Reviews

Alright, I'm going to ignore the casual racism and comment on the content and writing itself. This is, perhaps, one of the most intriguing novels that I've read. It's almost as if the author had never read a novel before. Most novels, as you know, involve one great calamity. A volcanic explosion. A house fire. A murder. This novel, in contrast, includes an earthquake, a hurricane, a pirate raid/kidnapping, a death, a murder, an encounter with an alligator (and a host of other animals), and a trial all in about 200 pages. It's incredible.

What's more stunning, however, is the writing. I have no idea what the viewpoint is called. It's third-person omniscient, except that the narrator is occasionally first-person. It's weird and awesome and it works really well. E.g.,

"'Poor little thing,' said the mistress, 'I hope she will soon forget the terrible things she has been through. I think our girls will have an especially kind corner in their hears for her.'

In another room, Emily with the other new girls was making friends with the other pupils. Looking at that gentle, happy throng of clean innocent faces and soft graceful limbs, listening to the ceaseless, artless babble of chatter rising, perhaps God could have picked out from among them which was Emily: but I am sure that I could not."

I also greatly enjoyed the clever composition of words. The meanings often twisted as the viewpoint meandered, making this a delightful read.

I'm not sure why other commentators are describing this novel as similar (or dissimilar) to Lord of the Flies. Unless I'm very much mistaken, this isn't a children's novel. It is about children, but it's not for children. The closest novel that I can think of is The Violins of Saint-Jacques for the same meandering and calamity building upon calamity.

smartipants8's review against another edition

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5.0

what a strange and fantastic book. Beautifully written and with that odd frightening but familiar cadence of books from my childhood. I was terrified and laughed.

kmil's review against another edition

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3.0

I feel like maybe I didn't give this book a fair chance, reading it in fits and spurts over the course of 4 weeks. I really like the premise, and I enjoyed the way Hughes alternated between descriptive passages and then matter-of-fact, unemotional descriptions of more serious events. My favorite passage was a section in which one of the children starts developing an awareness of herself as an individual and of her potential power, and I thought Hughes did a terrific job of conveying a child's inner world. But overall I found the story a little hard to follow. Many book club members said they had trouble differentiating the children, which I can understand. Because I didn't feel compelled to pick up the book again and again...3 stars.

kcourts's review against another edition

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4.0

What a crazy adventure! The descriptions, especially of the thoughts of the children, are fantastic and fantastical.

nadinekc's review against another edition

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I was hoping this novel would be strange and intriguing: blithely cruel 19th century British children on a grand adventure, told in an imperial, self-satisfied voice - but the first 10 pages disturbed me, and not in a good way. Really, the first page did me in with this:

With Emancipation, like many others, that [plantation] went bung. The sugar buildings fell down. Bush smothered the cane and guinea-grass. The field negroes left their cottages in a body, to be somewhere less disturbed by even the possibility of work.

Maybe all of this is subverted in the rest of the tale, maybe it has clever and cynical things to say about morality that would make it all worth reading, but I just couldn't stand it. I realize it was written in 1929 and I am generally capable of suspending my 21st century sensibilities for books of another era, but not this time. I did read Francine Prose's Introduction, which gave me all that was valuable about the book without the pain of actually reading it.

emkoshka's review against another edition

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2.0

I read this while in Puerto Rico, having spent two months in some of the countries in the Eastern Caribbean a few months prior and thoroughly warmed by the author's mention of glorious tropical plants like bamboo, frangipani and coconuts. Apart from that though, I’m not sure what there is to recommend this book as a 'modern classic', as my Penguin edition is. It's bizarre at best, surreal-absurdist at worst, as when one character wantonly falls 40 feet onto his head in a scene involving a cow being winched into a warehouse. And then every other character pretends he didn't exist. I guess I was expecting something a little more Lord of the Flies and a little less carnivalesque. And gosh, Edwardian children were so damn strange, barely children at all but mannered little adults prone to fits of crazy fancy. Strange, unsettling, dream-like.

emmc's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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