Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook

by Alice Te Punga Somerville

Two Hundred and Fifty Ways to Start an Essay about Captain Cook, No. 29: With a Non-argument that’s Actually an Argument. Captain Cook? It’s all so very complex. I’m going to sit on the fence. (Whose fence? On whose land? Dividing what from what? You only have a fence when you fear something or when you’re trying to keep something in. Or, as a renovation show on TV informed me, when you want to upgrade your street appeal.) Alice Te Punga Somerville employs her deep research and dark humour to skilfully channel her response to Cook’s global colonial legacy in this revealing and defiant BWB Text.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Essays

106 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2020

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally a journal article for an issue dealing with the 250th anniversary of Cook’s arrival in Aotearoa and lightly reworked for this edition, this is a sharp, multi-layered, poetic engagement with the man and the ‘age of exploration’, undermining the myth of the hero, challenging what it is was to be commemorated, by whom and where. It’s a potent reminder of the ubiquity of Cook-related myth-making, of the ways different peoples across the Pacific and more remember the man and his acts, of the banality of settler colonial fantasies, and the difficulties of challenging the dominant narrative. Revisiting six years after the original article, it continues to pack a punch.

[Sophia Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impossible to put down. Necessary to revisit. Easy to recommend to friends and whānau. Essential reading.

It brought laughter, insight, ahas and many auē moments, even tears and sorrow.

Please read this wonderful little book, you won’t regret it.

Some of my favourite ways to start an essay about Cook: 3, 17, 42, 195, 249, and 250.

[Karin Speedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't have much time to read and need to choose one book, then this should be it. It is short. It is snappy. It is intelligent. It is important. So very important to read. For people living in Aotearoa, the Pacific, anywhere touched by colonialism. And for the colonisers. Yes, you must read it. Alice's writing is beautiful, engaging, witty, insightful and she delivers a masterful critique of Cook and colonialism that doesn't shy away from the brutal truth. I loved this book and know that it is one that I will go back to, dip into and appreciate in different ways every time.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's good to take different perspectives on things, and this has 250 of them if you think political correctness has gone mad, and somewhere between 1-249 if you're not a complete idiot

[Tara Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn’t love the authors constant “why am I here why am I writing this bla bla bla” I wasn’t reading this to hear about the author. I learnt a lot and that’s why I give 4 stars. Very short and read it in a day and a bit. Lots of conversation starters and perspectives I hadn’t considered. Definitely should be read by anyone who lives in Aotearoa.

[Joshua Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting aphoristic form, ranging between extreme sentence brevity and elaborated paragraphs written from the perspective of a Māori literary scholar. I think numerous finer details, tangents and rabbits holes could have been delved into from Cook's legacy, whether that could have been botanicals (i.e. scurvy grass/nau), the paintings of Sydney Parkinson, the Māori Cook, Tupaia and company met, the trade in mokokai head hunting and the Earl of Morton's 'instructions'. Great to see Te Punga Somerville devote an aphorism to Tupaia's map, as this is arguably the most significant artefact to come out of Cook's 1st voyage, although I believe this could have been used as a point of departure into meditating over Pacific wayfinding techniques. I am not really quite a fan of the whole begrudging tone of "having to finish" a book on Cook she espouses. I think immediacy, wittiness and conciseness in conveying the destructive legacy of imperialism and colonialism naturally ensues from this format, which isn't necessarily conducive to combing through nuanced historic details (i.e. Cook's uncertainty and remorse about contact with indigenous peoples).

[Kaitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because I had deeply enjoyed a book of her poetry last year.

Lots of ideas to ruminate on around place and time as well as colonialism, history and indigeneity. Reading this as an Australian living in Aotearoa/NZ, I often had that startling sensation of realising you are looking at a familiar scene, but you didn't realise right away because you were standing somewhere different.

I had expected to read this in bits and pieces, but the flow was surprisingly strong given the structure and I ended up reading it all across 2 days. It was also quite a lot funnier than I'd anticipated - the dig about Cook and rediscovery was a particular highlight.

Overall: a book of seeds to be planted. Time and reflection on the part of the reader is what will let them grow.

[Cherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small but mighty book. I found this delightful to read, the author sprinkles in plenty of humour, but that doesn't detract from the big thoughts, it enhances them. A brilliant set of starting points and tools to think about and re-frame Cook in the Pacific.

Highly recommend this book, and I'd go so far as to say that it's an essential read for anyone who calls themself a New Zealander, or has some connection to Aotearoa.

[Julia Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this - did make me snort with delight a few times, the humour is sharp and sassy.

Finding it hard to rate against my normal fair, decided on 3.5 stars. Certainly would recommend it. The book now looks like a hedgehog with post-it notes of my favourite essay starters.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguably the point of the best novels is to give readers a tour of the author's mind. Sometimes this is even unintentional, but nobody could read, for example, A Confederacy of Dunces and not feel like they know something about John Kennedy Toole's dark funny brain.

Essays, on the other hand, are a more literal version of that. The best ones feature the author either thinking or seeming to think on the page. Whether they are pondering a specific problem (E Unibus Pluram) or decoding their personal history (Goodbye To All That), one feels like they know the author when it is all over.

There is a distinction there that is still significant. The former evoke emotion by way of reader response, while the latter do so mostly through empathy.

Two Hundred and Fifty Ways... is tough, in that on a surface level, it's a funny conceit, struggling with an academic assignment that has too many entry points. Sometimes freedom is shackling.

But the essay's clever gambit is to highlight that it's impossible to do justice to Captain Cook, not because every human being contains multitudes, but because his historical personhood has been obliterated by what he did. There is no "where" to begin at. There's just too wide a range of reactions to his "accomplishments" for any one human to encompass his actuality. He is, literally, conjurer of a new land (for Europeans) or destroyer of a home (for Māori). And whereas other controversial figures can be seen in shades of grey, the polar nature of these choices means no mitigating factors can soften one's stance for those two groups.

I wish this was taught in American High Schools; Te Punga Somerville is a lively writer with a perspective most European descended children would never get near. Yet there is a distancing effect, with the Captain Cook dichotomy revolving around conflicts in which Americans are uninvolved. It pulls some of the charge out of racial justice issues that are dominating some school boards. There is a need for empathy that this book raises without touching specifically on the sins of our continent’s forefathers. It’s well worth reading if one is willing to reflect on the terrors of Western colonialism, while not taking it quite as personally.