Napoleon's Last Island

by Thomas Keneally

From the bestselling author of Schindler’s List and The Daughters of Mars, a new historical novel set on the remote island of Saint Helena about the remarkable friendship between a young woman and one of history’s most intriguing figures, Napoleon Bonaparte, during the final years of his life in exile.

In October 1815, after losing the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte was banished to the island of Saint Helena. There, in one of the most remote places on earth, he lived out the final six years of his life. On this lonely island with no chance of escape, he found an unexpected ally: a spirited British girl named Betsy Balcombe who lived on the island with her family. While Napoleon waited for his own accommodations to be built, the Balcombe family played host to the infamous exile, a decision that would have devastating consequences for them all.

In Napoleon’s Last Island, “master of character development and period detail” (Kirkus Reviews) Thomas Keneally recreates Betsy’s powerful and complex friendship with the man dubbed The Great Ogre, her enmities and alliances with his remaining courtiers, and her dramatic coming-of-age. Bringing a shadowy period of history to life with a brilliant attention to detail, Keneally tells the untold story of one of Europe’s most enigmatic, charismatic, and important figures, and the ordinary British family who dared to forge a connection with him.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Australia, Adult, France, Book Club

433 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 2, 2015

About the author

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia.

Life and Career:

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007).

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift.

Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country.

Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.

Reviews

[Cheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

NOW AVAILABLE

I was pleased when I received this advance copy to read – it had such potential to be fascinating, a potentially compelling subject such as Napoleon, especially when written by a noted author. I was less than pleased when I first started it, I think I was almost halfway through when I got past the point where I felt it was dragging, bogged down, and simply not enjoyable.

In the “better” sections, the parts that shine are when you are shown a kinder side of Napoleon, the man who enjoys children, delights in childlike appreciation for some small things. On the other hand, there’s a growing distrust of the British – and no, not by Napoleon. Although I understood that as the family relegated to St. Helena comes to know Bonaparte and befriend him, the British treatment attitude toward the Emperor is never going to be one of any significant compassion. However, the Balcombe family, who are also British, and yet forced to accommodate the Emperor, then become increasingly suspect by the British for treating this guest much like one would treat… a guest.

Betsy Balcombe is the shining star of this novel, without her I’m not sure there would be anything worth reading in this novel. It is through Betsy we discover the Napoleon that Keneally wants us to know.

And then there’s the ending. I should have just decided to end it ¾ of the way through. Everything after that point was just unnecessary and pointless, and some of it borderline ridiculous.

In short, I found this an intermittently slow and difficult read. Most of the chapters set in St. Helena were the most readable. Everything before and after, I felt detracted from this story.

Pub Date: 6 October 2016

Many thanks to Atria Books, NetGalley and to author Thomas Keneally for providing me with an advance copy for reading and review

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming and brilliant window on the life of a British girl, Betsy Balcombe, and the special friendship she developed with Napoleon Bonaparte during his time of exile on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena starting when she was thirteen. The tale is of an intersection of cultures and classes in a microcosm of civilization, of a world-shaker on a tiny stage, and of girl striving for the self-autonomy of a woman before her time. The story is rendered in a warm embrace, with fools standing in for enemies through most of the story and with plenty of comic relief.



Her father William was a merchant who had the commission from the British East India Company to import and sell food and household goods for the British Navy and civilians on this 5 by 8 mile island, which is located about a third of the way between southern Africa and Brazil. This remote site of Napoleon’s banishment was chosen to assure that his supporters wouldn’t free him in a repeat of what happened when he was imprisoned on Elba in the Mediterranean. For about a year after Bonaparte’s arrival in 1815, he was housed in Balcombe’s rural guest house with some of his retinue of servants. A few French aristocrats and soldiers of his inner circle who volunteered to share in his exile were housed separately at an inn in town. Thus, we get the odd spectacle of the toppled Emperor living in close quarters with British commoners continually mixing in with a motley slice of French society, ranging from puffed-up generals to decadent countesses. Though tagged the “Great Ogre” or “Fiend” by many in the Navy keeping watch on his security, the Balcombe family came to use OGF for “Our Great Friend” as a code for him and eventually pay a big price for their friendship with this enemy of the British Empire.

Even before the Emperor landed, Betsy was a force of nature, always pushing at boundaries in their little island community, damn the torpedoes, with an almost madcap verve. Which is what we admire in so many of our heroes, don’t we? When she and her more compliant sister Jane, two years older, are sent to school in England, Betsy makes sure she gets expelled from school so she can home to St. Helena. Her father can’t help forgive her. He recognizes her stubbornness and ways of fighting back as an element of her character he can admires. I loved the humor in the judgments of the school headmistress in her letter to her parents:

Her opinions, she said, was that had we lived in biblical times, the concept of satanic possession would perhaps been invoked in my case. …They were pleased to understand, she exhorted them, that they should in no way consider me lacking in native cleverness. However, in me, obdurancy was like a disease, and I would be permanently disabled by it unless some later recovery took place on my way to womanhood.

With so much excitement and uncertainty about the Emperor’s arrival and what it will mean for the community, it was a bit sad to see her eye get jaundiced over the polarity of reactions in the community. She witnesses the island residents, both high or low, alternate between wanting to be raised in glory by association with the famed former Emperor and the opposite tendency to feel better than him or to punish him in revenge. She goes through similar wavering herself. Her family stands to gain income from the arrangement, but their affection for him blossoms naturally from the charm and dignity of this invader. Betsy is the one to be wary at first, starting with Napoleon’s verbal flirting with her mother by comparing her looks to his first wife Josephine, which strikes her as manipulative and invasive. But soon she is charmed too, and matching him nip for nip in mischief and tease for tease in play.

