In the case of Mister Pip, both the quality of the story and the quality of its telling are excellent. Jones presents himself as a master storyteller, using the tale and voice of a young girl named Matilda.
Mister Pip is widely recognized for its literary worth, having won both the 2006 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for best book and the 2008 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. It was also a finalist for the 2007 Man Booker Prize.
The Story
Matilda lives on a small and isolated island in the south Pacific in the second half of the 20th century. There are connections to the outside world – goods arrive by boat, white men from Australia run the mines – until war comes to the island. Then the boats stop coming and the white men all leave. Matilda’s village is left to survive on its own.
When the schoolteacher departs as well, the only white man left on the island – a strange man named Mr. Watts, but behind his back as Popeye – takes charge of teaching Matilda and the other children. He is not a teacher, and his only certainty is that these children need the routine of school in their lives, even in the midst of war.
Mr. Watts decides that their education will consist simply of reading the children his favourite story; Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. And thus begins a voyage of imagination and translation, as Mr. Watts explains words like emigrant, metropolis and immensity, and the children travel in their minds to 17th century England.
Amidst all of this the war continues, coming closer and closer to their little village. No one can predict the dangers that will be created by Mr. Watt’s reading, by the children’s flights of imaginations and by their new friend, Mr. Pip.
Matilda finds every aspect of her world turned upside down and sideways. She must survive the war, but more importantly she must decide where her loyalties lie: to her mother and family traditions, or to the newfound trinity of Mr. Watts, Mr. Dickens and Mr. Pip.
Praise for Mister Pip
Not only is Jones’ story an intriguing map of literary discovery on a remote island, it is a sparkling example of excellent writing. Jones’ prose is crisp, every word precisely chosen as Matilda, who narrates the tale, presents her story in a unique and consistent voice.
The theme of word choice present in the story is mirrored in the writing. Matilda and the other children acquire lists of new vocabulary from Mr. Dickens’ work, and they learn the importance of choosing the right word with the right meaning for each occasion. Matilda struggles to pick the right words with which to tell her story, to translate the tale of her life’s greatest lessons into language that all will understand, to make the reader conceive of how it was on the island, how it was to meet Mr. Pip and journey across time and space with him.
Mister Pip is a fascinating story, flawlessly told, of a young girl trying to live in the world of a book, where things make sense and fate is predetermined, and in the world around her, where lives are being destroyed and nothing is certain.
Mister Pip is written by Lloyd Jones and published by Vintage Canada. ISBN #978-0-676-97928-2.
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