Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (Modern Library Classics (Prebound))

Rating:
Summary: More local color than adventure...
Review: Typee was the first work by Herman Melville to actually make him a known writer. It it a quasi-fictional account of his actual experience living among a group of canibals on a South Seas near- paradise. Melville's central character, Tommo, is Melville, and his experiences are broadened to four months instead of Melville's actual four weeks. Melville uses the work to comment freely on the conflict between civilization's growing encroachment upon an unspoiled paradise and the evils that civilization wrought. He also launches into repetitive descriptions of the island of Nukuheva which Melville feels is typical of the lush verdant beauty of all of the Polynesian islands. I taught this book for two years back in the 70's with a group of American literature students. I decided to revive it this year (1998)with a group of honors juniors (American Literature)at my high school. Oddly enough, the book seemed to be more favorably received this year than a couple of decades ago. Some students complained of its repetitive nature, particularly the descriptions, but most found it enjoyable and thought-provoking. The book must be considered in light of the Romantic Era from which it emerged. Accounts of far-off exotic isles and high order adventure were the order of the day. In addition, the blind love of Nature and the admiration of the Rousseau's "noble savage" are hallmarks of the book. One must also think what readers in the 1800's thought of the sensual side of the book. Exotic descriptions of naked island girls, in particular Tommo's lovely Fayaway, left a lot up to the imagination of nineteenth century readers. Whether Tommo's relationship with Fayaway is merely platonic or highly physical is left to the reader to decide though it hints at the latter. Also of interest is Melville's condemnation of missionary work. Though at one point he concedes that the principle of bringing Christianity is good, he admonishes that the islanders should be civilized with benefits not crimes as was then more often the case. I found the book very enjoyable the second time around and would recommend it to teachers as an alternative to Moby Dick or Billy Budd as a representative work of Melville or Amercian Romanticism.

Rating:
Summary: Prisoner in paradise
Review: Under the influence of Defoe's journalistic style, Herman Melville wrote "Typee," a combination of travelogue and novel about some weeks he had spent as a guest-turned-prisoner of a tribe of savages on a South Pacific island. How much of the account is fact rather than fiction is difficult to deduce from the tone of Melville's presentation, but the question of veracity doesn't diminish the entertainment value, because "Typee" is a colorfully detailed adventure yarn that reads like National Geographic crossed with Boys' Life.

Melville is serving as a sailor on a whaling ship called the Dolly which is cruising the South Pacific and lands on the island of Nukuheva in the Marquesas, among the easternmost of the archipelagoes in the vast group known collectively as Polynesia. Deserting the ship because of the captain's tyranny, he and another like-minded crew member, named Toby, plunge into the mountainous wilderness of Nukuheva with the plan of later obtaining passage on another ship leaving the island, which has heavy French marine traffic. They enter an isolated valley inhabited by a tribe called the Typees, who invite them to live in their community. Melville and Toby accept the invitation because they have nowhere else to go for the time being, and the Typees seem friendly despite their reputation as cannibals.

The Typees treat Melville (who has told them his name is Tom) extremely well, but they refuse to release him from captivity; Toby meanwhile has gone off to the harbors for medical relief but never returns, leaving Melville to describe the customs and activities of the Typees. Their religion is festive, but they have a strange relationship with their gods, whom they berate by abusing their idols. Their language, which has a tendency to double words, is quite comical to English-trained ears, as for example in their designation of the French merchants as "wee-wees." The girls and the scenery are fantastically beautiful, but there are also dangers, such as the Happars, the rival tribe who occasionally wage war against the relatively placid Typees. Of special note is a young warrior named Kory-Kory whose brotherly affection for Melville could very well have inspired the character of Queequeg in "Moby-Dick."

The implications of the story are fairly simple, if overromanticized: Civilized man confronts the noble savage, discovers they are skilled artisans and healers and primarily peaceful fruit-eaters who eat human flesh only when it is that of their vanquished enemies; and, upon astonished reflection, realizes the corruption and the hypocritical facades of his own technologically advanced society. What would now be called political correctness was in the 1840s merely a perspective by an observant world traveler with no ideological agenda to push. But, although the valley of the Typees may be a paradise, it's not Melville's paradise, which is why he endeavors to escape his gracious hosts. It's a good thing he eventually did, because he had better books waiting to be written.