Serpent in Paradise
Dea BirkettBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Lost in the surf of the South Pacific lies a speck of volcanic rock. Home to thirty-eight islanders--descendants of the Bounty mutineers--Pitcairn has no cars, no crime, no doctor, and no regular contact with the outside world. For two centuries, "Fletcher Christian's children," whose culture and language are a bizarre blend of Polynesian and eighteenth-century English, have lived out a unique social experiment.Acclaimed British travel writer and journalist Dea Birkett, obsessed like many with the island's image as a secluded Eden and its connection to the mysterious and intriguing Bounty legend, traveled across the Pacific on a cargo ship and became one of the very few outsiders permitted to land on Pitcairn. Although the islanders initially seemed welcoming, they soon wove her into a web of decades-old disputes and thwarted desires. With no means of escape, Birkett's adventure to the other side of nowhere at last became a kind of prison.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
The lore surrounding the HMS Bounty in 1789 has spawned more than 200 books and at least five movies. Rather than rehashing the conflict between Lieutenant William Bligh and mutiny leader Fletcher Christian, British writer Birkett (Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers) trains her eye on the present inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, the isolated paradise where Christian's renegade band settled and where most of the 38 residents at the time of Birkett's writing are descendants of the mutineers. The author, who lived with a Pitcairn family, makes anthropological observations common to travel journals, but she often overstates her case. The publisher hypes the claim that until Birkett's arrival no one has "trespassed" on the island until now. In fact, many outsiders have been to Pitcairnseveral were living there when Birkett arrivednot the least of which have been the Seventh Day Adventist missionaries who settled there in 1886. Birkett tells her story with the self-effacing skill of a good dinner guest, but island life does seem dull, and one begins to imagine that the original tale behind Pitcairneven after 200 tellingsmight not be the better story after all. (Oct.)Library Journal
Birkett, an English travel author (Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers, Blackwell, 1989) and contributor to numerous magazines, became fascinated with the story of Pitcairn Island after viewing the film The Bounty (1984). Home to the descendants of the legendary mutineers of the HMAV Bounty, Pitcairn is situated 3000 miles from the nearest land in the South Pacific. It took more than two years for Birkett to get permission to visit the island, book passage on a chemical tanker, and arrange to stay with an islander. The 40 inhabitants speak Pitcairnese, a mixture of Polynesian and 18th-century English. Birkett uses Pitcairnese throughout, describing everyday life on the remote island, where everyone drives three-wheel all-terrain vehicles, has electricity only from 6 p.m. to 11 a.m., and uses a "party line" island telephone system. Whenever a ship is sighted, the bell is rung and the entire island population rushes to the jetty to launch long boats so that island produce and souvenirs can be bartered for much-needed supplies. In the end, Birkett fails to "fit" into the tightly knit community she beautifully documents. Over 200 books and five movies have told the tale of the mutiny; this one brings us up-to-date. Recommended for public and academic collections.John Kenny, San Francisco P.L.Kirkus Reviews
Beguiled by the romance of the South Seas, a young Briton wangles her way to the renowned but seldom visited Pitcairn Island, home to the descendants of Captain Bligh's mutinous crew.Among the most isolated spots on earth, Pitcairn Island lies well away from shipping lanes, but the resourceful Birkett, a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Britain and America, found sponsorship and hitched a ride on a chemical tanker headed for New Zealand that made a brief stopover at the two-and-a-half- square-mile island. In breezily witty fashion, Birkett describes an idiosyncratic collection of 38 islanders whose mixed Polynesian and British ancestry has resulted in rare combinations of physical features and a unique Pitcairnese dialect—something of a cross between archaic English and South Sea languages. With no regular channel to the outside world, the islanders are generally self- sustaining, relying on the occasional ship for precious commodities such as eggs or cooking oil. Birkett proves adept at learning the islanders' crafts (basket weaving and carving), driving their three-wheeled motorcycles, and hiking up and down the steep landscape. To please her adopted family, she regularly attends church (in 1886, the entire population became Seventh Day Adventists), eschews alcohol (until she finds the in-group), and above all else, as the islanders consider themselves misunderstood by the rest of the world, conceals the fact that she is a writer. To her dismay, she learns that the Pitcairnese are ultimately unwilling to admit her to their society, and worse, her hosts slander her behind her back and the other islanders spy on her activities. Finally, their hostility and threatening behavior cause Birkett to flee on a passing tanker.
Birkett's wryly, sometimes wickedly observant commentary drives this entertaining account, but one is also chilled by the degree to which a society will shun outsiders. A rare and instructive work.