Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story

This American person trades on the fact she has a Maori husband. Her knowledge of Maoridom - past or present- is infinitesimal.
Her writing is stiff, wooden - o let's settle on cementish.
Her story-telling ability is zilch.
The 'novel' was uniformly panned in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and received 3 'worst book of the year' endorsements.

I'm not sure what people are seeing in this book. I picked this up as a way to acquaint myself with New Zealand's colonial history before traveling there on vacation. The author, despite being well-versed in colonial history, displays a lack of sensitivity towards the terrible history of colonization in the way she talks about New Zealand and her now-husband. That history still impacts people today-- her account of it smooths over the reality it was for people then, and the ramifications colonization has on a society now. She romanticizes colonial history, and writes herself into that narrative, as an exciting time of adventure and "encounters" between people groups unfamiliar with each other. It is unfair and disingenuous to portray it like this, as if Europeans and native people were on equal footing. While it is true there was brutality on both sides, one side was invading the land of another and that land wasn't for Europeans to invade. What is disturbing to me is that she is aware of the history and yet can't see how she is coming across, romanticizing and essentializing Maori culture and people. I was hoping for some real insight, and all I got was offensive material where the reality of colonization is not taken seriously.

I've lived in four of the five main regions this book discusses (New Zealand, Australia, Boston, and St. Paul, Minnesota--I'm missing Hawai'i) so I feel especially qualified to review it. It's nonetheless a difficult book to review, in part because it's really two books in one.

The first book showcases the pitch perfect notes of a participant-observer in the antipodes, and this is where the book shines. Thompson has some piercing insights into both Kiwi and Aussie cultures, and she has a wonderful ability to express them through carefully chosen anecdotes. I would recommend this book to anyone moving to that part of the world because Thompson's observations are so incisive and memorably articulated.

The second book, the personal memoir, rang hollow for me. Thompson seems less interested in relating a personal story than she is in crafting a personal mythology. Consequently, the book lacks a certain humanity. The detached, ethnographic eye that works so well for describing the nuances of unfamiliar cultures falls short when it is turned inward on the author's own family. The most important character in the book--her husband--never materializes as a fully formed human being but remains a research subject, important mostly to the extent that he represents the every-Maori. Most oddly, though, and most frustratingly, Thompson comes off as blind to her own privilege. I know first hand what it's like to live as a graduate student and an under-employed academic so I empathize with those struggles. But I also recognize that the challenge is a whole lot easier when you have a well-heeled family in an affluent Boston suburb to fall back on. Thompson fancies herself solidly middle class, but could only live the life she lived because she could afford to fail, which is a luxury most solidly middle class folks don't have.

At best, these faults make it difficult to relate to Thompson's story. At worst, it seems as though she views indigenous cultures as a means by which she might craft an "interesting personal narrative." In those moments Thompson appears only slightly more sensitive than the 18th/19th century European conquerers and verandah ethnographers she all-too-gently critiques. I don't think Thompson actually is that callous. I suspect that she just over-intellectualizes her personal story and thereby keeps the reader at arm's length. Nonetheless, the result is to rob the book of the authority it might have gained by forging a genuine emotional connection with the reader. Thompson is too guarded, and her narrative too manicured.

All in all, though, the book is a good read. I'd add a half star if I could. It's well written and conveys genuine insight, so it might be forgiven, at least partially, if it falls short as a memoir.

I had to read this for a class and I loved it. It was a nice combination of history with a memoir. Definitely recommend to anyone who wants to learn about Maori culture; on that note, I do not recommend it if you're looking for a thrilling suspense story -- that's not what this is.

Deeply flawed, reductionist view of Maori and the greater Polynesian population penned by a pretentious, insensitive author blind to her own not-so-subtle classist tendencies. The book is rife with hypocrisy, laughably ironic and at times, shockingly disrespectful.

