Book review: Mister Pip

What was happening now was that books were raising possibilities for me, and never before had so simple a phrase seemed so ripe with meaning. Raising possibilities. Two words, seven syllables, no hyperbole. But somehow the idea struck me as wondrous, a way to increase the content of my being, expand the very definition of life. I found myself thinking of raising possibilities as I imagined farmers thought of raising wheat or corn or soybeans. You planted a seed, and before long something that had never existed assumed a place in the world. It took root, grew, reached the stage of full flower. And it was not an isolated event; it could happen before every sunset, after every dawn, season after season after season. Yet there was magic in the process, a series of everyday miracles, and everything was different, however subtly, because of it. “You can never be quite the old self again,” T. E. Lawrence had said, and the reason was not that you had lost, but gained. New selves existed within you. You could see more clearly, hear more acutely, understand more profoundly.

Possibilities had been raised.

                             --The Joy of Books: Confessions of a Lifelong Reader, Eric Burns, pp. 18-19.

Lloyd Jones's 2006 book Mister Pip has received high praise from critics, but public awareness of the book is not widespread. That will likely change later this year with the release of the film adaptation, directed by Andrew Adamson (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) and starring Hugh Laurie (who will always be Bertie Wooster to me). I didn't know of the book until I heard about the movie crew beginning work on Bougainville Island. When I realized that a recent novel took place in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, I was excited to read it.

Though the Autonomous Region of Bougainville is part of Papua New Guinea, its location—quite remote from the main island of New Guinea—means that not everyone who visits PNG gets to visit Bougainville. But a lot has been written about Bougainville in the decades since PNG's independence in 1975. Much of the recent attention on Bougainville is due to the conflict that resulted from local protests of the Bougainville Copper Limited mining operation. Beginning in 1972, the Bougainville copper mine was one of the largest and most innovative mining projects in the world—as well as providing PNG with 45% of its national export revenue. But Bougainvilleans have long been the most independent-minded segment of PNG’s population. Even in the days leading up to PNG’s independence, Bougainvilleans sought to declare their own independence in order to preempt PNG’s nationhood.

Increasing dissatisfaction among Bougainvilleans toward the mining operation in the 1980s led to terrorist attacks: power pylons were destroyed with explosives, and mine employees were threatened going to and from work. In 1989 the mine closed. This initiated a 9-year conflict that engulfed the entire region of Bougainville. The Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) continued its guerrilla terrorist tactics, resisting any overture of peace made by the PNG government and fighting against the military forces sent in by the national government. Many young men in the region joined the BRA, while other inhabitants of the islands went into hiding, fearful for their own lives. Casualties during the conflict years are estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000—an incredible percentage of the region’s total population, which currently is listed at approximately 175,000.

In 1998, participants in the conflict agreed to a cease-fire. The first elections for president and other positions within what is now the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARoB) took place in 2005. Today, ARoB is officially at peace, although the southern part of Bougainville Island—the area in which the mine was located—remains unstable. Residents are working to rebuild their infrastructure, having lost their status as one of the wealthiest regions of PNG. Bougainvilleans were once among the richest Papua New Guineans. Now the landscape is dotted with deteriorating structures, reminders of the prosperity of the past. Residents understand how remote their region is without the mining profits to draw commerce to them.

My own connection to Bougainville began in 2009, when I was invited to lead a music and songwriting workshop in the capital city, Buka. The invitation came from the Bougainville Bible Translation Fellowship, a Papua New Guinean-led group that promotes vernacular-language scriptures for the 29 languages of Bougainville. Thirty-two people, representing 10 of Bougainville's languages, attended the workshop. We all enjoyed the 22 songs that the participants composed during those days; but even more than that tangible “product,” I really cherish the memories of people from different places interacting, working together, sharing stories, laughing, and becoming a group of friends in only a week and a half.

And so when I learned that New Zealand author Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip takes place in Bougainville, I was excited to return—through fiction—to a place I loved. I was also cautious. What would Bougainvilleans look like through another outsider's eyes? I'm too used to poor portrayals of Papua New Guinea in the international media—whether news reports of only bad news (political corruption, tribal warfare, “raskol” gangs, natural disasters), or sensationalist “reality show” travelogues that want to essentialize Papua New Guinea as “savage” and “primitive.” So it was with much relief that as I began reading Mister Pip, I saw familiar people and scenes taking shape. Jones, who has spent time in Bougainville as a journalist, demonstrates a lot of first-hand understanding of life in a Melanesian village. Especially in the book's first, expositional chapters, the scenes are very genuine and true to what I've experienced in villages. Some interchanges sound just like conversations I've had with Papua New Guineans.

Mister Pip takes place in 1991-93, in the midst of the violent conflict in Bougainville. The narrative unfolds in the words of Matilda, a young Bougainvillean girl. Her world, and her identity, will be drastically changed through the war, and through her interactions with the book's other central character, Mr. Watts (who will eventually become the title character). Mr. Watts is a white New Zealander married to Grace, a woman from the village. The Wattses' past is a mystery to Matilda—and, therefore, to the reader. As the book opens, rumors circulate about the story behind Mr. Watts: he “was doing penance for an old crime,” or “maybe it was the result of a bet.” When the local village school shuts down because of the war, the mysterious Mr. Watts offers to teach the children. For students used to learning by rote memorization and repetition, the instruction that Mr. Watts provides is startlingly different. The high point of his daily lessons is when he opens Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and reads aloud a chapter a day.

