Rating: 
Summary: excellent south pacifc fantasy read
Review: a great read for anyone who dreams of sailing off to the south pacific and not returning
Rating:
Summary: excellent south pacifc fantasy read
Review: After reading some of the more negative reviews of this book, I was nearly persuaded not to purchase it. However, my curiosity about this author's tabloid-worthy experiences on the infamous island of the Bounty Mutineers got the better of me, and I waited with much impatience for this book to arrive!Like a lot of Pitcairn enthusiasts, my interest (rather new, I admit) in this tiny, unique community was sparked by a movie interpretation of the Bounty story. In my case it was the 1984 version with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. Dea Birkett saw this version too, and it was one written line at the end of the film about the descendents of the mutineers still living on Pitcairn today that got us both. While I have worn out my eyes reading histories on the internet, Birkett took her fantasies of this storied place to their ultimate realization, and she wrote this account of her extended stay with the isolated islanders. This is a real page-turner. Birkett delves into the everyday lives of her hosts with a vigor that, at times, seems reckless. She wants so badly to become a part of these people, to live like them, work like them, and think like them - all the time oblivious to the fact that she can never become a true Pitcairner since she was not born there and does not share their blood. She reports on the failures of other longtime non-native residents and guests to "fit in", disdainfully speculating that they must have done some secret thing wrong, and she does not entertain the idea that she may likely have the same fate befall her. Meanwhile, Birkett sees nothing wrong with indulging in Carlsbergs with the island's rebellious younger set - or even with having illicit relations with one of the men - while knowing her devout host Irma would be furious at these transgressions against both her Adventist faith and her hospitality. The most outrageous thing about Birkett's frame of mind, however, is that she thinks on an island of 48 people she'll never be found out! I can't judge Birkett for her actions; lord knows we all make mistakes in this life. But so many of her actions - indeed, the very action of writing this book! - seem to be of selfishness. She has put the private lives and most intimate moments of a small group of people up for public display while knowing of their disdain of all written accounts about them. Reading this book does feel, at times, like voyeurism, and I felt a little bad peeking into the private lives and pecadillos of people whom I will most likely never meet and certainly never get to know well. They were unwillingly put in this position (writers are severely shunned on Pitcairn to prevent documents just like this very book from being written; Birkett lied on her landing application about her reason for visiting), a fact which smacks of unfairness and even disrespect. But you won't want to put this book down. I have to echo the sentiments of a few reviewers here by agreeing that old Dea's got some issues, but she knows how to write a good story. Her descriptions of the island put you solidly there, and the Pitcairners themselves emerge as the complex, fully real people that they are. I admire Birkett's tenacity in fulfilling her fantasies of getting to Pitcairn, and perhaps most acutely, I admire her willingness to present her all-too-human flaws to the world in this fascinating account. It's a satisfying, if somewhat guilty, read!
Rating: 
Summary: A bit naive, but most of us want an island paradise
Review: As an American living on a small, isolated, half-British, religious island, I thought it'd be interesting to see what parallels there are to life on Pitcairn, an even smaller, more isolated, and more religious half-British island than Bermuda. From the book there do seem to be quite a few similarities, different maybe only in scale. Like Birkett, I no longer have visions of an island paradise anywhere. If anything, small beautiful islands in the middle of the ocean are as much prisons as utopias. Probably more so. I also have a generally lazy impression of the locals as well, although I think that's actually the reality, not just the impression, on my island. No Bermudian would ever consider painting their courthouse, harvesting bananas, or digging for arrowroot. Much less actually building their own house. (Unlike Pitcairn, however, this is a wealthy, modern little island. With a lot more than 38 people. But I digress...) I'd agree with most reviewers that the writer is a bit clueless as to why she came to be shunned by the Pitcairners. If all 38 islanders can tell what's going on just by listening to the sound of each other's motorbikes, how can she possibly think she could keep an affair with one of her host's friends a secret? Nor should she be let off the hook for her treatment of Dennis, the guy who tries to woo her. Even though she constantly criticizes Pitcairners for never showing their true feelings, she never confronts Dennis about his obvious feelings for her. His love letter is the only piece of mail ever sent locally on Pitcairn. What does she do in response? Ask him how he feels about her, agree to meet somewhere to really talk things over? Nope, she goes and sleeps with one his friends. Typical. But I don't agree with their chummy assessments of Royal, the most venomous Pitcairner in the book. Not only was she constantly slagging off Dea every chance she got, but she hid nails (big ones, face up!) in her other neighbor's front yard because she thought he was stealing her bananas. This is on an island where everyone walks around barefoot, with no doctors for thousands of miles. Just because she hates Dea doesn't mean she's any prize herself. To sum it up, I wouldn't expect to hop off a ship and within a matter of months ingratiate myself with 38 islanders who hardly ever see the outside world. But I do think the writer makes some fair judgments about the duplicitous personalities of the Pitcairners. And I'm not sure she was necessarily critical of this. Towards the end she realizes that this is as much a survival tactic as anything else for such a small society. I, for one, am surprised they're not even crazier.