There are games of blind-man’s bluff and hide-and-seek along with her younger brothers, production of plays, his construction of a cart pulled by mice, and an adventure featuring a charging cow in a pasture. Napoleon tends to go too far, such as when he terrorizes the neighbors playing a ghost, eggs her on to a display of threatening swordplay, or constrains the churlish son of his chamberlain and demands Betsy to kiss him:

I could think of nothing more obscene and struggled in his grasp, but he was determined to have it as a game. This was all very well for him. It was an outrage for me. …I had thought that I was somehow a freestanding votary who showed my devotion by repeated mischief. And now it was a child summoned to kiss me!…I felt a sense of outrage once the kiss had been consummated and I heard the Emperor hooting, while I choked on the bile of this cruelty disguised as play.

She finds ways to fight back by pushing his buttons over failures from his history. Subtly calling him on the carpet for burning Moscow in his disastrous Russian campaign, leaving his army’s wounded behind to face slow death or suicide with his withdrawal from Egypt, and making a lie of his anti-slavery rhetoric by sending forces to suppress the slave rebellion in Haiti. She uses such nuclear options to keep her head up:

I sought to make him lose his temper so thoroughly with me that all would change, and I would never be called upon to be an ally, and I would never be teased or tease him back. I did not even want to be treated with the courtliness that was his manner towards Jane. But then I wondered sometimes whether Jane was a person as was I, or a construction of easily learned attitudes and mannerisms.
… She did not understand the compact that existed between him and me; that I had particular knowledge of him and his impulse to play, fully as children play, inflicting pain as children do, and with the same fierce intent of children.



But Napoleon always is quick to apologize, helps in her and Jane’s education, has a gown made for her to attend a ball, and often advocates with her parents to lift her punishment for bad behavior. He is adept at disarming her rages:

”Is there anything we do the right way?” I asked the Emperor. “You don’t like our roast beef …, and you don’t like our puddings, and you hate our music, and now you don’t like pantaloons. Is there anything else to hate?”
…”Oh,” he said. “I am sad if I brought forth in you, Betsy, the need to be a patriot. I admire so much that is English, above all the hearts in your breasts.”

She comes to recognize Napoleon’s need to retain dignity and integrity in defeat, and his recourse to naughty behavior as an important outlet to undermine the oppression of his serious jailers. But all their escapades take a dangerous turn when they come to threaten her father’s reputation and position. Under the punitive regime of a new governor in the form Lord Hudson, a dystopia comes into effect, with a network of spies put in place and restrictions imposed on Napoleon’s household supplies, movements, visitors, and communications. Betsy’s father is treated like a traitor, and he comes under a cloud for helping smuggle out letters to support the Emperor’s efforts to gain more funds and to be allowed to retire to the English countryside. Betsy’s triumph in winning a horse race against the snobby daughters of admirals and merchant chiefs comes to a bad outcome when Hudson learns that she secretly made use of Napoleon’s Arabian steed.

I love literature like this that helps you see a developing self in transformation. It’s hard not to admire Betsy’s plucky strategy to take a pose or commit to a choice and then stubbornly stick to it as long as possible. She is so stoic is taking her punishment while never giving those meting it out the satisfaction of seeing her cry. That puts her in the school of Mattie in “True Grit”, with the “tough-on-the-outside” ying interfacing with “tender-on-the-inside” yang. I won’t go so far as comparing Rooster Cogburn to Napoleon, but there is a similar mythic sense of allying with both as devil mentors as the means to take on the devils behind the powers that be. In this case, Betsy’s learning to play with the Emperor leads to teaching her a lot about the game of life.

The real-life Betsy did publish a journal from this time in her life, which along with the accounts of other players on the scene, provided a launching point for Keneally to imagine a fuller version from a perspective later in her life. Other versions of her tale point to lechery behind the scenes, but Keneally doesn‘t go there. He does have Betsy deal with knowledge of the Emperor’s lusts for others and of an affair with the wife a count in his circle. Perhaps to make it clear how much is fiction, Keneally does place a little shocking vignette of debauchery in the middle of his tale.

By 1818 William Balcombe is ousted by Lord Howe. Through certain moral compromises he is able to get a job in the financial administration in New South Wales. It is through a museum created by Betsy’s descendants that Keneally, now in his 80s, first becomes intrigued by the untold aspects of her story. He shares his attitude toward Napoleon in his preface and this 2012 article in The Weekend Australian:

I must emphasize I have never carried a larger than standard-sized torch for the Emperor. On the one hand, he produced the civil law reform, Code Napoleon. He was not a tyrant in the notable way of Roman Caesars and totalitarian leaders. He seemed to be Exhibit 1 for “Enlightenment Man” and “Man of Destiny”. But in the 20th century we would discover the foul places that men of destiny could take us. I am an Australian old-fashioned republican, so the word “emperor” holds no allure for me, and I find Bonaparte’s pretension of becoming an Emperor to save the French Republic on the face of it preposterous.

Despite these reservations, his realization of fictional Betsy ends up having her paint quite a human version of Napoleon:
Later I would hear it argued, and above all see it written, that on the island the Emperor used his natural ease with other human beings as a means of gaining allies who could then plead his case in England, France, and Austria. …The truth was that a great deal of his ally-making was as natural to him as his own breath, and his power to win souls over had no higher purpose when they were souls of children or slaves or servants or householders, none of whom had any management of the gales of opinion that swept the earth.



