The Shark God: Encounters with Myth and Magic in the South Pacific - Softcover

Montgomery, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007240937 ISBN 13: 9780007240937

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2006

Synopsis

When Charles Montgomery was ten years old, he stumbled upon the memoirs of his great-grandfather, a seafaring missionary in the South Pacific. Poring over the faint text and faded pictures, he was entranced by the world of black magic and savagery the bishop described, and couldn't help but wonder what drove the Victorian to risk his life among people who had shot, drowned, or clubbed to death so many of his predecessors.

Twenty years later and a century after that journey, Montgomery sets out for the reefs and atolls of Melanesia in search of the very spirits and myths the missionaries had sought to destroy. He retraces his ancestor's path through the far-flung islands, exploring the bond between faith and magic, the eerie persistence of the spirit world, and the heavy footprints of Empire.

What he discovers is a world of sorcery and shark worship, where the lines between Christian and pagan rituals are as blurred as the frontiers of fact, fantasy, and faith. After confrontations with a bizarre cast of cult leaders, militants, and mystics, the author, in his quest for ancient magic, is led to an island in crisis -- and to a new myth with the power to destroy or to save its people forever.

Alternately terrifying, moving, and hilarious, with overtones of Melville and Conrad, The Shark God is Montgomery's extraordinary and piercingly intelligent account of both Melanesia's transformation and his own. This defiantly original blend of history and memoir, anthropology and travel writing, marks the debut of a singular new talent.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Montgomery was named a 2003 Lowell Thomas Silver Award winner by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Published originally in Canada as The Last Heathen, this book won the prestigious Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction in 2005. The author divides his time between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Mexico City.

From Publishers Weekly:

Montgomery's great-grandfather Henry was an Anglican missionary in the South Pacific at the end of the 19th century, and his book, The Light of Melanesia, recounted the horrors of heathen life and the attempts to bring "One True God" to the islands. Curious as to whether the missionaries or spirits ultimately triumphed, Canadian writer Montgomery sought the real history of the islands. His plan was to follow his great-grandfather's route through the South Pacific. He writes, "I would cross the reefs and wade to shore on Nukapu [in the Solomon Islands]... where history and myth would be made utterly clear to me by someone very old and wise." Montgomery makes his disbelief—in both the religion of his great-grandfather and that of the Melanesians—quite plain. Yet he grapples with his doubt and longs to understand the mystical nature of the natives. With exquisite writing, Montgomery lovingly captures the beauty and the horrors, the mysteries and the shams of the people and places he visits. His is a skeptical eye, and Montgomery is resistant to the miracles the people wish to show him, which admittedly are not terribly convincing, but he doggedly persists, seeking to be convinced of something, anything. (July)
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About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0007240937
• ISBN 13: 9780007240937
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 370