Benjamin Umba

Remember the name: Benjamin Umba

For many years I have felt that publishers never at any time read the things they publish. This is obvious for a number of reasons, and in the case of Longman Pau’ Three Short Novels From Papua New Guinea by the authors Benjamin Umba, August Kituai and Jim Baital, the blurb on the back of the paperback confirms this, for it has nothing whatever to do with the contents of the book. Do publishers think readers cannot find out for themselves what a book is about? So, as Longman Paul may not have read the book they have just published in their Pacific Paperback series, and may know nothing of what it is about, let me tell them they have published a highly-worthwhile book, and one which, I sincerely hope, finds a large and understanding reading public.

The Editor of PIM tells me that I am becoming known for my condem natory reviews and that it is being said that I never say anything complimen tary about anyone’s writing, so, hav ing paid the publishers a compliment, I must revert to my true nature and start what some call carping. Why shouldn’t one carp anyway?

Dear authors three, try to think

that it is for your own good, and that because I take you to task this time you may not commit the same errors next time, remembering, as an author, that your reader is sacred. Always play fair with him, and he will give you fame and adulation, for it is he who makes the decisions.

I am starting at the back of the book, for the least masterly of the three novels is the last: they have been printed in order of virtue. Perhaps Mike Greicus, who has edited the collection, told the publishers this.

The blurb says that Tali, the third of the three novels is “about the effects of independence and offers a final comment on its costs”. Is it?

And does it? If it is and does, then the author has failed to impress me that that is what he is writing about. The story is a series of disjointed episodes in the life of Tali after he committed a sexual offence in the village and ran away to avoid the consequences. At least that is what the author tells us, but at no time in the whole story is the reader permitted to find out anything for himself or to come to any con clusions. Such is the essence of novel writing; take the reader into your con fidence and allow him to find out

things for himself.

We go through the somewhat bor ing routine of Tali until he joins the Army. His disintegration seems to be, not the result of independence, but the result of his own weakness. The author in this theme had the oppor tunity to do what the publisher’s blurb says he did. But I, who read the novel carefully, think that the author has failed in this task. I felt no sympathy for Tali at any time and the episodes in which he became involved had little measure of interest for the reader.

Given a little more attention to the theme and more attention to presen ting Tali as a being with thoughts and functions and features, and not as a colourless victim of circumstance, Tali might well turn into a compact Short Story, The middle story of the three, The Flight of Villager, afforded the author a wonderful opportunity too, and too, he failed to make full use of it. This story is set in that horrid, commercial, soulless town of Goroka, the centre of a large natural population paying visits to the town, and harbouring foreigners of all sorts black and white.

A wonderful choice for the setting of a novel, but not one of his characters emerges as a real being, and the en vironment, mental and physical, is given scant treatment by the author.

To have treated this evironment in depth would have meant that we would have been given a novel of great value. Again, it is the story of a youth who, committing a sexual offence, runs from his village and ends up in Goroka, eventually finding employ ment as a domestic. 1 read it, hoping for some descrip tion of the physical Goroka of the time, and found none. I read it, hop ing to be told something of the doings of that mixed population that in habited the place and learned nothing of it. 5 In that town emotion ran high,

foreign locals thinking they belonged,

foreigners from far parts such as

Kerema establishing minority groups,

foreigners of long-standing from New Britain considering themselves to be superior, and foreigners of different skin colour. All discriminating against one another. Do you see the setting, and the opportunity the author missed? All these things a writer must observe.

Yes, I know! They’re young!

They’re no more than students! It would be dishonest of me not to point

out what I think is the error of their ways. Writing isn’t easy! And don’t let’s make excuses, for if Benjamin Umba can do it, why didn’t they?

Remember the name, Benjamin Umba. You’re going to hear more of it. It is seldom that I have read with more delight any writing than I did that of The Fires of Dawn. This novel, the story of which I am not going to tell you, contains all that the others lack. I am not going to tell you the plot, which is perhaps, slight; nor am I going to tell you the theme which is tremendous, for I hope you will go out and buy the book and enjoy all three stories for they are all enjoyable, and see if what I say 4s not correct, par ticularly that Benjamin Umba can write.

In this story, not only did I feel sorry for the old man who is the cen tral character, but I felt keen ap prehension for him; sufficient suspense, not overdone, was written into the narrative by Benjamin Umba to make me turn the pages quickly hoping that the old man would escape the fate the author had prepared for him.

He was real and alive and feeling and the village in which he lived was real. I could see the houses and feel the rain, and the meeting in the men’s house was convincing and showed acute observation, at some time, on the author’s part.

The ending of the novel is superb.

The last paragraph is a gem. Long after the reader has come to the last word, his mind goes on contemplating the theme. This is real writing: no per sonal opinion expressed by the author,

the reader allowed to form his own judgments, and the sadness of the theme felt in the reader’s mind. With no judgment inflicted upon him by the writer, the reader sees much more clearly the sadness of the whole business. There was wrong on both sides, the reader feels, much horror was unnecessary, the fate of the villagers inevitable as the history of Papua New Guinea unfolded, but the reader is not hit on the head with these observations: he is led to make them for himself. This is writing.

I hope Benjamin Umba will re work The Fires of Dawn into a full length novel, not obliterating his gift of understatement, and not adding or detracting from his marvellous final paragraph. I should like to read in the novel somewhat more of Benjamin Umba’s description of the mission station and what Tanawa does there.

More detail in the description of the village without being wordy might be desirable, and greater detail in the description of the discussion in the men’s house.

These are things I wanted to know about as I read. I think the old man’s journey to the mission might do with a bit more description.

You seem, Benjamin Umba, to have got him through that long journey a little too suddenly, and perhaps a reader would like you to take a little more time in getting him back to the village. Was he not excited on the way back, that all was now well, and his son was coming back?

What did he think of the mission?

Nonetheless, the two great gifts are there: understatement and no un derestimation of the intelligence and sensitivity of the reader.

The publishers state that the writing of The Fires of Dawn “is only a step from the oral narratives that were previously used . . A flipping long step, if you ask me!

A final word of warning to all three of you. The colour of your skin will not get you by in the world of writing.

The reader, who makes the final deci sion, makes it upon what you write and generally knows little about pigmentation.

Congratulations to the three authors, congratulations to Mike Greicus for his part in it, and to Longman Paul who I hope will now read it for publishing it.

Peter Livingston

(Three Short Novels From Papua New

GUINEA, Edited by Mike Greicut, and published by Lonimm Paul, Hawthorn, Victoria, illustrated by Grava Aura, 140 pa{es, paperback at $2.95.)