This book was provided for review as a e-book by the publisher through the Netgalley program.

[Keith Murley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Napoleon's last Island by Tom Keneally
We are appalled that noted author Tom Keneally has resorted to such sensationalised untrue smut, bad enough for the "fictionalised novel" he speaks about but unacceptable when attributing his scenarios to the actual Balcombe family and Napoleon. The Balcombe descendants will be horrified and we are sure Napoleon's spirit is fuming. The relevant pages c 349 should be withdrawn.
Shirley & Keith Murley, Volunteers at the Balcombe National Trust "Briars" Mt Martha Victoria and long term Balcombe and Napoleon researchers

[Maya Panika · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book – a fascinating subject by such a good author – but I almost gave it up at the first hurdle. The early chapters are simply terrible; alarmingly slow and told in such an impenetrable style that I found dreadfully hard to read to the extent I had to read great chunks of it over two or three times to be sure I understood what was being said. I was glad I stayed with it as it kicks off marvellously when we (finally) reach St Helena, but alas, it slows back to a snail’s pace when the narrative switches to Australia. I wish Tom Keneally had written about St Helena and only St Helena, then I could have been much more enthusiastic about this book.
But even in the best chapters, there’s an unfortunate tone that really began to wear on me; the author obviously hates the British (he calls them British, though I suspect it is the English he hates) and his xenophobia shines throughout this tale. The British characters – the garrison and leaders - are almost all drawn with such contempt; there is no attempt to get inside their heads and understand that they were dealing with a vicious dictator (let’s not gloss over Napoleon’s crimes. Boney must have been relieved it was the British who held him captive and that he didn’t fall into the hands of the Russians) who was treated with reasonable respect (though they must have been seething inside at the sight of the man). It’s an attitude I found tedious and annoying – but then so is so much of the tale. I suspect Tom Keneally knew this himself and that was why he felt he had to invent a ludicrous made-up scandal. I would agree the book needed spicing up but it didn’t need this level of stupidity; an author as respectable as TK really should have been able to make this remarkable story interesting enough on is own without resorting to such tabloid tactics.
In short, I found this an intermittently slow and difficult read, and the prejudice of the author is too apparent; it irritated me from the off and eventually made me rather cross – not a good state of mind to objectively judge such a very long book. I mostly enjoyed the chapters set on St Helena – Betsy Balcombe really comes alive on St Helena; her voice is wonderfully well done and these chapters sparkle. I do wish TK had kept to this aspect of the story, dropped the nonsense and cut the opening and closing chapters; then the book would have been half as long and ten times as good.

[Brie]

DNF. I can't, I just can't. It took me almost a week to read 100 pages and I was literally finding myself dreading picking this book up each time. I NEVER DNF books, I always persevere, but this book was holding me down, holding me back, and it was making me not want to read at all, which isn't a good thing in my opinion.

The story sounds like it could be an interesting one, but I just cannot get into this book. I find it confusing, nothing (not the writing, nor the characters) are drawing me in, and frankly, life is just too damn short to read bad books (thank you to my friend Becky for reminding me of this wisdom).

I would also like to note, that when I finally decided to throw in the towel on this one and start on another book, I was overcome with a huge sense of relief, so I know I made the right decision here.

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is based on Betsy Balcome diary. Before immigrating with her family to Australia, they lived on the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled.

Betsy arrives at St. Helena Island at the age of 3. “Lack of education and social polish” takes her at the age of 8 and her sister, 10, back to England. Not happy at the academy, she defies her way back to the island, leaving her sister behind.

In October 1815, after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon is exiled to the island of St. Helena. He is introduced to Balcome family. They dine, wine, and sing together. From their conversations a bit of history is revealed.

The first 100 pages, which are concentrated on Betsy’s story are fairly interesting. Once Napoleon arrives at the island, their interaction becomes quite boring. Her and her sister’s French translations, to improve their French forced on them by their father, involve stories around them, which are boring as well. Betsy’s complex friendship with Napoleon is rather annoying, not making it an interesting read.

@FB: Best Historical Fiction

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so dry, boring; I had a hard time finishing it. It was like reading a textbook. I couldn't get into this story at all. The setting was the only interesting thing about this book. St. Helena sounds like an interesting place. The characters weren't likable. I didn't care what happened to any of them.

[P · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a poor book.
To anyone who started this who is tempted to quit, save yourself and your precious time; please feel no sadness in tossing this book aside for better reading, it does not redeem itself farther along. You can abandon this book with no shame or guilt.
Reading this felt like punishment. Suffering up to page 346 was tedious enough because of the pompous narrative. The characters were unlikely and unlikable. When the lead character walks into a room with her mother participating in an orgy with Napolean the story becomes completely ludicrous. Until this point in the book, the characters were portrayed as infantile and harmless, as rather stupid dolts, and the story was rather prudish. This turn of events was laughable, a cheap thrill that was abruptly included to turn an otherwise torturously boring book into a sensation.
Some books are just bad; this was so much more than just bad, it was horrible.
What was the point of this book?
It wasn't entertaining.
It wasn't informative.
It wasn't enjoyable.
Uggggh.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on a true story, Napoleon's Last Island tells the story of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile on the Atlantic island of St. Helena and, in particular, his friendship with Betsy Balcombe the spirited daughter of the island family he stayed with at the beginning of his exile. William Balcombe was the purchasing agent for the East India Company and he lived in the island's largest home, The Briars, when Napoleon, was sent there in 1815 with a company of assorted followers and servants. He lived for a time in the Pavilion on the Balcombe's property until the house, Longwood, was finished building.

