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World Elsewhere: A Novel
A moving novel about a young eighteenth-century Frenchman who is forced by circumstance to examine the world beyond his nobility delves into such classic themes as European exploration and civilization versus savagery as it describes his journey to Tahiti, where he falls in love with a native woman. A first novel. 20,000 first printing.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published February 18, 1999
23 people want to read
About the author
Peter Brooks
114 books62 followersPeter Brooks is the author of Henry James Goes to Paris, Realist Vision, Troubling Confessions, Reading for the Plot, The Melodramatic Imagination, and a number of other books, including the historical novel World Elsewhere. He taught for many years at Yale, where he was Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, and currently is Andrew W. Mellon Scholar at Princeton.
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March 9, 2013
A vivid story about the voyage of a French sailor with the explorer Bougainville to S. America and Polynesia in 1767-68. The prose is not remarkable, but the story of the journey is very engrossing (after a dull opening chapter set in Paris).
The book centers on the French discovery of the island of Tahiti, and the first contact made between the sailors and the native islanders, which is initially one of wonder and amazement.
"Here was some extraordinary junction of two worlds held together for a moment by a wonderful illusion... We were strangers in a natural paradise that for us exceeded the fantasies of our most visionary poets. Yet, for our hosts, dwelling habitually in paradise, we must represent something far beyond the most fantastic of their imaginings." p. 88
Predictably, this halcyon beginning is marred by events and peace is eventually broken (without giving away too much of the plot). Still, the sailors that spent time on Tahiti grew to appreciate its people and way of life and at least one among them longed to stay; the chapters narrating their departure from the island were heart-breaking.
"You get back to nature from where we are only through acts of thought and imagination... for us, the only true pardises are the ones we have lost. Paradise is an idea we carry in our head. It is that idea we are obliged to work with, to make as real as possible... to try to cultivate some bit of that garden." p. 201
The book centers on the French discovery of the island of Tahiti, and the first contact made between the sailors and the native islanders, which is initially one of wonder and amazement.
"Here was some extraordinary junction of two worlds held together for a moment by a wonderful illusion... We were strangers in a natural paradise that for us exceeded the fantasies of our most visionary poets. Yet, for our hosts, dwelling habitually in paradise, we must represent something far beyond the most fantastic of their imaginings." p. 88
Predictably, this halcyon beginning is marred by events and peace is eventually broken (without giving away too much of the plot). Still, the sailors that spent time on Tahiti grew to appreciate its people and way of life and at least one among them longed to stay; the chapters narrating their departure from the island were heart-breaking.
"You get back to nature from where we are only through acts of thought and imagination... for us, the only true pardises are the ones we have lost. Paradise is an idea we carry in our head. It is that idea we are obliged to work with, to make as real as possible... to try to cultivate some bit of that garden." p. 201
Displaying 1 of 1 review