Mister Pip
by Lloyd Jones
With its lovely cover, and the promise of Dickensian fun in paradise, I was easily lured into this novel. I’ll admit that having missed most of the hype about it when it came out, I was expecting a soft and lightly humorous novel along the lines of the The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It didn’t take long for these fanciful notions to be dispelled and replaced with less cosy and rather greater expectations!
The story is narrated by Matilda, looking back at the events that happened on Bougainville, her Pacific island home when she was fourteen. It’s the 1990s, and there is civil unrest brewing on the island, which has yet to reach the end where Matilda lives. School has been shut for some time and everyone is surprised when Mr Watts decides to reopen it. Mr Watts, whom the kids all call Pop Eye, is the last white man living in the village. He promises to introduce the children to Mr Dickens – and initially their hopes are dashed when Mr Dickens is found to be a long-dead author. When Mr Watts starts to read Great Expectations to them, one chapter a day it piques their interest, for Mr Watts turns out to be a natural storyteller.
Matilda and the other children take Pip to their hearts. The book allows their imagination to fly beyond their island boundaries and confirms to them that there is another world out there. Matilda’s god-fearing mother is suspicious of Mr Dickens and the faithless Mr Watts, and their war of words is a highlight of the novel. However civil war intervenes with the arrival of the brutal ‘Redskins’ who have seen a word Matilda spelt out in seashells on the sand – ‘Pip’. Demanding to see Pip, things rapidly turn nasty and the novel takes on sombre tone, and Mr Watts will prove that he is a good and decent man.
The parallels with Dickens abound, but I must admit my limited familiarity with Great Expectations really comes from the classic black and white film with John Mills as Pip rather than the book, which I read at school. I think that if you know the Dickens well, this novel will fascinate on a different level – without that, I did feel inspired to read the Dickens properly sometime soon.
It did evoke a picture of a life very different to our own successfully I thought – it would have been idyllic if not for the war. When the insurgents turned up, the pace upped a notch, and in the later stages there was a certain amount of convenient wrapping up at the end, which fell a little flat for me. It was an enjoyable read, and if a book can make you want to read Dickens, that must be alright! (7.5/10) I bought this book.
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To buy from Amazon.co.uk, click below:
Mister Pip
Great Expectations (Oxford World’s Classics)
Great Expectations [DVD] [1946]
Ooh, I have this, unread, on my shelves from when I DID fall for the hype when it came out (it was a RIchard and Judy book wasn’t it?)
This could prove a very useful idea as to where to start the mammoth proceeding of reading through my TBR mountain, rather than me standing in front of the shelves and dithering about where to begin!
Thanks Annabel!
I loved this book, but I read Great Expectations just before reading it (I didn’t think it would make much sense if I didn’t have any idea what happened in Great Expectations). Perhaps the fact it was so fresh in my mind made me appreciate it more?
I believe this book is about the transforming effect of literature no matter what your culture or environment at a particular point in time. The place where Matilda finds herself at the end was amazing to me, all things considered. This was one of my favorite books of the year it was released and I would feel that way even if I had not read Great Expectations about 10 times!