Explorers of the New Century begins with a race between Captain Johns, a British explorer, and Tostig, a Scandinavian, as each tries to become the first man to reach the AFP, or Agreed Furthest Point. Mills creates obvious parallels between this race and the 1911 race for the South Pole between Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who became the first to reach the Pole, and the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who, with his crew, died in the attempt to return to his base. From the outset, the novel is full of anticipation and excitement, as the rival crews, who have never met each other, prepare to head south with their mule caravans hauling their supplies and equipment. Johns, his ten-man crew, and twenty-three mules blaze a trail across the scree; Tostig with four men and ten mules, follows a dry river bed, a more difficult trail. By involving the reader in the initial adventure, Mills sets him up so that when the dramatic revelation is made of what is motivating the trip south, the impact is doubly strong.
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Full of the colors, scents, and sounds of exotic Burma and Malaya in the 1860’s, this novel comes to life within the Glass Palace of the royal family and in the streets of Mandalay, which are sometimes the only “home” of its ordinary citizens, in the final days before Britain’s voracious, imperialist juggernaut shoots its way up the Irrawaddy River. Giving life to the Burmese point of view, Rajkumar and Dolly, orphaned children working as servants when the novel begins, eventually become the founders of a family whose members, in succeeding generations, reflect the economic and the political realities in Burma, Malaya, and India over the 150 years from the British raj to the present day.
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Posted in 9c-2009 Reviews, Argentina, Austria, Experimental, Germany, Literary, Mexico, Mystery, Thriller, Noir on Jan 16th, 2011
Mexican author Ignacio Padilla creates characters who move like pawns, as if they were pieces in the chess games which are at the heart of the action here–they are often being overtaken by events and supplanted by other men as part of the grand, overall “game” of life. Padilla raises thought-provoking questions about the nature of selfhood here, as men appropriate each other’s names, accept or reject the past which is connected with those names, and hope, ultimately, to change their destinies by living someone else’s life. The reader must constantly question whether each character is who he says he is, and whether he really is who we think he is. The tight story line maintains its tension, and the author’s ingenuity in manipulating characters and historical events provides constant surprises. The novel is very much an intellectual chess match between author and reader, and in this case, both turn out to be winners.
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In a narrative so hard-hitting that the viewer actually feels battered by the time it reaches its conclusion, a Maori family with five children must deal with urban violence, poverty, drugs, alcoholism, unemployment, gang warfare, rape, physical and mental abuse, suicide, and a host of other horrific family problems, all depicted graphically. Beth and Jake Heke and their five children, along with numerous other Maori families, live in an urban ghetto of government-supported housing, isolated from the rest of society and isolated, too, from their old rural culture, which once gave pride and a sense of identity to Maori families. Here in the city the prevailing “culture” centers around bars, rather than the ancient meeting houses.
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I can’t recall when I’ve ever felt so strongly the musical rhythm of an author’s style, or the extent to which it changes to suit the tempo of the action and themes. In the first third of this wonderful book by a very talented writer, conversations between the simple Mary and Granny Tamihana, the guardian of Maori traditions, echo and sound like chants; between Roimata and Hemi, a happily married couple, they resemble duets with complimentary themes. The scene in which Mary gives birth is a grand, complex chorus with the several family members singing over, around, and above each other as they fight for the narrative line. Toko’s story of his big fish is a soaring aria which ventures into a mystical realm, for Toko is a seer. And all this music seems totally appropriate to the lives of these Maori characters living in harmony with the land and their ancestors.
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