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating read marred only by the author's character
Review: As more people go to places that were previously remote, travel writing becomes more and more contrived resulting in books like "Across India by Elephant". Pitcairn Island, however, is probably one of the few places left on earth that is truly remote. Dea Birkett not only gets there (no mean feat in itself) but manages to stay for several months and gets to know the islanders. The book is fascinating as a study of a community that is truly unique; less than 40 people, almost all related to each other, living thousands of miles from anywhere and dependent largely on the kindness of random passing ships and distant dreamers. In that sense the book is pretty hard to put down. Unfortunately, the author's constant negativity soon becomes distracting. She has few kind things to say about anyone, and descriptions of the islanders, their words, their actions, either hint of disparagement or are outright critical. This is a bit galling given that she lied about her purpose to obtain permission to visit, and one of the families opened their house to a her, a complete stranger, for several months. As the book progresses, it becomes apparent that the islanders don't really mean anything to the author other than as a medium for her own experiences; as something to write about. Toward the end she has an affair with one of the islanders, a married man whose family is off-island. Although she denies it at least twice when confronted about it in person, she has no qualms about writing about it in her book. Classy, huh?
Rating:
Summary: THIS ONE TOOK ME RIGHT TO PITCAIRN! AN INTERESTING READ!
Review: I really liked this book, in that it showed a lot of the everyday life of the Pitcairners, which I thought was really fascinating. The author definitely has her problems. All the questions she has about things and why they are happening are easily answered in the minds of the readers. We can tell everything that's going on and why things are going the way they are, but she is truly clueless (that one summed it up well!). The faults she finds in the people around her are really faults in herself which stick out like a sore thumb to the reader. I can't believe how truly warm and kind the people were to her, when she deserved it so little. The family she stayed with were really brought to life by her writing, tho, and were far more likeable than she was. I felt like I got to know them, and was very sad to learn that Ben had died. He had such a beautiful smile. I loved the pictures, and really seeming to live the life on Pitcairn with her for a while, even if it was through the rather tainted author. I loved Irma and Ben and Dennis. (And also Royal Warren, who somehow truly got up the author's nose, so must be a totally cool person!) I truly did enjoy this book, evn though the author had personal problems, she still made QUITE an interesting read for me. (The only time her life was in danger was the times she was doing dangerous things the Islanders did every day. Would be a hard and impossible life for a wimp like me. DREAM ON!!!!!)
Rating:
Summary: I found this book very interesting
Review: If you are 1) not a resident of Pitcairn Island; 2) not related to anyone on Pitcairn Island; and 3) not a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I think you will find this to be a very interesting book. I'm glad I read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Stupefyingly Inept Writer
Review: Is it possible to write a stultifyingly boring book about a travel adventure to Pitcairn Island? The answer is an unequivocal YES! This book is living proof. The writer - Dea Birkett, remember that name - has absolutely no idea of what makes for an interesting story. She is riveted by trivial details of a sweater, whose nub she carefully describes (this before she even gets to the island), yet seems unable to tell the reader what Pitcairners are like as people, or how they keep from going crazy on their lonely island. She recounts many desultory conversations with islanders, pointless exchanges that go nowhere, yet she has no overarching theme, imparts no lessons (except those the reader can infer). And she completely fails to make the islanders come alive; I couldn't tell them apart, other than by name. Her book reads like a very dull diary by an insipid 14 year old. A cynical editor and publisher calculated there's always a market for a book about Pitcairn. And the cynical author-adventuress was hoping to have a fling and make a buck. There are real writers who can describe everyday life in their own hometowns, and make the story fascinating. This young woman has traveled to the ends of the earth - and she cannot put together a coherent paragraph. The tale, my dear, is in the telling.
