Easter Island

Admittedly, I read this book for one reason and one reason only: I was on my way to Easter Island. I say this by way of acknowledging that from the beginning I was less interested in the story than I was in the setting. That said, I have an open mind and I was willing to be swayed.

Jennifer Vanderbes's Easter Island is the story of Elsa Beazley and Greer Farraday. In 1913, Elsa sails from England with her new, much older, and generally unloved husband and mentally diminished younger sister. They are headed to Easter Island to make a study of the flora and fauna, Charles Darwin-style. Elsa is not my favorite character - or so I thought, until I met Greer. Greer is a palynologist, or one who studies pollen. Sixty years after Elsa, Greer, too, sails to Easter Island to conduct research, and as an escape from grief over her recently-deceased husband. Naturally, Vanderbes creates an intersecting narrative such that women's histories become intertwined on this speck of an island, which still in Greer's day is largely unchanged from the era of Elsa. (Side note: Most of the roads on Easter Island were not paved until the late 90s. The 1990s. This part of the story is no stretch.)

I have complained about the intertwined narratives schtick in the past (Sandcastle Girls springs to mind, for example), so it would be unfair of me to lament that here, knowing my reading preferences and having selected Easter Island anyway. What I will complain about, though, is the characters. It's been a long, long time since I've encountered two more unsympathetic characters. What I can't say is exactly why I felt that way. Elsa, being from another era, is harder to judge, but I still couldn't help but feel that she was, for lack of a better term, a total sour sop. And Greer, well she just struck me as naive, weak, and, for lack of a better term, pathetic.

So what did I like? I am a nerd, and I enjoyed learned about the field of palynology. Also, the setting did not disappoint. Vanderbes does a fine job of weaving the essence of Easter Island - language, culture, geography, history, weather patterns, and people - into her novel. In that sense, it more than delivered for my purposes. And that, I suppose, is the crux of it: read this if you're interested in reading about Easter Island, and particularly the natural geography of Easter Island, in novel form. (In the acknowledgements, Vanderbes references David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo, which automatically earned her bonus points in my world.) You will learn a bit of history, more of the culture, and plenty of the spirit of the place.

The bottom line: ignore the stories and read it as travel writing. Easier said than done, perhaps, but that is my advice.