is dismissed—although containing more land than all the rest of small islands put together and having contributed more in the way of inter-Pacific co-operation than any of the others—under the chapter heading Neighbours of the Ocean, and in the index is shown as receiving mention on pages 202 and 203. Even if Angus and Robertson and lan Todd do not regard New Guinea as part of the Pacific, we who know some thing of the Pacific are very well

aware that New Guineans are very conscious of their position in the Pacific Ocean. That large area of land called Papua rates 31 lines.

Why did he write the book? Who and what sort of people do Angus and Robertson expect will pay $12.50 for the unsubstantiated material it contains? Consider the section on Fiji, and one would come to the con clusion that all the colourful history, political, economic and cultural, of that fascinating group of islands oc curred without the presence of any human beings whatsoever.

Oh yes, names are mentioned, but remain as dead as the print in which they are spelled. And in Fiji where the people who made its history both Melanesian and others, scintillated in such brilliant colours! lan Todd leaves the reader with the feeling that very hastily he skimmed through a small

portion of the vast documentation of Fiji past and present, snatched a few points and flung them together.

What goes for Fiji goes for the rest of the book. Mr Todd may have had an interesting career but Island Realm makes it obvious that he is not really the man to complete such a wide-ranging book as he has attempted.

Heavily illustrated, most of the black-and-whites are murky, and heaven knows why, with so many ex cellent and cheap colour processes available nowadays we have to be presented with the wishy-washy plates contained in this book. Not for me at that price, thank you!

So all in all, I am not impressed with Angus and Robertson’s Island Realm by lan Todd. The book does show, however, that the Pacific is a too colourful, interesting and im portant one-third of the earth’s surface to have the whole of its history, geography and culture stuffed between

two covers.-

Peter Livingston.

(ISLAND REALM, by lan Todd. Angus and Robertson Pty Ltd, 102 Glover Street, Cremorne Junction, New South Wales 2090; 214 pages with index and maps on end-papers: illustrated; 280 x 220 mms.; $12.50.)