English Passengers

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Kneale’s book tries and largely succeeds in being multiple things. First of all, it’s good historical fiction—the kind where the education comes sans textbook aridity. Much of the story is set in Tasmania in the 1800s where the native Aborigines were underfoot and too many British imperialists were wearing heavy boots. A character named Peevay is one of the principal narrators, offering a unique perspective as the son of an English father and a resistant, indigenous mother. The other storyline was a seafaring adventure. The captain and crew were Manxmen and as such had a different language and culture that added color to the mix. They had failed in their attempts at smuggling and had no other recourse than to take a small but paying set of passengers from England to Tasmania. Yet another goal of the book was to expose some of the day’s more egregious notions related to colonialism, evangelism, racism, and class. This gave the story its ‘much-needed comic dimension’ and when published, English Passengers attracted attention for its complex structure and ‘mixture of low farce and high seriousness’ (Max Davidson, The Daily Telegraph, February 2001). It also won plaudits for Kneale’s success in using multiple voices: the novel features 21 narrators. One of the most memorable is the Aborigine Peevay, who employs ‘a beautiful mongrel prose [that] plunders the earth and the rain for its metaphors, mixes lapidary Biblical rhythms with creative swearing, and [implies] a community of feeling and experience which is exactly what is being destroyed before our eyes’ (Steven Poole, The Guardian, 4 March 2000). What our kindly friend Mr. Crane doesn’t understand is that His Majesty’s colony of Van Diemen’s Land is not intended to reform criminals, but simply to store them, like so much rubbish in a dust heap, so that England can be emptied of troublemakers once and for all. Lazy, simpleminded, almost unremmittingly tedious, although occasionally farcical, sometimes even funny, it's Hollywood action if it was written by a modestly sized Brit in longhand. Most of the casual racism exists in what's missing. Conflict and opportunism are at the heart of the book; no one gets on with anyone else (with the general exception of the Manx crew) and everyone is trying to achieve personal success at the expense of others (not generally financial, though). This is often fuelled by self-deceit and the desire to see evidence and patterns where none exists.

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale: 9780385497442

Captain Kewley does have some redeeming features. In particular, he twice saves enemies, at considerable risk to himself. Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers (2000) has to be called a historical novel; it is set in 1857. Now, I have a resistance to the historical novel, but this writer is one of those, along with J. G. Farrell and John Fowles, who redeem the genre for me. The book was a prize-winner when it was published in 2000 but I feel it may be undeservedly overlooked today, perhaps because Matthew Kneale is a costive writer, with only a couple of other novels appearing since. To compensate for that, English Passengers is a masterpiece, an achievement of such complexity, ingenuity and sheer narrative power that each time I reread it I am newly surprised: how can a writer have thus conjured up the wildly conflicting attitudes of another time, another place, with such persuasive force? In brief, one storyline follows the adventure of three passengers from England aboard the Manx ship, Sincerity, as they travel to Australia in search of the Garden of Eden. Running parallel to this story are the English colonists in Tasmania and Peevay, an Aboriginal boy, as continuing horror is inflicted upon the native population. In vicious contrast are the notebook extracts of the surgeon, Dr Potter, whose shorthand scratchings, symbols and underlinings graphically picture the malignities of his logic. He theorises obsessively about racial "types" (the Saxon is a natural ruler, the Celt is indolent), and secretly works on a treatise entitled The Destiny of Nations: "Thus will a new and terrible great conflagration draw near," he scrawls, "a final battle of nations, when the trusty Saxon will be required to struggle anew."

Eventually, these two storylines converge, though I found it frustrating that it occurs so late into the novel. Rather than allowing some of these passages room to breathe, the meeting between the character is short-lived. Though it is a fine way to establish setting, the one-shot letters from various ancillary characters began to grate on me as the novel progressed. Some added depth to the novel, while others dragged on with seemingly no benefit. As an example, I found the penal colony tale to be tangential to the main story that detracted from the reading experience. Despite these misgivings, the novel is so meticulously detailed that I may draw more meaningful conclusions on a future reading. Bradshaw, Peter. "Passengers review – Chris Pratt falls for Jennifer Lawrence in space". The Guardian . Retrieved December 20, 2016. Cavassuto, Maria (August 12, 2016). " 'Passengers': First Photos of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt Released". Variety . Retrieved June 23, 2018.

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The Aborigines are given new names: some are Biblical, others almost heretical, but most are deliberately, and often nastily, chosen for reasons that the bearers do not realise. "The older and more exalted of the natives were rewarded with names of quaint grandeur, such as King Alpha... a girl who was dreamy and sad was now Ophelia.. the monstrous female... became Mary, and while this might seem innocent enough, I had little doubt as to which murderous monarch was in Mr Robinson's mind." Eighty-eight years later, the ship's crew awakens on schedule, shortly before arrival at Homestead II. In the ship's grand concourse, they discover a huge tree with trailing vines, lush vegetation, flying birds, and a small cabin. A recording of Aurora's story describes the wonderful life she and Jim shared on the Avalon. One of the really neat things is the name of the narrator: Illiam Quillian Kewley. I thought that name had enormous promise, and the man himself, being a Manx smuggler, and therefore wonderfully jaunty and disrespectful, especially when speaking in a mixture of Manx and English about mainland English people, shows great promise (in the parts of the book which he gets to narrate. But Illiam Quillian Kewley turns out to be only one of many narrators and therefore he gets to tell only a small amount of this very very long story. There must be upwards of twenty other narrators, and it's even hard to be accurate as to their number since many of them sound alike or only narrate very small sections here and there so that they are instantly forgotten). And in Tasmania itself we follow a young native boy and his family, tribe and the settlers that are already there. This part of the narrative is extremely well-done and at times excruciating.Brian Truitt (September 20, 2016). "Sneak peek: 'Passengers' puts Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt in space". USA Today . Retrieved September 20, 2016.

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The pilgrims present themselves in their own words; as with English Passengers, these accounts overlap and contradict one another, and much of the comedy lies in the gulf between a character’s view of him or herself and the way they are perceived by the others. For all the Chaucerian interludes – there’s an enjoyable episode where three male pilgrims are pounced on by eager nuns and caught with their breeches down – Kneale shows the oppressive weight of religious orthodoxy on ordinary people in ways both large and small. At every step, the pilgrims are fleeced by the church, all too often parting with coins to ward off further ill fortune or bribe God for favours. After Tom has spent the night praying for his cat at a shrine in Oxford, his aunt reprimands him for his meagre offering: “‘Mark my words, Saint Frideswide won’t be content with one little farthing.’ The canker man had given her tuppence ha’penny, she said, and even the demoniac gave tuppence. ‘And you know how saints get if they think themselves slighted.’” But Saint Frideswide’s avarice pales in comparison to the marketplace of indulgences they find when they reach Rome.

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After a year of isolation, with only an android barman named Arthur for company, Jim grows despondent and contemplates suicide until he notices Aurora Lane, a beautiful young woman inside a pod. He views her video profile and is smitten. He considers reviving her for companionship, but struggles doing so, knowing it is morally wrong and will circumvent her intended life on their destination planet. He eventually awakens her, letting her believe it was also a malfunction. He tells Arthur to conceal what he has done. Devastated at having to live out her life on the ship, Aurora unsuccessfully tries to re-enter hibernation. Resigned to the situation, Aurora, a writer and journalist, begins writing about her experience.