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amelietajanturcotte's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
nini23's review
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
I've always wondered what gives white people the brazenness to write about countries and cultures not their own with such surety and assurance, making a surfeit of mistakes along the way. Colonialism? Well, we are living in a post-colonial world where England is ruled by a clown and the former colonies thriving under their own vision and gumption.
In this book we have silly inaccuracies such as 'Malay junk' - Malay is a language and race of people scattered throughout SE Asia like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Or the way foreigners are always referring to 'Borneo' like some exotic shorthand, it's made up of three countries perched on an island FYI. Then there's 'Chao Tang' in Singapore, Chinese assistant to white British overlord, whose name and speech are extremely inauthentic, just like the Chinese section of Richard Power's much lauded Overstory.
Last Hummingbird has both animals and trees being anthropomorphized; boars, hummingbirds and a piece of white oak think thoughts far beyond their ken. For instance, a female hummingbird complains that it's physically tiring because her wings beat at x speed or the white oak sawed to become ship mast ends up as a piece of shipwrecked wood worries about the fate of a young white Englishman.
Well as usual the white self-important people are the center of the story, exotic locations and peoples just propping up their journey.
I'm giving half a star for all those times the men in power were shown to fondle or cop a feel, reflecting the sexual harassment and violation so casually inflicted on women and for some acknowledgement of the damage of colonialism on indigenous people.
In this book we have silly inaccuracies such as 'Malay junk' - Malay is a language and race of people scattered throughout SE Asia like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Or the way foreigners are always referring to 'Borneo' like some exotic shorthand, it's made up of three countries perched on an island FYI. Then there's 'Chao Tang' in Singapore, Chinese assistant to white British overlord, whose name and speech are extremely inauthentic, just like the Chinese section of Richard Power's much lauded Overstory.
Last Hummingbird has both animals and trees being anthropomorphized; boars, hummingbirds and a piece of white oak think thoughts far beyond their ken. For instance, a female hummingbird complains that it's physically tiring because her wings beat at x speed or the white oak sawed to become ship mast ends up as a piece of shipwrecked wood worries about the fate of a young white Englishman.
Well as usual the white self-important people are the center of the story, exotic locations and peoples just propping up their journey.
I'm giving half a star for all those times the men in power were shown to fondle or cop a feel, reflecting the sexual harassment and violation so casually inflicted on women and for some acknowledgement of the damage of colonialism on indigenous people.
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