Wendt: Leaves of the Banyan Tree

Being born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts and female, I can't imagine a life less similar to that of a mid-century Samoan man, yet I have never read a novel whose characters I related to more than this one. The stark differences we physically see in the daily lifestyle, style of dress, food, extreme tropical climate, traditional gender roles deceptively obscures that underneath, we are all the same flawed humans just trying to 'make our way'. We all 'disappoint' someone at some point in our lives, and often bitterly disappoint ourselves; we break the hearts of others and have our own hearts broken; we have youthful dreams that go unfulfilled; we do things we are ashamed of; we lose our 'innocence' and take it away from others; we rally, we fail, we reinvent, we persevere. We repeat the mistakes of our parents after we promise ourselves we won't; we insist on learning things the 'hard way' even when we are shown the 'easy' way; we let our egos consume us at times, and at other times have remarkable stretches of selflessness. We are rejected by those we love, but find other love when we least expect it. We shoulder burdens we created ourselves then grow to resent them. None of us is immune to the sting of a disloyal friend, and unfaithful spouse, or a thankless child - and none of us assumes we will suffer from one of these, much less become one of these - but we do. We all love our children more than anything and want the 'best' for them, yet project our own dreams and expectations on them, often causing them to crack under the pressure. We preach forgiveness yet hold lifelong grudges. We don't appreciate the wisdom of the elderly until we are elderly. We celebrate births and mourn our dead. We take credit for our good fortune and blame others for our misfortune. We try to be good, but struggle with sin. Take away the trappings of our day to day lives and we are all remarkably the same flawed human beings. I started reading this book on a Sunday night, and couldn't put it down - reading it at my desk at work on and off all day on Monday whenever no one was looking, and finished it at 3am on Tuesday morning. You will see 'yourself' in all these characters, and your life in their stories, because you are these people, they are your people - we are all the same.

Leaves of the Banyan Tree is not just THE epic of the Pacific but surely one of the epics of world literature. There can be no higher praise for a novel that encompasses the full spectrum of human hopes, weaknesses and failings as we follow three generations of a family in mid-century Samoa as they get sucked into a vortex of destructive greed and vanity. It begins when young Tauilopepe brings disgrace to his family by being expelled from theological college. In an attempt to atone for his humiliation he sets about making his clan the dominant economic and political force in the district. As internecine strife intensifies into outright hostility he manages eventually to outmanoeuvre and to exile his chief rival leaving the way clear to amass great power and influence. The title refers to the plantation that makes him rich. Sucking up to his colonial overseers and denigrating Samoans and their way of life he maintains control of his wealth and position through a combination of physical presence, corruption and duplicity. But things start to change when his son Pepe grows to detest all that his father is and stands for and in anger departs for the city where he falls prey to its temptations. And then Pepe has a son...and independence looms... I doubt if there have been many novels that have better depicted the corruptive nature of power (albeit at a parochial level) and the ultimate hollowness of the blind pursuit of a materialistic life. Although set in Samoa in the South Pacific where an arch-conservative local culture and a fervent and puritanical missionary-led Christianity underpin rigid hierarchies, Leaves of the Banyan Tree nevertheless deals with a great sweep of universal human themes and social experiences: burning personal ambition, lust for power, egotism, corruption, avarice, alcoholism, betrayal, exploitation and revenge. A superb suite of unique characters develop and mature and then succeed or fail, rise or self-destruct. I wish there was some way of making the reading public more aware of a book that for once genuinely deserves the accolade of masterpiece.