The narrative begins with Thompson traveling to New Zealand and meeting “a Maori”, who would become her husband. Throughout the book, the reader gets only a narrow and impersonal view of this man who is a central piece of the story. Even his name, Tauwhitu, is too difficult, so she simply refers to him as “Seven”. Instead of introducing us to an individual, Thompson reduces her husband to a caricature, a generalization of not only, in her opinion, all Maori, but of Polynesians as a whole: he’s big, dark, with large arms and legs, laid-back, but also a natural-born fighter, he lacks ambition or any disinterested curiosity, he’s largely unskilled and has very few thoughts about the future. What we’re left with is the impression not of a unique person, someone the author knows and loves, but of an “insert any Maori that conforms to sweeping, disrespectful stereotypes here” model. Seven, it seems, is a sample specimen, a living, breathing trinket from her far flung travels. Indeed, in regard to time spent with Seven, she goes so far as to tell one professor, “You could call it fieldwork.”

Sometimes these cultural differences with her specimen husband cause problems. When Thompson admits that she is finally forced to “acknowledge the issue of class” between them, the book’s racist undertones become more apparent: “There were moments - days when I would come home from the university and find Seven and Kura [his sister] on the floor watching monster trucks on TV - when I would look at them and think, you people."

Thompson also cannot seem to comprehend Seven’s sister’s shock and disgust upon seeing a photograph depicting 34 Maori heads mounted on a wall like trophy animals. Thompson, who considers the photograph a prized possession, explains, “The heads were not of her grandparents, they were probably not even members of her tribe,” so why would she be so appalled? Never mind that only the slightest amount of empathy is required to understand that those heads belonged to someone’s grandparents, fellow human beings; regardless of whether they were a direct relation or not, basic decency should elicit a reaction of at least some distress.

Thompson’s lack of humanity continues to be jarring. Near the end of the book, she suddenly veers away from the established (albeit shaky) direction of her message and delves into a discussion and defense of her mother’s ancestors, one of whom was a confirmed “Indian-killer”. She paints an all but glowing picture of dear old Great Great Uncle Sibley who was part of the “haute bourgeoisie” of the newly established city of St. Paul... and who also carried out the heinous mass hanging of 38 Sioux Indians in 1862. She goes on to say that yes, sure, while this remains a “bitter joke” (?!) within the family, she admits that given the choice, she’d have wished it to be no other way, as “privilege comes at a cost and it was the Dakotas and Pennacooks and Pawtuckets who paid the price of our family’s prosperity.” Are you kidding me?

Even the historical commentary throughout the book, while informative and interesting, is nothing noteworthy. It is merely a regurgitation of Maori history pieced together from previously published authoritative sources: Salmond, Scott and the like.

In short, this meandering and shallow story adds nothing to the study or understanding of Maori culture, past, present or future. Irresponsible and self-indulgent, this book is at best ridiculous, at worst, a shameful perpetuation of the very stereotypes and reductionist attitudes that led to the destruction of so many indigenous peoples the world over. Frankly, I was just disgusted by it.

I have mixed emotions with this book. I think it was interesting - but I think it was too scholarly and there wasn't as much personal emotion invested in it. That's disappointing considering it could have been so much more. I feel the author's husband is someone I would have enjoyed reading more about - even the children. But, maybe there was too much trying to be squeezed into the book - crossing back and forth between historical anecdotes and familial (much like the crossing back and forth between new and old homes) left too much ground to cover and not enough time to do it.

Preparing for my first visit to New Zealand, I was looking for a book that would orient me and draw me into the rich, and dauntingly vast, literature on that country's exploration, colonization, anthropology and social history. I feel I could have found no more thoughtful guide than Christina Thompson. The quote from the San Francisco Chronicle sums up my own assessment of her book: "A multilayered, highly informative and insightful book that blends memoir, historical and travel narrative ..."

Inside the wonderfully observed scenes and intriguing history is a girl-adventurer (literally and figuratively) meets boy story of a thoroughly modern kind. Memoir, culture clash, code-switching, it's all in here and completely captivating.

I'm from the Boston-area, as is the author. She studied in Melbourne, Australia, as did I. She traveled to NZ, as I'll be doing this month. She looks at life analytically through the eyes of a trained intellectuall when places culture and history firmly in her microscope. She presently lives in the Boston area, as do I. It is a perfect fit to help me understand NZ before my adventure.

I'm almost finished reading this book and it is telling things I did not know about the Maori people. A good read for someone who would like to know the past history of this country.