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Pitcairn: Paradise Lost (2008)

by Kathy Marks(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0732282543 (ISBN13: 9780732282547)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd

review 1: This was a very difficult read due to the subject matter. Fascinating and necessary though. I was aware of Pitcairn due to "Mutiny on the Bounty" but have to state upfront that I never supported the view that Fletcher Christian and his coconspirators were the 'heroes' of the story. This bias is attributed to the fact that I was born and largely raised within South Pacific. Fletcher Christian and his men behaved, particulary after they inhabited Pitcairn, as I have seen many expatriate 'white' men behave when exposed to the 'locals'. I have never understood the fable and myth around Christian and Pitcairn. I was aware at a young age of even the basic facts that Christian and his men kidnapped the Polynesian 'wives' they inhabited Pitcairn with and how the Polynesian men tha... moret voyaged with them eventually revolted against them due them being treated with basic elitist rascism. So it has always been a mystery to me how these men are perceived as heroic and that Pitcairn is some sort of utopic island paradise. Furthermore, when the allegations of systemic, multi-generational sexual abuse and rape of very young women on the island eventually emerged, I expected some of the islanders to deny it but did not expect so many people worldwide support the defendents. It was shocking to me that people valued the myth over the innocent lives of these young women. It's as though people forgot (and still do in some cases) that these young women are Pitcairners too.The book, as mentioned by others, did require a better editor. It got a little repetitive at times and generally needed a bit of tightening up. But Kathy Marks did a superb job of capturing the claustrophobic life on the little island of Pitcairn, the absolute weight and burden the abuse and the case has been, as well as her analysis at the end of the book about why this systemic abuse occurred and why it was and is tolerated both by Pitcairners and their various supporters worldwide. On the personal front, I appreciated that she took the time to explain why the argument 'it is the Polynesian way to break girls in at a young age' used by Pitcairners and outsiders supporters (eg: Colleen McCoullough) is NOT TRUE and shows an outstanding amount of ignorance of both Polynesian culture and Pitcairn.It is clear that Kathy Marks wrote this book for those very courageous women of Pitcairn that finally risked absolutely everything to speak out, and those Pitcairners that had the strength to support them. I think this is what ultimately helped me continue to finish it through to the end.
review 2: Pitcairn Island, a pinprick in the South Pacific, is home to the less than 50 descendants of the mutineers from "The Bounty", commandeered from Cap'n Bligh by Fletcher Christian, a handful of his ship mates and about 20 Tahitians, mostly young women. Five years ago, a sex scandal rocked the island affording a glimpse by the outside world into the darker side of this tranquil, tightly knit community. The trial, which the islanders including the victims greatly resented, was held in the town's tiny courthouse. Barefooted Pitcairners, as British subjects, were tried by barristers in wigs and robes. It's a fascinating anthropological study into how this piece of tropical real estate developed, in defiance of outside influence and contact. less

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