The Book of Puka-Puka

[schnee]

I've finally (finally!) started reading Robert Dean Frisbie's (Ropati's) Book of Puka-Puka, which was published bvy Eland in a new edition earlier this year. And even though I've only just started I can already recommend it; it's fascinating, and written in a captivating, evocative style that draws you in and really brings those southern seas

Comments

[huskyteer]

That is very evocative!

[schnee]

It is, isn't it? I've just finished the book - simply couldn't put it away, really -, and I loved it greatly. Much of it is heart-warming, some of it is heart-breaking, some is silly, and much is beautiful. It makes you wish that these islands had never been troubled by the arrival of English or American missionaries, and that Ropati himself (that is, Frisbie) had been given the great gift of living out the rest of his days on Puka-Puka and eventually dying there, surrounded by his family, as he alluded to in that paragraph from early in the book. He would have deserved it.

[huskyteer]

Oh yes! I could fancy that, with the breeze and the sea and the fish. As long as the library had enough books for a lifetime.

[schnee]

He mentions bringing about 500 with him to the island - and that he was never able to convince the islanders that they weren't all bibles, as that was the only book they had ever seen, or even heard of.

[aurifer]

Every once in a while, I'll read something like that and be poignantly reminded that what we normally see online isn't really writing. I think we could consider most of it to be nothing more than communication.

[schnee]

That's true - and much (most) of it is communication after all! :)