Kalimantaan

Author(s): C S Godshalk

Location(s): Borneo

Genre(s): Fiction, Historical

Era(s): 1800s

Location

Content

In 1838, Gideon Barr sets sails for Borneo, the land he intends to rule. We first see this empire-builder through relatives’ letters, and he emerges as highly unbalanced yet singularly driven. He is also, it appears, almost infallible, applying more subtle techniques than the usual smash-and-grab. Gideon is no less forceful in his personal life: he is the sort who will return to England to wed his cousin but bring back her daughter instead–not out of love or attraction, but out of Darwinian common sense.
This flawed hero is only the first in an endless procession of brilliantly drawn men who blend civility with violence, innocence with calm brutality. Some go to Borneo to obliterate their English past: others never had one, having been out to sea since childhood. And the natives are as contradictory as their imperial masters: “Honest, gentle, respectful of even their smallest children, cherishing their lore and tales, and at the same time methodically preparing for their gory celebrations, refining torture, training infants to perform these abominations.”

Later come the missionaries and, finally, the Englishwomen, on whom the tropics take a heavy toll. Plotting her return to England with her only surviving child, Gideon’s wife writes to her mother: “We have slipped into an unnatural attitude here. We regard the children we lose as necessary casualties, as replaceable.” This is a world in which social rounds are riddled with danger, literally.

(Amazon)

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