Serpent in Paradise (Hardcover)

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Review
Out of work and seeking to cheer herself up, Dea Birkett strayed into a showing of the Mel Gibson version of Mutiny on the Bounty and swiftly became obsessed with the notion of visiting Pitcairn Island where the mutineers had settled. Triumphantly overcoming the many obstacles which await the would-be visitor to Pitcairn and armed with a small grant from the Post Office to research the Pitcairn postal system, Birkett arrived in what ought to have been, by everything we understand, a paradise with no cars, no crime, although on the downside, no doctor and no regular contact with the outside world either. The island itself is in no sense a paradise, the paths often churned into mud and many of them suicidally steep. This is a fascinating and sometimes provocative account of the reality of life on a South Pacific island, so very far removed from the islands of our imagination. (Kirkus UK)

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. (Kirkus Reviews)

Product Description
Home to 36 islanders - descendents of the "Bounty" mutineers - Pitcairn has no cars, no crime and no doctor. For two centuries Fletcher Christian's children, whose culture is a blend of of Polynesian and 18th-century English, have lived out a social experiment. After two years' persistence and a 4000-mile sea voyage aboard a chemical tanker, Dea Birkett realized her dream of reaching this furthest outpost of the British Empire. This is an account of the author's quest for Utopia in the tiny community of Pitcairn in the South Pacific. The book reveals how Birkett found herself caught up in a web of intrigue, decades-old disputes and thwarted desires. Birkett's first travel book, "Jella", won the Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Writer award.

7 Reviews 5 star:  (3) 4 star:  (3) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.1 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   5 of 5 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Crashing a clique, 23 Feb 2007 By  Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    This review is from: Serpent in Paradise (Paperback) "No. Nawa (never) read. All ha books full of s__t. People write bad things about Pitcairn in books. Them people who go write books on Pitcairn should go wipe (i.e. emphatically go away or, perhaps, be struck dead)." - The Pitcairn "librarian" on being asked by Dea Birkett if she enjoyed reading First off, let me say that I'm awarding five stars to SERPENT IN PARADISE because it does what I think a successful travel essay should do, i.e. grandly transport me to a faraway place that I shall never see in person, but which, due to the descriptive skills of the writer, I can envision clearly in my mind's eye, thank you very much. English writer Birkett became fascinated with Pitcairn, the remote British colony and island home of a subpopulation of the descendents of the Bounty mutineers, while viewing a screening of "The Bounty" starring Mel Gibson. (A larger group resides on the somewhat bigger Norfolk Island isolated in its own expanse of ocean north of New Zealand.) After almost two years of dreaming of visiting the place, she managed to book passage on a Norwegian chemical tanker scheduled to steam by. Thus, after having falsely fibbed in her landing application that she represented Royal Mail International, Dea clambered ashore to live for several months among the island's thirty-eight inhabitants. The author has been pilloried in other reviews, which have described her as being flawed, foolish, insecure, contemptible, self-serving, shallow, deceitful, condescending, screwy, voyeuristic, narcissistic, and a gossip. Well, gee, that pretty much describes, on one point or another, the flip side of just about everyone, doesn't it? Get over it! And, I could add, that the reader can infer from SERPENT IN PARADISE that the Pitcairners themselves are tribal, petty, suspicious, compulsive, repressed, and eccentric. But, I don't hold those against them because they're also traits of the human condition that balance out the nobler ones, also possessed by all concerned, both author and subjects. And let's ignore for the duration of this review the convictions of child molestation recently found against several Pitcairn males by the British authorities. (At least Dea's one night stand with a married islander was consensual sex between two lonely adults. Hey, I'll bet that's never happened before.) So, now what? The most glaring deficiency of this book is the lack of a picture section. However, I don't hold this against Burkett because there are no 24-hour film processors on Pitcairn, and I expect that whipping out a camera and snapping away would have caused the author to be pitched off the jetty and told to swim for home. Rather, look on the Web for "official" island sites that also include photo images. Or better, zero in on "Pitcairn Island" on Google Earth and be amazed that people can happily live their entire lives on a life raft so small. As a fun exercise, try to match the structures in Adamstown as seen on Google with Dea's map of the place. I admire the author for making the tremendous effort to get out and about. SERPENT IN PARADISE is a fascinating read for the armchair traveler, perhaps better than actually being there. "We all hold a place within out hearts - a perfect place - which is in the shape of an island. It provides refuge and strength; we can always retreat to its perfection. My mistake was to go there. Dreams should be nurtured and elaborated upon; they should never be visited. By going to Pitcairn, I had vanquished the perfect place within myself." - Dea Birkett Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5 of 6 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars One Womans Journey into History, 11 Mar 1999 By A Customer More than just a travel guide, this book is one womans journey to discover an island and people far removed from what we call 'modern society'. Whilst these bounty descendents do grasp firmly onto many modern ideas and material possesions, they retain an indiviualism which is unique to this small island. The beauty of this book is that it is not depicting an idealist's view of Pitcairn but is a frank writing of how Pitcairners live, what there beliefs are and how they view the outside world. If anything, this book will inspire you to visit this physically small but spiritually strong corner of the Pacific. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   3 of 4 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars Facinating insight into Island life, 20 Mar 1999 By A Customer If your interested in Pitcairn Island as a traveller or maybe as a spin off from an interest in the HMS Bounty tale, then this book is an essential piece of kit. As a traveller you can find out all the information you need to know and more, about culture, history, and social rules (which seem a bit strict) off this interesting and most most lonely place on the planet. Some of the goings on might well put you off a visit though! As a fan of the Bounty story, you will not be dissapointed, there is plenty of information related to the subject such as artifacts that remain on Pitcairn to this day. All in all a good read to all interested. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 7 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 2.0 out of 5 stars serpents on pitcairn on buying this book i expected to hear more about the history and people on pitcairn....well as for the people, according to dea she had not got one good word for any of them... Read more Published 21 months ago by magic 5.0 out of 5 stars Embrace Pitcairn I too like Dea Birkett became fascinated about the history of Pitcairn after watching 'The Bounty' with Mel Gibson. Read more Published on 25 Jan 2006 by J. Newton 4.0 out of 5 stars Inept Writer I gave this book 4 stars although it is dreadfully written, because I know Amazon in England does not print negative reviews. Hence this attempt to fly under the radar. Read more Published on 2 Dec 2004 4.0 out of 5 stars I had to read it but.... I had to read it because of all the recent publicity....but allthough it was a fascinating read, I felt it lacked the nitty gritty I was hoping to find, and left a lot to the... Read more Published on 2 Nov 2004 by pandora_33@hotmail.com Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 7 customer reviews...

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