English Passengers

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Mother was transported with lamentation... [his] getting dead made her even worse... she never would speak to me at all, even for hating." The beginning of this book LIES. I love the opening character, Captain Illiam Quilliam Kewley. He is a fabulous, interesting, quirky guy who you want to curl up in front of a fire and spend time with. However... the problem is that he doesn't narrate more than a 1/4 of the book. Author LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE tries to draw you in with this good-time guy and then slams you with Tasmanian "savages" in chapters written in an insane dialect that requires a good strong shot of bourbon to get through, stories of these aborginies being horrifically mistreated by English ex-convicts, long indictments of colonialism and racism, and such. Nothing wrong with that, it just was sort of jarring and not what I thought I had signed up for. Also, the storylines seemed to often have NOTHING to do with each other. Kneale wants to do faaaaaaaar too much here. I thought I was getting into a frolic of a seafaring tale, with some incisive social commentary along the way, woven in to great characterizations and historical happenings.

Passengers (2016 film) - Wikipedia Passengers (2016 film) - Wikipedia

An electrifying modern classic - Kneale's sweeping adventure story vividly brings a past age to lifeThe real skill with language is the way each of the many narrators has a clear personality and self-justifying way of telling their bit of the story. Kroll, Justin (July 17, 2015). "Michael Sheen Joins Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt in 'Passengers' ". Variety . Retrieved August 6, 2015.

ENGLISH PASSENGERS | Kirkus Reviews

Between his latter novels, Kneale struggled to write about an invented Marxist state, but abandoned the attempt and instead wrote a collection of 12 short stories, Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance (2005). Set in locations as varied as the Middle East and South America, and narrated in the third person, these stories deal, he has said, with ‘the general subject of Westerners doing ghastly things with good intentions’. As the story unfolds, more voices are added – those of the colonizers who are occupying the island and setting about the systematic obliteration of the way of life of its native inhabitants 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. His Majesty's colony of Van Diemen's land is not intended to reform criminals, but simply to store them, like so much rubbish." 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.This is a wonderfully original book. A mix of history, intrigue and human suffering this is a unique book with an accessible story that is nevertheless 'literary'. In 1857 when Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe. With 'Rogue One' & 'Sing', It's A Two-Picture Christmas at the B.O." Deadline Hollywood. December 28, 2016. Jumping between an immense cast of characters and following to separate storylines, Kneale’s novel is nothing if not ambitious. Indeed, the alternating narratives with their disparate casts would be taxing enough on any reader, but the novel also alternates its style for each and every character who serves as a POV. While the opening stretch of the novel proved to be quite tedious, I soon found myself warming to the lilt of Captain Kewley’s passages and even more enthralled by Peevay’s account of the savaging of the Aboriginal population in Tasmania. Truly it was a mystery to confuse how they ever could kill all my ones and steal the world, or even why they wanted it, as it was no place they could endure. Why, they couldn't live here just alone but had to carry some HOBART TOWN with them hither and thither.

English Passengers Penelope Lively | Matthew Kneale, English Passengers

English Passengers is a superbly modulated composition in multiple voices: the first-person accounts, letters and memoirs of 21 individuals, plus one short newspaper report. Peevay's command of English is the result of two years' private tutoring in Bristol, at the behest of a kindly farmer's wife. Kneale is known for his ability to ‘do voices’ but he is also skilled in using them to uncover emotional realities and advance his plot. Peevay’s archaic and circumlocutory use of English, for example, amplifies the gap between his desire for his mother’s ‘tender cherishings’ and the actuality of her ‘hating’, evoking poignancy. Conversely, Dr Potter’s cryptic notebook jottings ostensibly illustrate his quest to determine racial types, but in fact reveal the growing seriousness of his quarrel with Reverend Wilson. In his best writing, Kneale’s own passion for knowledge fuels the development of his characters, as when Potter explains the working of expanding bullets, demonstrating his practical, even brutal approach: ‘They change shape. They’re made from lead, being soft, but have a steel plug at the base. At first they’re narrow enough to drop easily down the barrel, but when the charge goes off the plug blows them flattish. That way they exactly fit the bore of the gun barrel, and spin nicely.’

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." Some of the whites genuinely want to help the Aborigines, thinking clothes, crafts, farming and Bible stories will bring salvation, civilisation and happiness. An immensely satisfying read and a literary adventure! That’s what this book was. It began with the first line: