Flying-Fox in a Freedom Tree

by Albert Wendt

This early collection of eight short stories and a novella is vintage Wendt. Stories convey the unease of traditional island community caught up in the rapid changes of the modern world. Wendt writes with enviable directness and with deep feeling: comedy and tragedy are often hard to distinguish as his characters struggle to come to terms with their changing world.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Albert Wendt was born in Apia, Samoa.
Wendt's epic Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979) won the 1980 New Zealand Book Awards. He was appointed to the first chair in Pacific literature at the University of the South Pacific in Suva. In 1988 he took up a professorship of Pacific studies at the University of Auckland. In 1999 Wendt was visiting Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Hawaii. In 2001 he was made Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to literature. In the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours he was appointed a member of the Order of New Zealand.

Reviews

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A modo de aclaración: No he leído el libro invocado, aunque tal vez, sí he leído una parte de él, el cuento llamado Declaración de independencia. Por lo que pude saber, si el cuento leído ha sido incluido en alguna de las varias colecciones, debiera ser en éste. Y ha sido suficientemente bueno, como para no merecer la injusticia de quedar perdido en el vacío por el solo hecho de que Goodreads no lo tenga incluido en su lista. Sospecho que Wendt no vería con malos ojos este ardid.

Declaración de independencia, por Albert Wendt. Traducción de Paloma Fresno Calleja. KRK Ediciones, 2011 (o según otras fuentes, 2014), 43 páginas, aproximadamente (sacando la tediosa introducción y las eruditas referencias para escribirla; y sin incluir la versión en inglés). ISBN 978-84-8367-333-1. Colección Cuadernos bilingües de literatura contemporánea.

Y ahora, luego de estos prolegómenos, que debieran haber sido innecesarios, manos a la obra en sí.

"El señor Paovale Iosua, fiel empleado del departamento de Obras Públicas durante de más treinta y dos años..." padre de siete hijos ("sanos") es un hombre samoano del común, leal a los papalagi designados por las autoridades coloniales. Un hombre de rutinas estrictas. En cumplimiento de las mismas, una mañana entra a su ducha, sin saber que será asesinado; murió limpio.

¿Qué puede haber ocurrido para que este Natalio Ruiz de la Polinesia, se encontrara con esta forma de muerte?
Y aquí arranca la historia, en la que el autor nos lleva hacia atrás, y con talento despliega una narración llena de ironía, sátira y humanidad, que se percibe hasta en el desenlace. Un muy buen cuento, y un autor al que no conocía, y que merece ser tomado en cuenta.

Albert Wendt (Samoa, 1939) es el factótum de la literatura de Samoa, y gran divulgador y auspiciante de la literatura de la región de Polinesia. Actualmente reside en Nueva Zelanda donde se desempeña como catedrático. Declaración de independencia parece ser su única publicación traducida al castellano. La he conseguido en Abe Books, aunque veo que también está disponible en Casa del Libro (ambos de España).

[Joanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For most of this book, I was very intent on giving it three stars, simply because I have no patience for writers who cannot include women as anything more than objects, nagging wives, and prostitutes. Wendt won me over at the last possible moment with his story "Virgin-wise - The Last Confession of Humble Man who is Man got Religion," a brief tale about a man who cannot form meaningful relationships with women because of "Virgin-wise," his own, unhealthy conceptualization of the perfect woman that no real woman can live up to. That is still the only story out of eight that indicates that Wendt himself does not view women as objects and nags, so I won't be rushing out to fill my library with his works. (I mean, I'll probably read more, but I'm not in a hurry.)

Aside from this flaw, however, the stories are good. Wendt's prose is often stunning in its beauty, and each story, although often feeling too short, offers the reader a lot to unpack. "Flying-Fox in a Freedom Tree" is by no surprise the star of the collection, offering the most compelling characters and the most complete plot, but each story is compelling and enjoyable. If you are interested in post-colonial literature, Wendt is a must-read.

I'd offer this book 3.5 stars for its woman-problem and brevity bordering on incompletion, but since goodreads doesn't supply that rating, I'm pushing it up to four because of its significant place in Samoan literature.

[Andrew Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

My school encouraged us to read the stories of New Zealander Witi Ihimaera in the '90s and Albert Wendt's stories are similar, but different. There's trouble through all the stories and the book paints a bleak picture of Samoa, but I found a lot of inspiration in it. The main story Flying-Fox in a Freedom Tree does stand out a lot, but the second longest story Pint-Sized Devil on a Thoroughbred just as much. Both stories are about young men rebelling. The "Pint-Sized Devil" Pili goes about doing as he pleases, lying, cheating, stealing, assaulting and is in and out of prison. As bad as he is, he’s admired by the narrator, Pili’s nephew, when compared to the rest of his family, boring, devout Christians who encourage fellow Samoans to be more like the palagi so they’ll become successful, wealthy, respected etc., which is a common theme through the book. In Flying-Fox, the rebel is Pepe, who’s father is very successful and wealthy from doing things the palagi way and wants his son to be the same. Pepe rebels with arson and theft, burning a church hall and robbing one of his father’s shops. This leads to him challenging Christianity and God in court, in front of the devout Christian judge and those in the audience, Samoans devoted to the palagi religion.

You see the world through the eyes of Wendt’s characters and often they are selfish and/or ignorant. The stories Captain Full – the Strongest Man Alive who got Allthing Strong Men got and Virgin-Wise – the Last Confession of Humble Man who is Man got Religion have a kind of sarcasm about them, narrated in a childish sort of way by one who doesn’t speak English well. There aren’t many palagi characters, certainly not much is seen from a palagi view, the best example being the palagi character David Trust and his wife Ethel. The story Declaration of Independence suddenly switches to their point of view. Wendt may have accepted some of his characters’ behaviour as, like it or not, traditional and typical, while at the same time being critical of tradition.

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

A descendant of the mountain: 4.9/5 stars, incredibly atmospheric.
The cross of soot: 5/5 stars, also atmospheric, felt like the ball was going to drop at every new paragraph.
Captain Full...: 2/5 stars and that's being nice, I have never read anything in this style before and the style itself had me captivated. The story was sad when you peel back the layers of uncomfortable.
Pint-size devil on a thoroughbred: 4/5 stars, A rich story of a family told from the perspective of a nephew trying to write about his youngest 'uncle'. Carries on the unreliable narrator trope from the previous short story but with more subtlety.
A resurrection: 5/5 stars, a story about the inherited fate of family and culture and how it cannot be possibly understood when one walks away.
The coming of the whiteman: 3.9/5 stars, an abhorrent character showcasing the damage caused by the assimilation of colonizers.
Declaration of independence: 3/5 stars, I didn't really understand this one.
Flying-Fox in a freedom tree: 3/5 stars, despite being the books name sake I didn't really like this one. The beginning was intriguing, the ending was sad.
Virgin-wise...: 3.9/5 stars, I get it... I wonder what the male perspective is on this story...

All the stories express poor views on gender - the boys/men are held to a sickening standard of behavior, there is no bashfulness in treating the girls /women of the stories abusively. There is a lot of normalization of spousal and child abuse though, like with the alcohol and substance abuse and the leanings toward, specified as, sinful behavior. Heavy, HEAVY Christian influence though it doesn't show a nice light on the religion. A very real collection of stories, not just for entertainment but a freezing of a time into immortality.

[Niskala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Samoa ini menarik. Kepulauan kecil di tengah2 samudera pasifik yang diperebutkan oleh orang2 amerika, inggris, jerman dan selandia baru. Mereka menyembah para dewa sebelum para misionaris barat datang ke sana yang merubah banyak hal.

Bentrokan adat istiadat lama dengan budaya baru yang dibawa oleh orang barat menjadi masalah dominan yang ada di sana. Albert wendt melukiskannya dengan sangat baik di buku kumcer ini.

Bahasa yang dipakai pada terjemahan ini agak aneh, menurut penerjemah ini untuk dapat mewakili tulisan aslinya yang ditulis dalam bahasa inggris samoa, bahasa 'pinggiran' yang tidak baku. Jadi jangan heran kalau banyak tata kalimat yang aneh di sana.

