Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
A soul-destroying tale of nature suffering in urban chaos, 17 Jun 2001
By A Customer
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.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
How much misery can you handle?, 7 Oct 2003
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
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Bleak and powerful, 30 Aug 2006
`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 arrival of European colonialists. Having being subdued into a European way of life, this once warrior people are forced to live in poor housing estates with dead-end jobs (or none at all) and no hope for a better future. Violence and drinking provide the only escapes for these 20th century Maoris.
`OWW' tells the story of the Heke family. Jake Heke is the local hard man, free with his fists both at home and in the pub. His wife, Beth, is a loving mother, but an alcoholic who has more time for the booze than for her kids. The have 5 children ranging in age from 17 to 6. Although Jake and Beth are the main characters, it is through the effect on these children that we see the cost of life without hope. The eldest (Nig) is already running with a violent and feared street gang. The next (Boog) is failing in school and in court with the possibility of being taken from the family. He is supported by his sister Grace, who still has hopes for her future but is starting to fear that her life will end up the same as the people she see around her. By contrast, the two younger children are pictures of innocence, all the more disturbing because the reader realises that they are unlikely to stay that way.
Duff's writing is powerful, and well observed. Even Jake's violence, which extends to regularly beating Beth up, is put into context (though not condoned) when we get inside his head and realise that it is the only thing that he has left in which he is superior to those around him. Violence has become his escape, because there is no other way for him to get respect. When Jake and Beth abandon Boog to his fate, it is again put into the context of the rest of their lives. Because Duff gives each of them an inner monologue in different parts of the book, all the characters, even Jake, become sympathetic to a point. Duff, for me, does take the bleakness a little too far. Although I realise that the terrible lives these people lead was part of the point, the Heke family are subject to poverty, domestic violence, rape, suicide and murder, which felt like laying it on a bit thick The ending also felt a little unlikely, providing too easy answers to complex questions. That being said, `OWW' is a powerful and bleak observation on the decline of a people, and definitely worth reading.
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