The Balcombes all became friends of the exiled Emperor and actually began to sympathize somewhat with his lonely condition but it was with Betsy, the 13-year-old daughter that a particular friendship developed. She was not afraid of him and spoke fluent French. She was at that age between childhood and approaching womanhood and apparently, Napoleon enjoyed indulging the wilder aspects of her behavior and played games and tricks with her. This led to some gossip which followed her throughout her life and her friendship with Napoleon became famous.

Napoleon's Last Island seems to follow the known facts fairly closely for a work of fiction but was drawn out so much in parts and included some unnecessary fantastical elements that detracted from the basic story.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed reactions to this book. I find the accounts of Napoleon’s life on the tiny, desolate, rat infested island of St. Helena – his captors and his vestigial court – the town, the traders, the farmers and the soldiers pretty fascinating. Some of the characters are very well drawn. My chief problem is the hanging of so much of the tale on the very slender shoulders of Betsy Balcombe – though her actual diary is the source of much of it. She is a pre-teenaged girl living an extremely confined life in a time before teenagers existed either as a concept or a demographic. Of course she is self-obsessed, melodramatic and excessively fond of her own opinions. But she is not as interesting as she thinks she is, unfortunately. I found myself frequently wishing that her good-natured father (the provisioner of the island in the employ of the British East India Company) had locked her in the cellar more often, and for a longer period of time.
The phenomenon of imprisoning the person in the world who is both most hated and most admired has no real parallel. The British are divided in their opinions of him and what fate might be appropriate. The danger of an escape or an attempted rescue is ever present in the minds of the authorities. And ultimately the fairly humane administration of the island is replaced by the rule of the sadistic, officious, overbearing Hudson Lowe. He sees threats to security everywhere and is increasingly punitive, not just to his prisoners but to the other islanders as well. Betsy’s father loses both his job and his career, the family loses their home and their status and begins a downward slide that they never escape.
The character of Napoleon as described is magnetic, charismatic, whimsical, putting his talents to use in spite of his confinement – writing a history, engaging with people of all social strata, making a garden. The increasing strictures, the reduced living and food allowances, the severely limited communications permitted by Lowe are a sharp contrast to his earlier life as the Emperor of much of Europe. I wish the book had focused more on the relationships between Napoleon and the other adults and less on Betsy and her opinions.

[Monical · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some authors can take a potentially terrific story and turn it into dry, dry toast. This book is the third Keneally book I've attempted. The book started out dragging and just slogged on from there. I think the author has been living on "Schindler's List" for his entire career (and that, my friend, was not a easy read either, the movie was infinitely better although I can't say enjoyable). The writing is confused, the characters uninteresting (how can you make Napoleon uninteresting, you say? Well, Keneally does it!) and the plot takes incredible unbelievable swings. Guess I've read my last Keneally book!

[Lia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half way through I was wondering if this was brilliant or bonkers, sadly it fell on the bonkers side of the line for me.
Not bad by any stretch, I just didn't invest with any of the story. The dichotomy of insightful consideration of Napoleon's exile on St Helena from the view point of a young teenage girl was more than I could swallow.
Beautifully written as I would expect from Keneally, however too far a leap from plausible to be rated any higher from me.

[Carlos Mock · Rating 1 out of 5]

Napoleon's Last Island (Paperback) by Thomas Keneally

Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the de facto leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and again in 1815. He was exiled to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy. In France, the Bourbons were restored to power. Napoleon escaped in February 1815 and took control of France. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.

Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe, commonly known as Betsy Balcombe, was born in 1802 as the second child of William and Jane Balcombe, née Cranston. Her father was Superintendent of Public Sales for the East India Company. Balcombe and her sister Jane, two years her senior, were educated in England. In 1814, the sisters returned to Saint Helena with their parents and three younger brothers - William, Thomas (Tom), and Alexander (Alex). There they resided in a cottage called the Briars, which was the residence of Napoléon Bonaparte during the first three months of his exile by the British government. Because Napoleon's residence, Longwood House, had not yet been rehabilitated, he was housed in a pavilion near The Briars for the next two months (Plantation House). Although Balcombe was fearful of Bonaparte the first time they met, over time she and the emperor became friends. The French officers and servants were jealous of the young English girl, who addressed Napoleon as "Boney", OGF (our great friend). and"the great ogre" without being reprimanded by him.

Balcombe often visited Napoleon after he was removed from Longwood House. In March 1818, the Balcombes left St Helena and went back to England. St Helena Governor Hudson Lowe disapproved of the friendship between the Balcombes and Napoleon, suspecting them of smuggling secret messages out of Longwood House.

In May 1822, Betsy Balcombe married Edward Abell and had a daughter, but the marriage soon failed. Balcombe earned money by teaching music. In 1824 she made a visit with her family to New South Wales, Australia, but returned to England soon after. In 1830 she returned to New South Wales with her brother William and together they took up a land grant adjoining their father's property near Bungonia.

Some years later she returned to London and in 1844 published a book, Recollections of Emperor Napoleon.

When Tom Keneally discovered by chance at the National Gallery of Victoria that Betsy Balcombe, a young girl living on St Helena while Emperor Napoleon was exiled there, had become the Emperor's ‘intimate friend and annoyer', and had then emigrated with her family to Australia, he was impelled to begin a novel, exploring the intersection between the ordinary people of the world and those we deem exceptional.

Tom Keneally narrates from Betsy's first-person point of view her friendship with The Great Ogre, her enmities and alliances with his court, and her dramatic coming of age during her years with them on the island.