Dari 7 cerpen yang ada, hampir semuanya menarik. Cerpen terbaik berjudul iblis kecil keturunan asli. Buat yang berminat mencari bacaan dengan latar belakang budaya yang baru, bisa coba baca buku ini. Cara bercerita menarik tapi agak membosankan di 2 cerpen pertama.

[SBC · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I only read the first story in the collection (which the collection took its name from).

Pepe has lived a very strange life and is now dying of TB, writing it back (probably half made up as he admits he is a teller of tall tales). He had an interesting childhood raised in an English-speaking school, grows to resent his father for his desire to be European, has a sexual encounter with a woman Susana which (although she had betrayed him) earns him a son, and his friend, Tagata, a dwarf, kills himself for no obvious reason.

[Bryce Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories by Albert Wendt. Vivid portraits of a range of male Samoan characters: mourning Matai, self-made men, jail birds, free ranging kids, larger-than-life family members… Wendt strikes a great balance between plain description and the poetic turn. All metaphors are derived from the Samoan world. The writing morphs with each first-person narrative to embody their particular linguistic reality: educated, uneducated, colonised, de-colonised, reserved, or breaking free. Masterful.

[Yong-Yu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not start this quarter thinking that I would write my research paper on Wendt, but it's funny how things come full circle. Getting to think about islands and Hau'ofa and colonialism again, and learning so much about Samoan and Pacific literature.

[Aprijanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cover buku ini memikat karena ada nama Sapardi Djoko Damono sebagai pengantar sekaligus penerjemah. Buku ini berkisah tentang orang-orang Samoa, kepulauan kecil yang letaknya ada di atas New Zeland, jauh di samping Papua Nugini, serta budaya dan alam yang dideskripsikan di dalamnya membuat saya kepengin terbang dan melihat langsung seperti apa Samoa itu.

Cerita-cerita di dalamnya sangat lokal. Masyarakat yang sangat kental agama sekaligus takhayul, menuankan orang keturunan dan pekerjaan sebagai pegawai pemerintahan. Ikatan sodara antara lelaki Samoa tergambar erat di beberapa ceritanya.

[M Adi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jika pembaca menemukan kebangkitan, sepertinya akan tepat anggapan perubahan dari-apa-menjadi-apa yang berproses. Jika pembaca menemukan kesangsian, sepertinya akan tepat pula kebenaran mana yang dipertanyakan. Jika pembaca menemukan satire, sepertinya akan tepat pula objek siapa yang dituju. Beberapa hal tersebut menjadi daya tarik kuat yang dihadirkan secara indah lewat pergolakan antara adab budaya dengan pelbagai hal yang menyinggungnya.

Cerpen favorit: Salib Jelaga; Iblis Kecil Keturunan Asli; Datangnya Orang Kulit Putih

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this more than I did. There aren't many prolific Pacific nation authors, and I really wanted to enjoy a unique perspective.

I found nearly all of the short stories to be completely forgettable and uninteresting. The title story was the longest and by far my favorite, so maybe I'll give one of his novels a shot sometime down the road.

[Lei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revisting this book this year. I would recommend you read it if you havn't read any of Albert Wendt's novels. You're get a taste of story-telling and way he writes.
Listening to him at Pasi tutorial at Vic got me inspired to explore more fables of the polynesia especially the untold.

[Jobiska (Cindy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting views into Samoan life, especially in Western Samoa. I was impressed at how many voices the author could write in. However, it was difficult for me to find many of the protagonists sympathetic.

[Ano · Rating 4 out of 5]

the postcolonial value that can be seen in the character's searching of identity really inspiring.

[Setjoeil Asa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Selamat tinggal, Pepesa, aku melenyapkan diri, seperti kata koboi.
Aku tetap selamanya mati."

[Eduardo Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

All short stories are traditional in the form and style. But very carefully crafted. The novelty is the people and communities that the stories talk about.

[Dhanalakshmi Durairajan]

bf

[Jon Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving post-colonial short stories discussing the effects of Western rule in Samoa, told through intensely personal narratives