English Passengers [Audio Download]

This is a beautifully observed book that races along at cracking pace. Its highly entertaining and thought-provoking. Safe to say, everyone gets their just desserts. I highly recommend it.

The book really brings home the sheer arrogance of the settlers of that time, and you cannot help but feel a sense of profound pity at the extinction of a unique people. This, of course is not the first book that has done this, but Kneale's brilliant narrative style serves to really underline the different motives behind the settlers. Some cannot see any point in even giving the 'savages' a life, and others held a wish to preserve the culture (even if it was primarily with a concern for the image of Britain).This serious aspect is intertwined with a brilliant story of adventure that ends with a thriller-like sequence of events. The different threads of the brilliant (and in some cases repulsive) characters all tie together in a very satisfying manner. The true meaning of a page turner.

The novel is essentially two parallel stories. One is of several English passengers aboard a Manx smuggling ship, bound for Tasmania, in search of the Biblical Garden of Eden. The other is of a Tasmanian Aborigine named Peevay, who has been born as the result of his mother's rape by a white man. These characters eventually cross paths (leading to a truly gripping finale), but along the way we learn a lot more about all of them, as well as about the history of Tasmania.

This novel is really quite brilliant. Kneale employs the tactic of having many different narrators tell the story, each from their own viewpoint. Every voice he uses - white, black, male, female, English, Tasmanian - is utterly convincing, and despite all these different storytellers, the novel doesn't become confusing or disordered, as you might expect - it is compelling stuff throughout. And it's not simply entertainment - this tale will get you thinking. It's been a long time since I have seriously thought about a book when not reading it; I found my thoughts kept going back to this novel and its characters - what would happen next, how it would end, not to mention the issues it raises.

On one of those Tube journeys I try to while away with fiction, a totally random guy started telling me, and his girlfriend who was sitting next to him, what a great book it was I was reading, and how it was one of his favourites. "English Passengers" is now one of my favourite novels, too. It's not only the best book I have read in quite some time, but probably one of the best I have ever read. This is not the kind of novel which has a good style but a boring plot, or which has some great writing but a few sections that are boring and difficult to get through - it has a great, brilliantly original storyline, and convincing and intriguing characters, and is superb throughout. There are some great touches of humour as well as some genuinely moving moments.

I really cannot recommend this novel highly enough - it is, quite simply, outstanding.