Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
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You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.
This lovely (and so true) quote is from Mister Pip, Winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize and Shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize written by Mr. Lloyd Jones of New Zealand.
If Pip sounds familiar to you that youve probably read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and coincidence is surely not accidental. I must admit Im not in that group as I havent read Mr. Dickens novel and at first I was afraid that will have an impact on reading (and fully understanding) this novel however I was wrong. I might even shamefully admit that not knowing story of Diskens Pip was actually advantage so that I could easily jump in the shoes of (barefoot!) Matilda, our 13 year old narrator.
The plot is settled on tropical island Bougainville, Papua New Guinea during civilian war which is approaching to the part of the island where they are. Central character of the novel is a teacher who is named Mr. Watts, Bougainvilles only white resident. As a consequence of the war the live on the islands village is changing and one of the greatest change for our young narrator is that the schools is closed since the teacher has left the island. Until one morning Matildas mother yelled one morning Get up Matilda! Youve got school today! since Mr. Watts decided to help the village and children by taking the role of the school teacher. At the very beginning he admits that hes no educated to be a teacher and that therell be questions on which he will not be able to give answers but he promises that hell do his best to be good teacher. Since there is no formal education to be had, he improvises the curriculum that comes most easily to him: with Great Expectations, which, incidentally, is the greatest novel by the greatest English writer of the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens and he starts reading one chapter per day feeding childrens hungry imagination and giving them a ticket into another world, so different than the one they live in.
As the students interest mounts, so do their parents misconceptions. Told of the new importance of a Mr. Dickens on the island, the parents send in requests that Mr. Dickens procure antimalaria tablets, generator fuel, beer, wax candles and so on.
Eventually parents decided to give their contribution to the education of their children. So we can be thought that trust crabs first and above all others or to kill an octopus, bite it above the eyes and so on but of course this cant last forever, especially not on the island where is raging civilian war. Under this circumstance the impact of Great Expectations on the life of children (Matilda) is even greater: it gives her a shelter because Stories have a job to do. They cant just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.
And Im afraid this is the place where book is lessening its impact because the dramatic events weren't dramatic whatsoever. I dont know why; maybe that ascetic narration was precisely what Mr. Jones wanted avoiding by it all possible melodramatic elements. However for me it was just too fast and too flat.
As I said the plot is settled on the tropical island in South Pacific but the story is universal, the only local spice might be the stories about crabs and octopuses and when I said that I dont mean in negative way. Dicken's novel introduces the life in Victorian England to Matilda, while Jones' novel introduces me the life on Bougainville during the civil conflicts and I would love that I could say that this is world removed from me as much as Victorian England is removed from Matilda. However I am familiar with the horrors of civilian war and that might be the reason why geography is irrelevant with Mister Pip. This is story about life on some remote island, its not about broken families and lost of the love ones; its not even about horrors of war Mister Pip is a love song to the power of the imagination and of storytelling. It shows how books can change lives.
BOOKRING IS ABOUT TO START. PM ME IF YOU'RE INTERESTED
You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.
This lovely (and so true) quote is from Mister Pip, Winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize and Shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize written by Mr. Lloyd Jones of New Zealand.
If Pip sounds familiar to you that youve probably read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and coincidence is surely not accidental. I must admit Im not in that group as I havent read Mr. Dickens novel and at first I was afraid that will have an impact on reading (and fully understanding) this novel however I was wrong. I might even shamefully admit that not knowing story of Diskens Pip was actually advantage so that I could easily jump in the shoes of (barefoot!) Matilda, our 13 year old narrator.
The plot is settled on tropical island Bougainville, Papua New Guinea during civilian war which is approaching to the part of the island where they are. Central character of the novel is a teacher who is named Mr. Watts, Bougainvilles only white resident. As a consequence of the war the live on the islands village is changing and one of the greatest change for our young narrator is that the schools is closed since the teacher has left the island. Until one morning Matildas mother yelled one morning Get up Matilda! Youve got school today! since Mr. Watts decided to help the village and children by taking the role of the school teacher. At the very beginning he admits that hes no educated to be a teacher and that therell be questions on which he will not be able to give answers but he promises that hell do his best to be good teacher. Since there is no formal education to be had, he improvises the curriculum that comes most easily to him: with Great Expectations, which, incidentally, is the greatest novel by the greatest English writer of the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens and he starts reading one chapter per day feeding childrens hungry imagination and giving them a ticket into another world, so different than the one they live in.
As the students interest mounts, so do their parents misconceptions. Told of the new importance of a Mr. Dickens on the island, the parents send in requests that Mr. Dickens procure antimalaria tablets, generator fuel, beer, wax candles and so on.
Eventually parents decided to give their contribution to the education of their children. So we can be thought that trust crabs first and above all others or to kill an octopus, bite it above the eyes and so on but of course this cant last forever, especially not on the island where is raging civilian war. Under this circumstance the impact of Great Expectations on the life of children (Matilda) is even greater: it gives her a shelter because Stories have a job to do. They cant just lie around like lazybone dogs. They have to teach you something.
And Im afraid this is the place where book is lessening its impact because the dramatic events weren't dramatic whatsoever. I dont know why; maybe that ascetic narration was precisely what Mr. Jones wanted avoiding by it all possible melodramatic elements. However for me it was just too fast and too flat.
As I said the plot is settled on the tropical island in South Pacific but the story is universal, the only local spice might be the stories about crabs and octopuses and when I said that I dont mean in negative way. Dicken's novel introduces the life in Victorian England to Matilda, while Jones' novel introduces me the life on Bougainville during the civil conflicts and I would love that I could say that this is world removed from me as much as Victorian England is removed from Matilda. However I am familiar with the horrors of civilian war and that might be the reason why geography is irrelevant with Mister Pip. This is story about life on some remote island, its not about broken families and lost of the love ones; its not even about horrors of war Mister Pip is a love song to the power of the imagination and of storytelling. It shows how books can change lives.
BOOKRING IS ABOUT TO START. PM ME IF YOU'RE INTERESTED