From the very beginning, Mister Pip is a novel about identity (like Great Expectations, which gives a frame to the narrative). Beneath the surface of the story lurks the constant, tantalizing possibility of reinventing yourself, rebuilding your identity from scratch. When Mr. Watts says on the first day of school, “We must clear the space and make it ready for learning. . . . Make it new again,” he is talking not only about the schoolroom but about this fresh reconstruction of identity. “While we may not know the whole world,” Mr. Watts tells his students, “we can, if we are clever enough, make it new. We can make it up with the things we find and see around us.” For Mr. Watts, this first day of school is the beginning of a new and dangerous identity, though neither he nor the reader sees the danger ahead.

This theme of identity is an intriguing and extremely perceptive one for Papua New Guinea in the early 21^st century. Papua New Guinea, comprising over 800 distinct languages—each with its own history and cultural heritage—is a country that is still determining its national identity, after only 37 years of independence. As I read Mister Pip, I thought about the journey the villagers experience in light of Papua New Guinea as a whole. Matilda herself opens the door to such ponderings: “A white man had given us the name of our island. White men had given me my name. By now it was also clear that the white world had forgotten us.” For the possibility of recreating one's identity is complex. It can be hopeful to a village girl whose world is falling apart, but there is also a sinister side to it. Becoming something new will likely mean leaving behind other things. People in the book often look back to who they, or their community, were in the past. Matilda's mother, a fiery Christian desperately in need of a shepherd, remembers when the mission still ran a church in the village. She wants Matilda to commit the Bible to her heart, but also tries to make Matilda memorize names of ancestors. She fears losing hold of the disparate pieces that should be combining into a coherent identity. The past is a tangible presence throughout the book: much has changed, much has been lost. These are questions that are very relevant for Papua New Guinea. What will be given up in the pursuit of full participation in a globalized world? What place will the many traditions and histories within PNG find in the national identity? As Mr. Watts says, “Each leaves behind the place he grew up in. Each strikes out on his own. Each is free to create himself anew. Each is also free to make mistakes. . ."

As Matilda's world grows larger, the war will strip away everything that anchors her identity until she is left to reinvent herself from almost nothing: “everything dear to me had been taken away. . . . I was alone.” She learns that creating a new identity is not always a choice we freely make, but one that is forced upon us by our surrounding context. The war is a very real presence in the book, and Jones paces the narrative to build up the horror. Initially the war is only seen through rumors and the distant sounds of helicopters patrolling the jungle. The conflict comes closer when a young man from the village joins the BRA and dies offstage. But eventually the war fully enters the village in a shocking, horrific climax. Matilda cannot remain the same girl she was at the beginning of the story.

[Note: This scene is so disturbing (and so different in tone from the story that precedes it, though I see how Jones carefully builds the narrative to this) that I can't recommend the book without a word of caution about the content. What Jones writes is fiction, but without exaggeration or false embellishment. It is very similar to true stories I've heard about atrocities carried out during the conflict on Bougainville. Whether there is value in facing this real-world violence in a work of fiction is a question for each reader to decide.]

I've seen these complex questions of identity all over Papua New Guinea, including in Bougainville. But most of the Papua New Guineans I know do not have Matilda's opportunity of finding a new identity in a new place. Most people will be in their home villages for their whole lives, with severe restrictions on the creation of new identity. For me, the triumph of new identity is seen most clearly in people who decide to turn from ancestor-focused worship to worship of Jesus Christ. In Bougainville, I think especially of one young man I met at the music workshop in 2009. Jojo comes from the Mortlock Atoll—a small island cluster that is remote even by Papua New Guinean standards. He told me about his former identity: a heavy-drinking teen who was known by everyone in the village as no good. His house was near the village church, and one day he heard music coming from the church. He walked over to find out what the people were singing about. His interest grew as he learned more, and he became a regular church attender. His family were certain he must not be in his right mind; they couldn't believe the Jojo they'd known could be in a church and have any idea what he was doing. But as he grew in his understanding of Jesus, Jojo put aside his former character and developed a new identity. He became a leader of the young men in the village and sought opportunities to share the joy he had found in Jesus. When I met him in 2009, he was working on his guitar playing and songwriting, and he hoped to minister to others through his music.

Some people have viewed Christianity in Papua New Guinea mainly in terms of the material and social benefits a Christian may enjoy: travel to denominational church conventions, titles of prestige, authority, respect, salaried jobs. They can't imagine that anyone would step outside his or her cultural identity and voluntarily follow Jesus only as a faith decision; there must be other, more tangible, benefits involved. And sometimes and for some people that is very probably true. But it is not always true. People like Jojo are not taking on Christianity as a way of getting ahead in a harsh environment, but as a spiritual decision to align themselves with what they accept as the true power in the universe. Jojo is finding his true identity as a follower of Christ, and that is not dependent on what material benefits that may bring to him (very likely it won't bring much material benefit at all). Lloyd Jones's Matilda is courageous to reinvent herself in a new place, but I am in awe of the courage of people like Jojo, who remain in their home villages and daily, consistently, have to live out a new identity to their family and friends. Like Mr. Watts, they offer by their example the possibility of reinvention. But Mr. Watts is haunted by loneliness and regret; his identity is dependent on his own ability to tell a compelling story and make himself a part of it. These Papua New Guinean Christians, on the other hand, have the freedom to be themselves while anchored to the ongoing story of Christ's redemption of the world.