Page Turners – July 2023 review

In July the Page Turners read ‘Mr Pip’ by New Zealand author Lloyd Jones. It was short-listed for the Man Booker prize in 2007.

The book is set against the backdrop of the civil war on the island of Bougainville in the early 1990s. It is told through the eyes of thirteen year old Matilda. Mr Watts, the only white man remaining on the island, offers to take over the running of the village school and reads Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations’ to the children. Despite it being worlds away from their own experience the children forge a connection with the story and with Pip.  The story telling also brings the children’s parents into the classroom to share their life experiences, including Matilda’s mother whose zealous Christianity is at odds with the views of Mr Watts. When soldiers enter the village they become convinced that Pip is a rebel who is hiding from them and when he cannot be found the reprisals are serious. Matilda obviously survives to tell the tale and through her studies of Dickens learns to understand more about both her former teacher and herself.

Whilst some of us did not enjoy the book at all, the majority of us found it interesting. We enjoyed the way the story telling gave the characters a chance to escape from the realities of their everyday life – isn’t that something we all get from a book? – and we liked the way parallels were drawn between the lives of Pip, Mr Watts and Matilda. There were brutal episodes in the book but we felt that they were not dwelt upon but dealt with briefly and factually because they were told from the perspective of a thirteen year old. In addition the book gave us the opportunity to learn about a part of the world and an episode in its history that we knew very little about. We spent some time in our meeting looking up the island and its history and finding out about the background to the book. There is so much to learn about the world we live in.

Deborah Wallis, Convenor