Come on Shore and We'll Kill and Eat You All

Come on Shore is a book written by an American woman, who while studying in Australia, fell in love with a Maori man on a visit to the Auckland area. The story is written semi-autobiographically and tastefully sprinkled with historical accounts. It is kind of like she's making sense of the blending of cultures by writing this book, and it's very focused on her understanding so forth. Though I have no authority to comment on its accuracy, I think it's, at the very least, an entertaining as well as historically informative account of one woman's life.

Amazon is much better at singing the book's praises:

http://www.amazon.com/Come-Shore-Will-Kill-Eat/dp/1596911263/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235465851&sr=8-1

I've even managed to turn it into a school project!

Samantha Russell
Article Review
March, 2009


I read two reviews for Christina Thompson’s book Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All. Thompson is an American woman who studied in Australia, and, while visiting New Zealand met her husband. She wrote the book as sort of a memoir and as a way to explain New Zealand’s history of colonization. While both reviews seemed critical of the book, one was written by a New Zealander and published in the New Zealand Listener, while the other review was written by an American and published in the New York Times.
Paula Morris’ article, “Lost in Translation,” published in the New Zealand Listener, is by far the more extensive and in depth review and even includes an interview with Christina Thompson. Morris’s main criticisms are with the book are that Thompson portrays Seven (her husband)’s experience as typical of all Maori, whereas, apparently, it is only typical of a disappearing rural population and completely eliminates all mention of the middle-class Maori professionals; that Thompson portrays New Zealand coffee as being rather un palatable; and hat in the discussion of Seven’s integration into East-coast American suburbia, referring to him as a “Natural Gentleman” is belittling and patronizing—doesn’t Thompson know that many Maori play tennis..
Thompson defends her description of her husband’s life as being rural by saying that she’s never been to Auckland and that she hasn’t been to New Zealand in more than ten years; things have changed. Thompson does concede that it is “probably, maybe a flaw in the book,” but goes on to remind the reader that she is not meaning to sound like the authority on New Zealand, rather just attempting to relate her story. She also goes on to lament that, “…this is the book that will introduce many overseas readers to Maori, especially given the limited enthusiasm among publishers in London and New York for books by and about New Zealanders.” Thompson deflects Morris’ argument about Seven’s adjustment to Boston-life with similar points. This turns Morris to go off on what seems to be an ill informed rant about the white man keeping all indigenous people from being published, though does make the point from an American Indian writer Sherman Alexie that “If non-Indians stop writing about us, they’ll have to publish us instead.” Though, that point is really neither here nor there.
Morris’ next point is nothing if not petty. In her book, Thompson describes New Zealand coffee as a, “dusty, cocoa-colored powder, mixed with sugar, milk, and boiling water.” Morris questions whether or not Thompson even had a New Zealander read her manuscript, and didn’t Thompson know that even in the 1980’s (while Thompson was in New Zealand) that that wasn’t New Zealand’s only experience of coffee? This is where I must step in to defend Thompson from Morris. Even in 2009, my only experience of New Zealand coffee even after extensive research has been that of something similar to Thompson’s brown sludge with a bit of sugar on top.
Though Alison McCulloch’s New York Times article is less lengthy and less critical, McCulloch seems to take issue again with how Thompson refers to her husband’s adjustment to life in the greater Boston area. McCulloch’s point, however is that because of how ubiquitous American culture is, Seven should have no reason to feel out of place in an American city. However, the Americans’ reaction to him is quite reasonable, as Maori are not nearly as ubiquitous. Morris, I am sure, would take issue with this, especially as she wrote, “I think there are more of us out and about than Thompson realizes; maybe we just don’t look the part.” Apparently, more than McCulloch realizes as well.
Both articles, however, agree that Thompson’s take on her experiences as an anthropological, “contact encounter” proves to be a stretch. Though, Morris goes on to say that, “The idea of describing a marriage in the 1980s between an American and a Maori as a ‘contact encounter’ feels not only dated but absurd.” Thompson defended this with reminding Morris that the story is about her, not New Zealand, and I would like to add that while Morris may be of Maori descent and colonizer-colonized marriages may be nothing new to her, I would think that the majority of American’s would find a marriage to a Maori person as being quite novel, unique, and wouldn’t find the description as a contact encounter as being at all out of place. McCulloch says nothing to put me in my place there, but instead complains of Thompson’s description as being a “tenuous link between the memoir part of her book…and the history part.” So, the American is merely criticizing a literary technique rather than attempting to start a third world war.
In reading these articles, I felt my hackles raising as the book, that I originally didn’t have any strong feelings either way, was picked apart. I think that my reactions to the criticisms ended up being more about defending a fellow country-woman, rather than determining if either of the criticisms, especially Morris’, had merit.