I thought the book was very boring. There are too many secondary characters - from sailors to neighbors, to the British and French aristocrats who lived in St Helene - it's just a mess. I never cared for any of them and I felt they were not fully developed. There is no plot to speak of - mostly gossip and political shenanigans that I never cared for. It's a very slow-paced book, hard to read and I did not enjoy it.

I suggest you stay away from this book.

[Christina McLain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike most of the reviewers on this website, I actually liked this book and thought it was worthwhile. I tend to put books in four categories: great books like Atonement or All the Light We Cannot See; good books like this one; the genuinely decent ones that I enjoy reading but are a bit forgettable and lastly the ghastly and dire, like A Game for the Entire Family by Sophie Hannah which is one of the worst books I have ever read, ever. This book for history aficionados like myself was compelling, especially as it is based on a true story. In 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic while the remaining leaders of Europe decided what to do with him. St. Helena was then a British colony and part of the enormous empire the English had built all over the Globe. During his exile.Napoleon became acqainted with the Balcombe family whose father William was employed by the East India Company as a purveyor of goods on the island. This is the story of how the family's relationship with Bonaparte changed their lives for better and mainly,for worse. Napoleon has always been a polarizing figure and unlike leaders like Hitler and Stalin he has been seen by historians as both a liberator and a dictator. This story, fictionalized but based on fact, does nothing to dispel the enigma and mystery of the man. Bonaparte appears in this book to be a fascinating charismatic figure who both enriched and destroyed the lives of those around him. The story centers on Napoleon's relationship with the entire Balcome family but particularly with Betsy, the spirited and willful middle daughter through whom the story is told and who bevomes his challenger, nonsecual playmate and vinally his friend. I liked the novel very much but I can see how readers found it irritating as it tends to go on and on before the point is finally made about the destructiveness of making Gods of the great.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judging by the reviews, this is something of a marmite novel. My attitude shifted back and forth while reading it. Loved the first 150 pages, got bogged down and a bit bored in the middle but then found that it picked up once the new governor arrived on St. Helena. Keneally is at his best in his portrayal of Betsy, the feisty teenager at the centre of the story. He creates the atmosphere on the island at the time of Napoleon’s arrival in great detail (although, for me, rather too much detail. I also felt there were too many characters. But, overall, it kept me reading and is an interesting take on a fascinating historical enigma.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost didn't make it through the first chapter, which consists of a description of the events leading to Napoleon's death, and would if arranged chronologically appear near the end of the book. It's a conversation between the Balcombe family and a doctor friend from the island on which Napoleon was finally exiled, and it's so full of mysterious nicknames and references that it's almost meaningless. The language opens up as it starts from the beginning in the next chapter and generates some interest. I was interested in Keneally's development of Napoleon's character, and of Betsy and the rest of the Balcombes. While I know that the details of their relationship are fictional, I did feel that my limited knowledge of Napoleonic history was increased. However, I felt that the book was stretched out too far and that much of the middle section could have been cut.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and richly detailed story of a spirited young girl's encounter with one of the giants of history.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know that authors must write the books they feel impelled to write, but as I put the book down at the end of my reading, I thought that this could have been a more compelling book if Tom Keneally had focussed his attention differently in this novel, Napoleon’s Last Island…

According to the prologue, (mischievously entitled ‘Terre Napoléon’ which was the name bestowed on Australia’s southern coast by the French explorer Nicolas Baudin), Keneally became intrigued by the story of Betsy Balcombe when he visited the Napoleon exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Some of the memorabilia was credited to Betsy Balcombe, who had lived on the Mornington Peninsula and whose descendants had inherited the relics. This novel is his story of the relationship between 14 year-old Betsy and Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) when they were neighbours on the island of St Helena in the southern Atlantic where Napoleon was exiled.

Now, as it happens, I am simultaneously reading Xavier Herbert’s chunkster Poor Fellow My Country and yesterday (before I read the concluding chapters of Napoleon’s Last Island), I came across a scene in which a character at a social occasion meets the British General who commanded his brother’s last fatal day at Gallipoli. Jeremy Delacy, characterised as an inherently reasonable man normally of great restraint, can’t control his rising rage, and decks the General, who his brother had described in a letter as a ‘homicidal maniac’ who cared nothing for the fate of the men. The two books came together in my imagination when I considered what it might be like to have custody of the Emperor whose ambitions caused 65000 casualties at the Battle of Waterloo alone, 17000 of whom were British. I thought of the treatment of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević in our own time, and of the Nuremburg Trials and the Tokyo Trials. The desire to force retribution for great wrongs can very easily become vengeance. The very human story of the British soldiers guarding Napoleon could have been a much more powerful story than the one that Keneally has written in Napoleon’s Last Island.

Instead what we have through Betsy’s empathetic narration is a sympathetic portrait of Napoleon, and her interpretation of his most emphatic gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe, as petty-minded. Because the house chosen as Napoleon’s residence, ‘Longwood’ isn’t ready, Napoleon becomes neighbour to the Balcombes while he temporarily lodges in a pavilion nearby their home, named ‘The Briars’. At first Betsy is afraid of him, calling him the Ogre, but she warms to him, and being of a wilful and capricious nature, she charms him with her cheeky behaviour.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/05/05/n...

[Gaele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued, never having seen much about Napoleon’s time on St. Helena (admittedly I haven’t researched it much) and curious how the story would spin. Keneally uses the daughter of the island’s provedore, Betsy Balcombe, as the central figure ..

