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Title: Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport ISBN: 0-452-27458-3 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.76 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The story of Hawaii itself
Comment: Written by a woman of Hawaiian descent who clearly loves her people, this family saga is the story of Hawaii itself. The central character is the matriarch Pono, whose life includes harsh realities and surreal myths. Her long and passionate love for her husband Duke has caused her great joy, but the situations they had to face together have required strength and courage.
Pono's four adult granddaughters, each born of a different mixed blood heritage and who now live in various parts of the world, come back to Hawaii to visit, forcing them all to come to terms backgrounds.
Their stories are all revealed though flashbacks, going all the way back through seven generations, mixing history with myth in a wonderful array of unforgettable characters. I'll never forget the story of life in a leper colony, or of life on a plantation. I'll long remember the mythical quality of the sea and its ability to both nourish and destroy. There's life and death and passion and joy. There's war and peace and destruction by both human greed and natural forces.
At 480 pages, this is a book to sink into and look forward to reading at the end of the day. A book that brings the story of Hawaii alive to the reader and a fresh retelling of truths and legends
Rating: 4
Summary: Passionate and magical story of Hawaii
Comment: Kiana Davenport has written a new story of the Hawaiian islands that takes a fiercely feminine perspective. She introduces us to a seer (kahuna) and her four granddaughters of mixed ancestry, following the family history from early island days to the present. Davenport writes both lyrically in a stream-of-consciousness style and factually, alternating appropriately as she deals with her characters' inner lives as well as the bigger world in which they live.
Shark Dialogues deals, of course, with issues that are well known: white people conquering another culture and decimating it by disease, religion, and power. But it's a good story, and you'll find yourself wallowing in the island tales of tragedy, drama, and romance. Go for it. It's more than the sum of its parts.
Rating: 3
Summary: Tries too hard
Comment: Unfortunately, this book was written in passive voice much of the time. The story line is interesting but the characters lack validity. A mother who doesn't love her children and other flimsy characters live lives of psuedo-Hawaiian activism. This author clearly strives to write in the style of magical mysticism we loved from latin America (Like Water for Chocolate or Love in the Time of Cholera) yet can't quite get it right. The Hawaaiian language glossary in the back of the book is of extremely poor quality and the author continues to annoy the reader by using Hawaiian and Japanese words not in the glossary.
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Title: Song of the Exile by Kiana Davenport ISBN: 0345434943 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 05 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Makai by Kathleen Tyau ISBN: 0807083453 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 20 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Lava: A Novel by Pamela Ball ISBN: 0393040240 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers (Harvest Book) by Lois-Ann Yamanaka ISBN: 0156004836 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Heads By Harry by Lois-Ann Yamanaka ISBN: 0380733161 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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