The novel Sharks in the Time of Saviors seems like an ordinary family story with some allusions to the supernatural. I was at a book discussion recently, and the other group members felt it was a pointless story. They essentially thought that the novel was a failure, and they could not understand all the positive reviews that were written about it. I think many novels require a reader to bring a lot of information with them to use as lenses to view a story and recreate the world that may be in there. The world we end up seeing may not be the one the author is presenting and may not have even been thought about as existing within their words.
An hour or two before the gathering, I was trying to figure out what the author may have intended. What was the purpose? What was the group going to discuss when we got together? It was not obviously in the story, but I decided that we needed to bring in information from other areas of knowledge or experience to make sense of the story and give purpose to its existence. Why did the author write it? Who is the author?
Should an author have to explain his words and intent after a book has been published? I would have thought the book to be a failure, just like the rest of the members of the book discussion group if I did not have information about history and culture to bring in from other sources to add to what was written.
So, just a few hours before the discussion, I began to see a new purpose to the story by combining history with the novel's events. I decided that in the book, there was a conflict between the values of indigenous Hawaiian culture and that of the Western civilization of the mainland United States.
During the book discussion, I mentioned the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom a century and a half ago and brought up the treatment of indigenous people on the mainland. The history should be familiar. There were efforts to suppress the culture, language, religion, and the transmission of stories and values to the following generations. There were missionaries and educators and the abduction of children to remove them from the influence of their parents and family and to remake them intentionally into something else that was foreign.
The story seemed as if it were a presentation of where the characters are in the present in relation to where they might have been if history had unfolded differently. They exist, living their lives as if they are pulled in different directions, attracted by two cultures. They are looking for something that will give meaning to their existence and a place where they can feel as if they are home and not fragmented people but complete individuals.
The characters struggle to organize their lives and make money and progress. I am not one to say what anyone should become or strive towards, and the struggle of culture and identity is something for individuals to resolve for themselves. There were questions about becoming athletes, great university students, and medics and contributing to society in that way or, as it seems was the conclusion in the story, to contribute in a manner that connected the characters to what they felt respected their native Hawaiian roots and culture. That connection to ancestral culture would not result in an imitation of life as it was before colonization, and it would also not be an image of life from the colonizer’s perspective that told them what they should be. They had to develop their new understanding and construct their identity in the present historical context.
After the book discussion, I decided to read about the author, and I learned that he grew up in Hawaii. He is not a native Hawaiian, but he felt that he learned something about the indigenous culture because it was in the environment around him. In his story, it may be that he was not expressing any concerns directly about the history that I mentioned. Still, I think in one interview, he wished for readers to make connections to the influence of colonialism. Based on the book group I attended, I think his effort was not entirely successful because the characters seemed like an ordinary family with problems and struggles that were mostly devoid of a historical context. I will read more reviews and interviews about this author. There are many of them available, and they provide more insight into the story.
I consider this book as part of my research. I read it because I thought I would get a clear view of the values and beliefs of indigenous Hawaiians. Was the book a failure? Is it a lesson for me on the idea that the author will not be present when a reader reads a book and does not understand the story? Is it a lesson on cultural appropriation by an outsider? Maybe the story was intended to communicate the moment of awakening for one family.