A bit of a mixed bag for me, there were large moments of background and explanation given to provide the reader with necessary information, but these moments, while needed did seem to drag the pace. Where the book shines is with Betsy and Napoleon and their interactions. It is easy to see the camaraderie, his appreciation of the fresh perspectives and innocence that she brings, and the general genial treatment from her family. Betsy is a lamb in a pack of wolves, however, and the political machinations and struggles for supremacy and relevance in this milieu often find her shuffled like a pawn, unwitting and unwilling. With the emigration of the Balcombes to Australia, a mix of self-preservation and new start, the story again gives a view of a new world with its own challenges, political pitfalls and social consequences.

Overall this book was more than a bit uneven as a read, moments that show research often contrast greatly with the more imagined bits from Betsy’s perspective, and her lightness and near carefree childish approach to the world around her are bright and shiny in the mix. Still, I can’t pick out a huge stopgap in the novel, only to say it read as if it had two different purposes: Betsy’s story and then the politics of the day. With great attention to detail and description, plenty of moments with Betsy that bring a smile, this is a read a bit then let it simmer sort of title.

I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.
This review was originally posted on I am, Indeed

[Lianne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was provided an ARC of this book by the publishers in exchange for an honest review. This review was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/201...

I tried, you guys, I really did. The opening chapter didn’t quite grip me, but I read on in the hopes of the story picking up. Unfortunately it never did for me: I didn’t really feel for the story, the characters weren’t particularly compelling, and getting through the book was a chore that it was difficult to appreciate the themes of exile, social perception, and relationships. I suppose I did get a sense of place and setting in this book, how remote Saint Helena was from the wider world with all of its politics and happenings, but that was about it. I didn’t enjoy this historical fiction title, it didn’t capture my attention.

[Carole Sojka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about a little-known chapter in Napoleon's life--the years he spent on St. Helena in exile. The story is told by the daughter of a man who provisions ships for the East India Trading Company on their journey to Cape Town. She is young (13) when the book starts, headstrong and impulsive, but when Napoleon arrives and stays in a makeshift house next to where she lives with her family, they all become friends with the man who starts out as an enemy but becomes OGF (Our Great Friend). They share island excursions and games until a change of the governance of St. Helena restricts Napoleon's freedom and ends with Betsy and her family banished from the island and Napoleon under strict prison-like conditions until he dies.
Not an easy read but I was glad I persevered because it was worth the effort to understand a period in history that I knew little about.

[Vicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

When reading historical novels I love when it is written with what I imagine to be accurate languages or the time, evoking expressions and words that seem to be extinct in the modern world. Tom Keneally hits this one on the head in that respect. Unfortunately I can't find much else to recommend the book. I read it as an audiobook, and I was having to make myself put it on for my drive. I enjoyed the historical aspects of this tale, and wonder how much of the distinct bias around some of the characters existed in real life. But I think this book fell down with an older man trying to write a book from a young teenage girl's perspective, whilst trying to appear knowledgable and educated and fully researched.

[Pedro L. Fragoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating; an amazing story with a diverse and rich cast of interesting, compelling characters (another one to prove that life has a way to surpass fiction anytime), the writing is just marvelous, and I mostly got it via Edwina Wren’s reading of the audiobook, which I would classify as flawless, enchanting and enthralling, so there is that.

A few remarks.

One. The book title notwithstanding, Napoleon here is more of a supporting character, a very essential one as the protagonists lives are indelibly marked for having met him and becoming his friends (and Napoleon!), but the story is really about the Balcombe family and specially Betsy Balcombe, who tells the tale.

Two. In what pertains to Bonaparte himself, it’s a narrative of how the mighty may fell, specially when they fall in the hands of the English, and the vicious, demeaning, petty meanness in which they so often excel. To begin, “If the British Cabinet had sent an agent to discover the least savoury location on this island, he would have come back and said, “Longwood! Put the man you want to oppress there!”

Then, “The Crown now considered the island so significant that it had taken it from the East India Company. In a way that had never occurred in its history, Sir Hudson landed with vice-regal power, not simply the power of the Company. The Tory Cabinet of Great Britain had endowed him with a profounder authority than anything dear Colonel Wilks had dreamed of. So he landed, and he poisoned the earth with his tread.” Like in: “It was the delicate paring that offended my father, the brain for small measurements that His Excellency Sir Hudson Lowe had brought to the exercise – the niggardly glee, for example, with which he decided that two hams a fortnight should be all that were offered the house and that these should not exceed fourteen pounds each. Fish for the same period should not be more than four pounds. Sir Hudson’s sword similarly fell on salt, mustard, pepper, capers and preserves, all combined not to exceed seven pounds. My father had no idea how Sir Hudson decided it was specifically seven pounds that provided a rational limit of these enhancers of the French table.” Meaning that “If hams were to be proscribed by the policeman and his master, then he knew finally and beyond argument that he would be required indefinitely to provide the very cheapest purchases to Longwood – the prison basics.”

In the end, because of all of this and the undignified manner of his death in the hands of the captors, Napoleon was allowed one final, moral victory, one that was as wholly uncalled for as unfortunate. The literary accomplishment at play here is particularly significant in this regard, as it now becomes part of the record, in the case, a record of the dignity of the autocrat in defeat and the sad depths of dismal England values in victory.