Rating: 
Summary: Narcissism and Travel Writing
Review: There is an element of narcissism in most travel writing. "Look at me! I'm in Borneo." "Listen to my thoughts on train travel through Central America..." However, this book is so over the top it is repellent. Dea Birkett is incapable of seeing anything about the entire culture of Pitcairn Island except how it affects her! She actually appears to believe the hype on the cover jacket that exclaims how few people ever visit Pitcairn, and she expects to be treated like some prestigious royal visitor. When she is not, she feels hurt and rejected and proceeds to slander everybody she describes. But why would they welcome her? She confesses that she is incompetent. Despite the hype, I am sure the Islanders are quite used to visitors and it is only natural to be a little distant towards "tourists." I don't think I would welcome her anywhere either. She reveals early on that she views other people solely as a means to her own ends. She flirts with some guy because he owns a yacht that might get her to Pitcairn. When she doesn't get what she wants she ridicules him. In the rest of the book, she seems to imagine that every man she meets wants to be with her. This is travel writing? I cannot imagine how any editor would accept this book for publication. I suppose anything with the word "Pitcairn" in the title will sell. What is good about the book is that it is not just another romanticized tale that leaves all the realistic part out. I'm glad that the Islanders are portrayed as lazy and a little neurotic -- it rings true. Birkett, however, can maintain no distance from these observations. She thinks she is the centre of the story! I don't think that is what anybody who picks up the book was expecting.
Rating:
Summary: A Bore, and Awash in Bad Faith
Review: This book is both boring and brimming with bad faith. The author, a foot-loose, thirty-something Englishwoman, develops an obsession with the remote island of Pitcairn and becomes determined to go there. She never makes clear why this is so important to her, other than a vague boredom with her life in London. She lies her way onto the island, taking money from an English organization by promising to study the Pitcairn postal system. Once there, she pretends she wants to stay forever, while never for a moment intending to do so.
Her condescension toward the island's natives, nearly all descendants of the famous mutineers from the Bounty, is infinite. She toys with their lives as if they were something less than human, noting their intense desire for privacy even as she accumulates their intimate secrets for her book. She has a "one-night stand" with a married man whose wife was away, rather than with one of the bachelors whose clumsy efforts at courtship she brushes aside. When she abruptly leaves, catching a ride on a passing ship, she arrives back home and begins telling lies again, this time denying that she's had any sexual contact while on Pitcairn.
The author comes across as a shallow, self-serving, contemptible human being. And worst of all, life on Pitcairn as she describes it is simply BORING! Curiously, there is no hint that she knew anything about the scandal that subsequently came out, about the sexual abuse of young girls by the older men of Pitcairn. No doubt it escaped her notice, along with everything else not directly concerned with her own little life. The serpent in paradise is obviously the author herself.
Rating: 
Summary: THE REVIEWS ARE AS GOOD AS THE BOOK!
Review: This book is too much! ...My absolute favorite part of the book, is when, after sleeping with the married guy on the island (which she did as a way of "reaching out" to the Pitcairners), she finds out that he wasn't really a Pitcairner at all, and she is so angry and feels so "cheated!" I laughed so hard I almost cried when I read that part! I also loved the part where she was furious with her friend, who unbeknownst to her sent her a piece of pork along, since it wasn't allowed on the island. She was furious at the insult to her host. However, she could go drink alcohol with the group of islanders who drank, when she knew her host was even more opposed to alcohol than pork, and that it's illegal to have alcohol on the Island. How in her mind did she justify the alcohol as not being an insult to her host and not justify the pork? Her drinking as well as her affair would have been known about by all on the Island, and the reader could tell her hosts knew about it, but the author never figured out "why" they changed toward her. And she NEVER DID get the fact that they all turned on her after she slept with that guy. I guess when that happened and they began shunning her is when she thought they were trying to kill her? PLEASE!!!!!!! The book did leave a lot to be desired information-wise on how they lived, but it also gave a good bit of information. I found the book to be exciting and consuming. It DEFINITELY was worth the read. She was nasty to worm her way into their homes and then turn on them in her book. I sincerely hope the Pitcairners do not think everyone is like her. (I also feel kudos are due Royal Warren...) What a fascinating, unique privilege the author had. I do admire her resourcefulness in getting to Pitcairn as well as her physical fortitude in the sometimes horrific experiences she encountered. It's too bad she couldn't match that with a modicum of warmth, compassion and humility. P.S. WHY does everyone get the impression from the book that the Islanders were lazy? I got the opposite impression. I thought they worked very hard.
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