White Shadows in the South Seas - Frederick O'Brien (week 2)

With the publication of White Shadows in the South Seas (1919), Frederick O'Brien's writing career paralleled Melville's own: a first work based on personal travels to the Marquesas Islands (and a second set in Tahiti) which met with commercial and critical success. In fact, the book was so popular that it spawned "a craze for the South Seas" and "a host of imitators," helping to stimulate the 20th-century Melville Revival.

O'Brien disembarks at Hiva-Oa, where he penetrates an uncanny world free from the pressures of modern Western civilization. He paints an idyllic scene of natural beauty and alluring possibilities, using colorful anecdotes and an easy "beachcombing" style. But the islands are also heir to a culture of cannibalism--still discernible in the names of the natives there: Exploding Eggs, Vanquished Often, Man Whose Entrails Were Roasted On A Stick--and the scars of colonialism, disease, and exploitation.

O'Brien aimed to make the "reader see and feel the sad and beautiful guises of life" and to reveal "the secrets of a few unusual souls." Less romantically, reviewers remarked on its "bitter denunciation of white civilization and its destructive effects on the lifestyles and cultural traditions of a Polynesian paradise."

Schedule:

• Week 1: Chapters 1-20
• Week 2: Chapters 21-39

White Shadows in the South Seas: ~220pp

• Kindle
• Gutenberg
• Google books

Extracts:

• "...lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen." (Moby-Dick, 71)
• "He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side." (Moby-Dick, 133)

This meetup is part of a series on Fig Leaves and Fancy Pants.