Mister Pip Paperback – May 20, 2008

A New Zealand writer has produced a highly entertaining and well written novel in Mr. Pip. The title comes from the main character in Charles Dickens's wonderful novel, Great Expectations. The narrator is a young black adolescent, named Matilda, and she is bright and open to all the ideas of the world that her eager mind can absorb. She is just entering puberty, living on an island in Papua New Guinea. She lives with her mother and is an only child. Her father left the home to work in Australia but has never returned. Her mother, a rigid woman, has developed a hard shell to protect herself from hurt. Unfortunately this sets the stage for distance between the mother and daughter. Matilda's teacher is a mysterious white man, married to a black woman. Much of the novel involves the gradual discovery over time of the true identity of this man, Mr. Watts. His wife, Grace, appears to be suffering from depression. With few school books or other academic resources, Mr. Watts teaches the island children, from Great Expectations. The main character of the novel, Pip, captures Matilda's imagination and soon she reflects about her own experiences and compares them to the experiences of Pip. As the influence of Great Expectations increases for Matilda, her mother becomes concerned and a rivalry develops between Mr. Watts and Matilda's mother Dolores.This novel is about the power of the narrative to not only entertain but to allow reflection on personal experience. Life is so full of many experiences, many of which we barely have time to remember, or analyze. The power of novels is their ability to help people, at a conscious or unconscious level, organize their experiences and put meaning or new meaning on life experiences. There is a wonderful passage in this novel where Great Expectations disappears and the students, with the help of Mr. Watts, reconstructions the story. The story is more than just a parable on the power of the narrative form, though this is certainly a characteristic of this novel. The scenes where the children reconstruct the novel from memory or the scenes where Mr. Watts agrees to tell the military insurgents the story of Mr. Pip every night for 6 nights are brilliant. The early chapters where island life and myth infiltrate the story line and dialogue are magical. The final chapters where Matilda is an adult and reflects upon her childhood are beautifully written. This novel is highly recommended.

Mr. Pip is a deeply engaging tale of life on the unstable island of Bougainville for Matilda, the narrator and main character, a young native black girl, recounting the events that ultimately shaped her views of life, morality and the world beyond her home. The main focus for much of the story is on Matilda's schooling and her teacher Mr. Watts, the last white man on the island. Married to a native, Watts is a mystery to Matilda whose primary glimpses of the man are when he's pulling his wife in a cart along the island, wearing a red clown nose. Watts uses Dickens' 'Great Expectations' as his main teaching material, reading passages aloud to the children, emphasizing the power and magic of storytelling. Watts' enthusiasm for the novel is infectious, wrapping both the reader and Matilda up in worlds far from their own, while bit by bit revealing his own history along the way.There are strong political, familial and moral undercurrents throughout the novel, but ultimately the story is one of discovery; a young girl finding her place, her faith and her own truth amidst the turmoil around her.I found the plot to be extremely engaging, the characters relatable and interesting, and Jones' writing manages to be both sparse and descriptive in the same measure, keeping you in the moment even when the unexpected bits of violence might otherwise turn you away. There were moments I truly didn't expect, revelations that raised more questions than gave answers, and I did find the concluding chapters to be a little out-of-the-blue on the first reading, not because it was unexpected but because the time and setting jumps threw me a bit out of the experience.Overall, a very worthwhile and thought-provoking read. Possibly the biggest compliment I can give this novel is that as soon as I finished reading, I picked up my copy of 'Great Expectations' and discovered again the type of magic that both Matilda and Watts also found in its pages.