Books, Reviews, writers

Sisters In The Sun - Pacific

Ladies Of Deceit

Here is a book that bedevils the re viewer. On the one hand there is a force which says “be kind—this is an example of enterprise on the part of writers from within the Pacific Basin, and, as they have lent their talents to a project well worth the undertaking, be charitable—take a forgiving stance and don’t dwell on the deficiencies”.

The other pressure states its position in these terms—“it is time that the literature of the Pacific came of age—talented writers, both indi genous and European are making their marks and it is not in the true interests of the body of writers to gloss over literary malefactions when they obtrude frequently and ob viously”. Sad to say the balance of these forces with this book are very much tipped towards the latter side.

Sisters in the Sun must bring credit to its authors for setting out to give us a definitive account about two of the most enthralling of the coral atolls, a task which has not been undertaken before. However, it is true that there has been quite a deal of literature of both the serious and light-hearted veins produced about both islands and when I saw the book for the first time I thought that here at last would be a serious effort made to sort the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately this is not the case.

In the stories of Palmerston and Suwarrow Islands are all the in gredients of murder, shipwreck, treasure trove, hermits, pearl shelling, which, because in the main they are true, are the basis of a Pacific Islands account, which could have given us a book redolent in adventure, yet based upon facts elicited from sound research. The authors have taken these stimulating ingredients, whipped them into a potpourri, and then pro duced a half-baked, sour unleavened cake.

In its style the book sets out to give the impression that it is a serious book but its basic structure erodes its foundations of literary respectability.

The selection of material is puzzling

to the reader. There have been enough events connected with the two atolls to ensure that they become the central and sole characters of the book, but too often trivia and minutiae are introduced which are

irritating in their inconsequentiality

and which lend little or nothing to the main themes of the book.

The authors, writing as they did from Rarotonga, suffer from the paradox that faces many Pacific authors, that although they are at the centre of things they are removed from the resources materials to which they must make reference if their historical accounts are to have validity. This is particularly so in this book. The archives of the Mitchell Library, for instance, would have assisted greatly in filling out the events associated with the visits of Captain Michael Fodger to Palmer ston in 1811 and 1812; reference to Ward’s American activities in the

Central Pacific would have given a greater measure of accuracy to the catalogue of shipwrecks on Palmer ston.

For instance, there would not have been the omission of the Delphos of Holmes Hole, wrecked there on October 27, 1846, and the authors would have found that their Bella Sammy, wrecked on an unknown date was the British ship Belissima, wrecked with the loss of all lives in March, 1866. The remains of this vessel were found by the Papeete schooner Aorai, and the crew, finding among the six bodies cast ashore those of a little boy and girl, buried them side by side on the southern islet.

Similarly the account of the wreck of the whaleship Gem on Suwarrow indicates the same lack of careful research. This wreck deserves more than the perfunctory treatment it re ceives. All the crew survived, al though some had difficulty in making the shore, and they spent 21 days on the atoll before making a successful journey in the ship’s boats to Samoa 500 miles to the west.

Although Helm and Percival make mention of the copper sheathing of the Gem adding to its salvage value, it is worth noting that the wreck was sold for $604 and the ship Elizabeth Barker, of New Bedford salvaged 900 barrels of whale oil from the wreck and some spars and rigging.

However, it might be possible to excuse the lack of research if the book was not denigrated by a greater literary transgression. No one carps at the author who reads widely in a particular area and then synthesises in his own words the material he has traversed. But ... it cannot be in the interests of aspiring Pacific writers to allow to pass without derogatory comments a book which reproduces with little or no significant alteration, or without due acknowledgement, passages which have come from other pens. Sisters of the Sun has sinned, and sinned consistently in this respect —among those who have suffered are James Cowan and his Suwarrow Gold; Harry Maude’s Of Islands and

Men; and H. C. Sterndale’s series of articles A Lone Land and They Lived On It, which appeared in the Monthly Review in 1890.

A kind view to take of this book is that the authors would have been better advised to have put together a popular-style book, cheaply pro duced, which did not have preten tions of appealing to the reader in terested in substantial writing about islands with the historical importance of Palmerston and Suwarrow. The mind boggles at the passage in Sisters in the Sun, which describes the thoughts of Jules Tirel, as he awaits a savage death on the beach at Suwarrow, “His thoughts may have switched ... to his happy boyhood days among the apple orchards of Normandy. He may have seen again the milkmaids in their tall white caps and short skirts, and clumsy shoes”. (This passage, by the way, is virtually taken word for word from Stemdale’s 1890 article.) But, in retrospect, perhaps this is the style most appro priate to the book. Priced at $6.25 and with its many shortcomings this is not a book that can be recom mended as approximating to the level of literature that can be produced

from the Pacific region.-

W. G.

Coppell.

(SISTERS IN THE SUN, A. S. Helm and W. H. Percival. Robert Hale, London. $6.25.)