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Product Description
Review
"A searing look at the urban subculture of New Zealand's native people." -- Toronto Globe and Mail
"A starkly realistic account...as important, as frank, as powerful a book as [Alice Walker's The Color Purple] was for Americans."
Dominion (New Zealand)
"A starkly realistic account...as important, as frank, as powerful a book as [Alice Walker's The Color Purple] was for Americans."
Dominion (New Zealand)
Book Description
'Alan Duff's first novel bursts upon our literary landscape with all the noise and power of a new volcano' - Michael Gifkins, Listener
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Alan Duff's harrowing story of life amongst the urbanised Maoris of New Zealand combines writing wistfully of traditions and culture with an ability to rock the reader with a string of hard-hitting home truths about city life. Duff focuses on contrasts throughout the novel: the fortunes of the poor central Maori characters compared to the more comfortable, white-skinned Trambert family; traditional Maori life versus life in the urban ghetto; male outward violence against women's inner strength; youth's anxst against age's wisdom. But where Lee Tamahori's film of the book glamourised "Jake the Muss" and his bloodthirsty way of life, squeamish readers should take note that the novel concentrates much more on the spirit of the Maori tribes, where the Warrior past is what takes centre stage. The offshoots of this culture are brought to life in the sweaty, 'gemeinshaft' city climate, and one family's struggle for happiness makes compelling reading.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is not a pretty book. Beth and Jake Heke and their six children, along with numerous other Maori families in New Zealand, live in an urban ghetto of government-supported housing, isolated from the rest of society and isolated, too, from their old culture, which once gave pride and a sense of identity to Maori families. As the Hekes deal with poverty, drugs, alcoholism, unemployment, gang warfare, rape, incest, physical and mental abuse, suicide, and a host of other horrific family problems, the reader vicariously experiences their bleak and hopeless lives.
Duff, part Maori himself, does not mince words here, recreating in bold, often raw, language the violence of their lives. Pathetically, and most affecting to the reader, the children, forced to "grow up early," accept these horrors as "normal" and try to survive any way they can, seeking even a small ray of hope for the future. Some do not succeed. This look at almost unbearable human misery leaves the reader disturbed and angry--as the author, no doubt, intended--and grateful for the ray of hope that finally emerges at the end. The book may be fiction, but it's a seething indictment of a real society. Mary Whipple
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Without a doubt my favourite book of all time. And once you've read t you'll probably wonder about my choice of the word favourite, because the story is thoroughly depressing! But Duff tells such a good story and you find yourself desperately wanting the Heke family to have a bit of good luck, especially Beth & the kids. You can even sympathise with Jake, to a point, because although we often complain about our own lives, I wuld imagine the people reading this book are very unlikely to have experienced such bleak situations. I read this book while actually on holiday in Aukland, and it opened my eyes to a whole new side of New Zealand.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Powerful
This is still a very disturbing DVD but well worth watching. It made me want to read the book again which I found even more powerful.
Published 8 months ago by SUB
Bleak and powerful
`OWW' is a powerful book about the 20th century problems facing a once powerful people. New Zealand's Maoris, we are told, were fierce warriors, proud and violent, before the... Read more
Published on 29 Aug 2006 by Depressaholic
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