Great

Good

Reread 27/12/2021 as part of the Covid reread of all books on my shelves. Good to reread with a fresh attitude. Great weaving of relationships and the problems arising when a small group is shipwrecked. The thread of Polynesian culture and history was very well presented and obviously researched. The final outcome was also a credible way to finish. ( )

I've just re-read this book for the first time in perhaps twenty years. I've had a copy on my physical bookshelf all this time, carried it to college and through numerous moves, even though it took me this long to come back and read it again.

It's an intense and challenging story of a hodgepodge of modern people shipwrecked on an uncharted island, led by a half-Polyneian/half-caucasian man who is the descendent of a line of navigators, inheritor of the mana of his ancestors.

Morris West is a fine writer who seems to tell two kinds of stories. He is best known, I think, for novels about the Catholic hierarchy, but "The Navigator" is one of what I call his pagan novels: stories of people rooted in and driven by older, more primitive codes. He acknowledges the spiritual power that lies outside modern religion, and respects it.

The book is as powerful as I remembered it, but I was not prepared for its old fashioned sexism. Traditional gender roles are taken for granted, never questioned, even when every other convention is held up for scrutiny.

This is an excellent book, one I will continue to keep on my shelves. ( )

I bought this one shortly after I returned from the Persian Gulf War in the early 90's. During my wartime adventure, I spent a fair amount of time with a Native Hawaiian girl who told me stories about Hawai'i. She never really talked about the navigators, though she did reference them when talking about the original Polynesian inhabitants who came by double-hulled canoes with horned sails. The world described in this book is pretty much gone now and while you can still visit Hawai'i, you can't visit the time this novel is set in. I found it an extremely interesting read and highly recommend it.