Samantha Russell
Book Review
March, 2009


I read Christina Thompson’s book, Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All. Thompson wrote this book partially as a memoir about how she, as an American student studying in Australia, accidentally managed to find love on New Zealand’s North Island—an “unlikely love story.” The other aspect of this book deals with colonial history in New Zealand and early explorer/Maori interactions. Thompson attempts to treat her interactions with her husband and her husband’s family as contact encounters, which help to ease the transition between Thompson’s life and the historical events that she is so passionate about. In the very end of her book, Thompson makes the point that part of the reason she created this book was to help her three children come to terms and have an understanding of how their ancestors interacted, for better or for worse. Whether intentional or not, Thompson seems to make a point that Maori are much more laid back and easy going than their counterparts of European descent. Thompson also makes the point that her interactions with her husband and her husband’s family have historic precedent that may be shaping their present interactions. Another unintentional point that Thompson may have shown is that New Zealand is not the Indigenous Persons’ Utopia, that it may like to view itself as; there has been plenty of slights against the Maori and a great deal of racism and discrepancies in the quality of life between the colonized and the colonizers.
Thompson’s point about Maori being very laid back resides mostly in her descriptions of her husband. After hanging out with Seven’s family for several days and Thompson had to head back to Australia, and, what I am assuming are other untold events, Seven arrives in Australia to live with Thompson with not much more than a duffel bag of clothes. Though Thompson is concerned about him finding work, he isn’t and eventually finds work as a bicycle messenger or some such. Thompson is impressed with his ability to find work and make friends wherever he goes. This goes on as they move to Hawaii, back to Australia, and, finally, to the United States. However, she does not paint the Maori as being entirely inclusive or, perhaps overtly friendly. After meeting Seven, she visits his hometown and stays with his parents, who though hospitable, aren’t overly welcoming. She lives in the village for a short time and bonds with only one woman, Miri, who is old and patient and helps to explain the way the world works where they’re staying.
Thompson and her families experience in moving to the Boston area serve to show that their actions have historical precedents. Thompson presents the case of Omai, the first Polynesian that most folk from London had ever seen. Omai behaved very “well” and some commented that perhaps he was from another royal court. Thompson also mentioned that he was quite the lady charmer. Seven, in the same vein, was received as a bit of an oddity when he and Thompson moved to New England, but he soon had charmed the whole town, despite being the first Maori man that most, if not all, of the people in the town, including Thompson’s parents, met. Thompson also likens meeting Seven and his family to Abel Tasman’s first adventures into New Zealand, though, they ended much less violently. Though Thompson’s ancestors did not directly colonize New Zealand, she gains credibility from the colonizing perspective by explaining how her families wealth was acquired—namely by exploiting American Indians of the Mid-West; a separate parallel that serves to add another aspect of history to her book.
Before coming to New Zealand, I had a perception that New Zealanders were the good sort of colonizers. They didn’t attempt to wipe out entire races of people—like the early American settlers or even the Australians did. They were the colony that got it right, and struck a harmony with the colonized. I also kind of got the picture that it was incredibly passé to be racist against Maori in New Zealand and that everything was well and good—keep in mind this was before I saw “Once Were Warriors.” Thompson demonstrates through interspersing historical events throughout her story that this is most certainly not the case. Maori regularly lost their lives due to the misunderstanding of the Europeans. She even goes on to describe a picture she has of a man who has collected the heads of Maori, and the industry that was born of possessing such a rarity. She makes a point to mention that even now, the Maori life expectancy is far lower than that of a non-Maori as well as potentially inadequate access to quality medical care.
As demonstrated by the two reviews I read and address in the accompanying paper, there are several points that could be considered contentions. However, they mostly seem to stem from insecurities from New Zealanders about being viewed by the outside world.

Articles
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3563/features/11736/lost_in_translation.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/books/review/McCulloch-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Come%20on%20shore%20and%20we%20will%20kill%20and%20eat%20you%20all&st=cse