And three. To speak of “values”, namely moral ones, Keneally manages to conjure an erotic event involving Betsy’s mother, a flight of imagination originating in “dirty old man” syndrome. Then, in final notes of the book, he tries to put the proverbial lipstick on the pig: “Mrs Balcombe (…) may have been defamed, in which case I can merely apologise to a fine woman.” In his review of the book in the New York Times, John Vernon is also troubled: “(…) did Betsy’s mother really do the despicable things she is reported to have done in this novel?” In their one-star review of this book here in Goodreads.com, Shirley and Keith Murley, volunteers at the Balcombe National Trust "Briars" Mt Martha Victoria “and long term Balcombe and Napoleon researchers” state that “Tom Keneally has resorted to such sensationalised untrue smut, bad enough for the "fictionalised novel" he speaks about but unacceptable when attributing his scenarios to the actual Balcombe family and Napoleon. The Balcombe descendants will be horrified and we are sure Napoleon's spirit is fuming.” Hey people, author included: The moral compass of other persons is different from yours! Especially when it involves sexual mores between consenting adults and an EMPEROR, to boot. It’s none of your business and the only acceptable attitude from you is to be in awe, with a mouth closed shut and away from any writing instrument. To classify the arrangements of consenting adults as “despicable” because they do not conform to what you think or imagine or are used to believe as being the correct standard, is of astounding hubris, arrogance and worse. It makes you the moral equal of Hudson Lowe, to start with. The only comment applicable to this passage in the book is the old Heinlein quip: “Geniuses and supergeniuses always make their own rules about sex as on everything else; they do not accept the monkey customs of their lesser.” Indeed.

A few choice quotes (there are many, many more):

“When I came back, Lady Lowe smiled remotely at me. There seemed to be a person submerged in her who was sending messages to the surface of her skin, signaling when to be approving or congenial.”

“Only at this distance of time and place time do I feel almost sorry for the anguish these possessions evoked in Name and Nature, the way they rankled and bespoke the bigger world’s unwillingness to foreswear severity against the Ogre.”

“On a clear morning in this period, when the vise of Sir Hudson’s administration was beginning to straighten the souls and indeed the bodies of the French at Longwood, the Emperor woke feeling fresh and went around knocking on the doors of each of the exiles and demanding their presence at breakfast in the garden at Longwood.”

“I would have changed places with them happily – those who must go but want to stay: those who must stay but want to go.”

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

You must first realise this book is based on real events. There has been a prior work of fiction on the same subject but there is also the book written by the central figure herself ! A remarkable story; the English family that befriended Napoleon Bonaparte "The Emporer Napoleon" in his final island exile.
Only my 2nd Keneally book. I have read his 3rd - published in 1967 - and now his most recent. It leaves me keen to read more of his work. There is an easy style at work in this book, lots of polish and skill in its execution. Very readable, very enjoyable. A great tale about an intriguing figure in history

[Karlan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious about Napoleon's life in exile as a prisoner on St. Helena. Parts of the historical novel are interesting, and I wondered if teens might enjoy it since the story is related through a family who lived on St. Helena then. One of the daughters was quite feisty and became friendly with the former emperor. The many slow parts were discouraging and I almost put it aside. Someone interested in Napoleon's last years and the conditions of his exile would find this interesting.

[Devon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Napoleon’s Last Island by Thomas Keneally focuses on Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena and his friendship with the Balcombe family, and especially with the 13 year old narrator of the novel—Betsy Balcombe. Betsy is fiery and wild and seems to have wormed her way into the “Ogre’s” heart, and she is forever changed by the brief time in which she knew him.

This book left me with complicated feelings. I guess I should do pros and cons to better order my thoughts.

Pros:

-I liked the interactions with the family and Napoleon.
-The language was at times very rich.

Cons:

-The language was at times heavy and oppressive, like so weighty to bog the story down.
-The beginning was incomprehensible to me. It opens after Napoleon has died, and we’re getting so many names thrown at us that these people knew very well, loved and hated, but that I, as a reader, did not know. It was fleshed out later but I had zero emotion toward it. I also had no emotion for Napoleon dying because I hadn’t spent the novel with him yet. It was just like “he’s dead” and everyone is crying but I’ve just opened the book.
-The author had a tendency to throw several names at the reader at once, as mentioned above with the death revelation and then when the exiled party comes into focus and it’s just a listing of names and their reference to Napoleon. It makes it hard to remember and account for them later.
-As mentioned above that the best part was Napoleon, it stands to reason that afterward, when they’ve left the island, it is less compelling. And it’s over 10% of the book, talking about them living below the standard they’ve come to expect so that their father sells out his morals—something he has clung to all this time—to try to plump up their living again.
-The orgy scene. No, you didn’t read that wrong. Betsy stumbles into an orgy involving Montholon who recently gave birth, the surgeon O’Meara, her mother, and Napoleon, clad in a dress. If this isn’t enough, Betsy’s knee-jerk reaction is to rush home to take poison to kill herself, and her mother decides that was the time she should tell her that her father had sex with their slave girl and impregnated her.
-Then, of course, I must come to Betsy herself. Until the very end, when she’s booted from the island with her family (or, rather, they escape to avoid a crackdown for their friendliness with Napoleon that could be viewed through the lens of treason), she is not a nice person. At all.

