Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones was first published in 2006 and is a fictional tale based on the 1980s Bougainville Island civil war. It follows the life of Matilda, a teenage girl living with her mother, and her journey through life, in tension and under threat, with heroism and betrayal, love and loyalty all woven into this captivating tale.
After having recently read Black Butterflies by Prasilla Morris, it was interesting to have a comparison between adult and child in the life of a conflict. The child’s naivety and ignorance leads to a heightened sense of resilience and escapism. Though, as with Black Butterflies, it is the arts that saved sanity and hope: in the case of Mister Pip, it was literature.
The story begins with the local children being invited back to school to be taught by Mr Watts, a local man of interest: he’s the only white man they’ve ever seen, and he walks around the village with a clown nose, dragging his wife on a trolley behind. Mr Watt’s life is private and closed off, but Jones slowly reveals his past, intertwining it with the storytelling narrative, bringing the world to life.
As their teacher, Mr Watts decides to read Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations to the class, the book becoming a focal point of this story. The characters and the tale of the book intertwine and provide another world for Matilda to enter, for her to escape in. Matilda finds a kinship with Mister Pip, having been through hardship and made good use of his life’s lot. During the class, there comes a point where Matilda reflects she has entered Mister Pip’s story and it was at this point I realised I had entered hers. Her world bridges between rainforest and sea, you can feel the sea breeze and see the sunset, you can feel the earth beneath your feet, trapped by the civil war in a beautiful backdrop.
The pace of the book is mostly slow to moderate, but it changes rapidly, aptly capturing the uncontrolled aspects of a war-torn town. The sudden change in tempo is shocking and it aids the understanding of Matilda and the villagers’ experience of living under the threat of others. You feel the safety of the book being ripped away, just like Matilda’s childhood. It is a complex tale, heartwarming and heart-wrenching at the same time, with the sacrifices others have made and what Matilda must now live with.
In the fallout of trauma, there is a lot of reflection, of finding their place again in this new version of the world. Matilda’s friendship with Pip helps guide her through the unknown, when she feels lost. It is this new understanding of the world, through Pip, that saves her. There are many beautiful reflections, one in particular stood out to me from Mr Watts: on learning more about him and his wife, Grace (who was from the island), he says “Between us, me and Grace had created a new world”. This was Mr Watts describing the coming together of nations, of cultures in a child’s face. It reminds us that we are all linked, history is found in our features.
Mister Pip is a beautifully written book that I would highly recommend any adult to read.
C