Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

Mister Pip

by Lloyd Jones

I enjoyed this book immensely . It was amusing, tender, intriguing and in parts terrifying . The characters were all real -fully rounded -showing the good and the bad . I especially liked the unspoken battle between Mr Pip and Matilda's mother -a battle between two cultures and two beliefs .The cruelty of the civil war was portrayed starkly ( I was left with no question as to whether or not such things actually happened ) "Great Expectations " is a favourite read  of mine and the way Mr Pip used it to "educate " the children really impressed me . The ending seemed to be a slight anti- climax - Matilda had become disappointed with what she had discovered in London but then came that one sentence "I would try to return home"   9/10

This novel becomes more complex and disturbing as it progresses . Pop Eye is a far from simple character (as later posthumous revelations show ) but there is a tranquillity about the early sections ,soon to be shattered by the wanton ,savage cruelty of the factions which invade the life of the village . I needed to know more of the political background and had to check the geography with my atlas -one of the review comments pointed me towards Civil War in Papua New Guinea. The sophistication and menace of the helicopters contrasts with the simplicity of the village life echoing Pip's loss of innocence and change of character in Dickens' novel .Whilst I could understand Matilda's pilgrimage to the Romney Marshes and Rochester I found the ending puzzling and a bit too heavy on the philosophising.  7/10

This is a memorably beautiful book with interesting characters living in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea during the civil wars of the nineties. It is intensely sad and brutal and I felt suspense with the turning of each page. It is quite wonderful the way in which Lloyd Jones has interweaved Dickens' "Great Expectations" into the novel . Matilda's voice was so real . It is a book that will be long remembered by me  10/10