Synopses & Reviews
In the manner of W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, Natives and Exotics follows three characters, linked by blood and legacy, as they wander a world scarred by colonialism.
Transplanted halfway around the globe in 1970, nine-year-old Alice, the child of diplomats, is ravished by the beauty of Ecuador, a country her parents are helping to despoil. Forty years earlier, Alice's newlywed grandmother Violet confronts troubling traces of her country's past as she makes a home in the wilds of Australia. And before that, in early nineteenth-century Scotland, Violet's great-great-grandfather George flees the violence of the Clearances for the Portuguese Azores, unaware that he will have a hand in destroying the earthly paradise there.
The third novel by the author of the critically acclaimed The Marriage of the Sea and The Love-Artist, Natives and Exotics is a hypnotic meditation on our passionate, uneasy affair with nature, in which we restlessly search for home.
Review
PRAISE FOR
THE LOVE-ARTIST"A small, twinkling jewel of a novel . . . Wonderfully seductive . . . [Alison] has found a voice, at once modern and archaic, lyrical and potent, that mesmerizes the reader."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
PRAISE FOR THE MARRIAGE OF THE SEA
"Beautifully balanced . . . so that the urge to find out what will happen next is counteracted by the wish to luxuriate in Alison's lush, beautifully evocative writing."--San Francisco Chronicle
Review
PRAISE FOR NATIVES AND EXOTICS
"Jane Alison takes us where history books can't-or won't-go . . . Though set hundreds of years apart, these stories quickly flow into a single narrative powerful enough to show how closely related our familial, political and natural worlds really are."
-THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
"Vivid and poignant . . . What gives pleasure is how precisely [Alison] sees the fierce beauty of the natural world, as it moves, grows, evolves, both despite and because of the blind interference of humankind."
-THE SEATTLE TIMES
Synopsis
A gardener flees the violence of the Clearances in early nineteenth-century Scotland for the Portuguese Azores, unaware that he will have a hand in destroying the earthly paradise he finds there. In 1929 his great-great-granddaughter, helping to settle the wilds of Australia, confronts troubling traces of her country's past. Forty years later her own granddaughter is ravished by the beauty of a South American country her diplomat parents are engaged in despoiling.
In the manner of W. G. Sebald's The Emigrants, the novel follows these three characters, linked by blood and legacy, through four stories that span a period from the discovery of the first dinosaur bones to the unsettling revelation that the continents drift. With cameo appearances by Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, Natives and Exotics is a hypnotic meditation on our passionate, uneasy affair with nature, in which we restlessly search for home.
About the Author
JANE ALISON is the author of three novels: The Love-Artist, The Marriage of the Sea, and Natives and Exotics. She teaches in the MFA programs at the University of Miami and Queens University in Charlotte.
Reading Group Guide
Tracing three unique characters through generations of sweeping change around the globe, Natives and Exotics brings Jane Alison's acclaimed storytelling to a daring new masterwork. Divided into four parts, the novel probes humanity's hunger to conquer foreign soil and subdue nature itself in the name of prosperity. From the colonization of South America and Australia to England's notorious Clearances in nineteenth-century Scotland, Natives and Exotics brings to life the dubious turning points of "progress." First we meet Alice, a child whisked to a troubled continent when her diplomat parents move to Ecuador in the 1970s. The next scenes ricochet through history: the uneasy life of Alice's grandmother as a newlywed in Australia, where climate and soil defy the vision of a "proper" English garden; then, a century earlier Alice's gardener ancestors are ousted from Scotland in a violent pogrom, only to find themselves in the role of oppressor in the Portuguese Azores. Linked by blood and legacy, each of the protagonists in Natives and Exotics must experience the consequences of destroying an earthly paradise. Each one must ask what it means to displace a culture in the name of new cultivars, while their own concepts of home and identity dissolve. Through the eyes of Alice and her forbears, we explore the uneasy relationship between human beings and their environments, and the drumbeats of conquest still pulsing around the world today. Natives and Exotics is rich with timely topics for reading groups. We hope that the following questions will enhance your discussion of this mesmerizing novel. Questions and Topics for Discussion 1. The book's prologue mentions renowned figures Captain Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, and Alexander von Humboldt. Do they share a common motivation in exploring new worlds? By contemporary standards, do they share any heroic qualities? Do they share any traits with Rosalind and Hal? 2. In the first chapter, we learn that Ecuador is Alice's fourth country, and that at age nine she is about to inhabit her sixth city and seventh house. What does her arrival in Braniff signal in her life? What does the sudden presence of other ruling-class foreign families signal to the Ecuadorians? 3. Is the military coup witnessed by the Forder family mirrored in other sections of the novel? How were previous power struggles resolved by political leaders, outsiders, the military, and rank-and-file inhabitants of the book's various locales? 4. How do Alice and the other schoolchildren understand and define the world around them? What is the intention of their secret slumber-party game? Do the novel's children have a more accurate grasp of nature than their parents do? 5. What is the effect of Part One's ending with Alice's illness and recovery? In what way does that serve as a bridge to the images of her grandmother Violet battling exhaustion in Australia? 6. What is the significance of the prehistoric discoveries mentioned in the novel? What does it mean to the primary characters to discover the demise of a population of dinosaurs, or the reality that continents drift? 7. Discuss the roots Violet and her husband must extract in order to create pastoral land. Will their "roots" be stronger than the ones of the foliage they want to vanquish? 8. Mr. Clarence and George give voice to the colonists who were driven from their homelands and sought security more than conquest in South America. In the face of crops disfigured by experimentation and blight, and an earthquake that disfigures the landscape, George chooses the extreme terrain of Australia for his safe haven. The opening paragraphs of chapter 14 indicate that he is seeking an antidote to the Coceus parasite. George also thinks, "maybe on that lonely, ancient continent, partly paradise but in larger part hell, he would at last find his habitat." Why might it sometimes be difficult for human beings to find a suitable habitat? 9. The novel mentions gruesome acts of violence that occurred in the process of eradicating native peoples during colonization. Is sadism an essential component in conquest? 10. In the novel, land is despoiled while the plunderers anticipate huge financial rewards. Is financial gain always at odds with environmental preservation? 11. The novel illustrates humanity's fascination with exoticism, and the intrinsic value in cargo brought far from its origins. But Violet's three-month sojourn (during which she tires of shopping) also illustrates how much more accessible international travel has become. Has globalization made us less awed by imported goods? Is the notion of exoticism on the wane? Does colonization now take place on the scale of individual consumers? 12. What is the effect of Jane Alison's choice of locales in Natives and Exotics? How might the narrative have changed if the Middle or Far East had been chosen instead? What is significant about the globe's southern hemisphere? 13. Does the storytelling tone change among the novel's four parts, or does the voice remain the same throughout? What descriptive elements remain constant no matter where the scenes are set? 14. Discuss the novel's final chapters: Violet survives rough seas and returns to her orderly life with a renewed sense of home (albeit a lonely one without her husband); Alice observes a whale and transplanted palm trees in the North Atlantic, then closes the book with a song that mentions satellites-the next frontier for exploration. How do each of these generations define "native"? Do grandmother and granddaughter both feel restored in the end? 15. What legacies of colonization or immigration are woven into your family history? Where do you feel most firmly planted? About the Author JANE ALISON is the author of the acclaimed novels The Love-Artist and The Marriage of the Sea. Born in Canberra, Australia, she grew up in the United States and in other locales related to her parents' work with the Foreign Service. She now divides her time between Germany and Charlotte, North Carolina, where she teaches in the MFA program at Queens University.
Copyright © 2005 Harcourt, Inc.