I truly hope the real Betsy Balcombe wasn’t as ragingly insufferable as the literary one. She seems to like no one at all and lives to needle and harass. There are examples, such as: when she convinces her brother to show Napoleon a mocking toy, she finds it not sufficient that Napoleon was amused rather than angered by it, so she tried to provoke him by asking if the ladder the toy Napoleon fell down was representing Russia. She’s mean to teachers in England until she’s sent back home to St. Helena. She’s stubborn and unruly to her parents, even if they ask her to merely translate something into French. She’s openly nasty to the Emperor. She’s rude to her sister simply because she’s kind. She’s cruel to the poor children who befriend her sister, instigating a scenario where one girl screams and weeps, only consoling her because she knows her parents will be angry. She runs into Emmanuel, calling out to the Emperor who rewards her by letting her slap the boy repeatedly and when his father chastises her for her mistreatment of his sickly son, says, “Am I to blame for your own child?”. When she is punished by her father, sent to the cellar for saying something about Napoleon that could put him in danger, she responds by smashing a bunch of bottles, forcing the slave girl to clean it up and to go tell him she’s done it, and then is openly defiant when her father comes to see her. She hurls an insult at the Emperor about how he’s persecuted people when he takes back a dress he ordered for her after she insulted him.

These are a FEW examples of her nature, one the author attempted to paint as an untameable spirit but comes off more as an unpleasant young girl who is very rarely corrected for misbehaviour by anyone. She’s just monstrous to everyone with little to zero recourse, and in the rare moments of punishment, the other party (usually her father) generally bends to her will. This wouldn’t be so bad if it was balanced with kind moments, but until essentially the end, she is of a volatile temperament. Everyone’s just like “that’s our Betsy!” if they’re family/Napoleon’s circle, or hostile but largely powerless to her except for a barbed word here or a slap there if they’re those in charge of Napoleon’s affairs. She cares only for herself, and I understand that she is a child—a teenager—but this is beyond the normal self-absorption of youth, especially given her family’s position in dealing with a huge political power (even in exile), as well as the time period’s views toward the behaviour of both children and women.

It’s a shame to have the second novel in a row I’ve read feature an unlikable narrator. It took me to the very end of the book, near their exodus from the island, to warm to her, and by then it’s nearly done and the book turns toward a sort of credits-style summation of what happens to the family afterward.

[Ian Tymms · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the strange story of Betsy Balcombe, a young English girl resident of St Helena, and her friendship with the exiled Napoleon. It's the incongruities of the relationship that make it so fascinating and Keneally does his usual masterful job of exploring the complexities.

[Ron Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here I am on my continued saga of reading Keneally’s vast oeuvre

This story has a fascinating premise. Keneally was at the National Gallery of Victoria when he discovered a connection between an Australian settler family and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Not being a Francophile I have very little knowledge of Napoleon although it always interested me that he never received the bad press that his twentieth century Germanic successor. Why hasn’t he been vilified as an evil military aggressor like Hitler?
The story is set on the island of St Helena and it evolves around the relationship between the Balcombe family and specifically the daughter, Betsy, and Napoleon. When the story focuses on Betsy it comes alive. At other times the story becomes somewhat tedious. I don’t think Keneally defines and explains the members of Napoleon’s court and the British soldiers who guard him. When the new governor, Sir Hudson Rowe, a rather nasty, elitist and punitive character, arrives on the island things turn asunder for Betsy’s family. Before they are accused of treasonable behavior and exiled from St Helena.
Keneally briefly sketches the life of the Balcombes after they leave St Helena, live in England and then move to New South Wales. I am not sure if this really belongs in this otherwise fictitious story.
To gain a feel for the setting Keneally and his wife travelled to St. Helena. From photographs I have seen I would like to follow. Keneally does capture a sense of place and setting in the novel.
Napoleon’s Last Island is not one of Keneally’s most enthralling books but it does open a chapter in history that is worth visiting. Keneally’s writing does make the book a worthwhile read. However, do be prepared for the drudgery of certain parts of the novel.
Another Keneally work finished. What is next?

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even before i realized he had written i became really impressed with his reinterpretation in dialogue form historical fiction motif diaries. A shining example within was the name of the Arabian Stallion Mamluk (an allegory with Napolean's ottoman campaign) used to win a 2 miler horse race Deadwood (a distance unheard of in modern times). The view of a ficticious relationship of a known family with an aging King is a unique way to look at the last chapter of Napolean's life and explain the events in 3rd person ommiscient that generated so many first person persepctive about a 3rd personage.

This 3rd person younger feminine (Betsy)narrative technique reminded me of another work of historical fiction . The English progeny of imperialists knows as much about the French as a Midget German girl might know about Aryan stock.

His use of period argot is quite intuitive, and i found myself often with dictionary trying to decode precise meaning in heavily nuanced dialogue. The term Yamstock which i took to be the under class of plebeian [from english or french burgeois] was used quite frequently. The class society which developed around or because of Napolean's presence creates quite a backdrop to a maturing girls tutelage in all things French [primarily music and language].

[Allison Kirchner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know so little of Napoleon that I'd never even heard of St. Helena. His life is so complex that the only way for me to best learn about him is in bits and pieces like this period at the end of his life. However, this book presented him as too much of a caricature to be really useful. I could only relate to references to Russia and Borodino because I'd read War and Peace (and seen the recent miniseries).

I was intrigued by the writer's description of how he chanced to learn about Betsy Balcombe and how he chose to write this tale. Understanding that it is historical fiction, I read this in the same way that I've read Philippa Gregory -- knowing that conversations are fabricated to move the tale along. The author did a creditable job of writing from the point of view of a teenage girl, and the prose was quite accomplished.

I expected to like this book a bit more than I did. I read a few pages a night but found that the book put me to sleep rather than keeping me awake past my bedtime. Because it was due back at the library, I finally committed to finishing it this weekend. I hadn't peeked at the Goodreads rating before now, and I am a little surprised to find that many reviewers liked it even less than I did.