Splendid Samoan novel

Press, 23 February 1980, Page 17

Splendid Samoan novel

Leaves of the Banyan Tree. By Albert Wendt. Longman Paul, 1979. 413 pp. $12.95.

(Reviewed by Margaret Quigley)

Since the publication of “Sons for the Return Home” in 1973, when Albert Wendt was greeted by most critics as a novelty (the first Samoan writer to produce a novel), his reputation has gm.vn deservedly. Another novel, “Pouliuli” a darker and more mature work the relatively lightweight first novel, a collection of poetrjj and a volume of short stories, “The Flying Fox in the Freedom Tree,” have all shown the variety and extent of his imaginative talents. His latest novel “Leaves of the Banyan Tree” is a large volume, impressive in both size and quality. In it Wendt combines the best of two traditions. He has worked hard at the crafL of fiction and shows an astonishing mastery of the form of the English novel, but he has also mastered the traditional Samoan art of the storyteller, the tusitala, and he holds his audience firmly with the urgent vigour of his story-telling.

Wendt has harnessed the language and training of the white man. the papalagi, to his creative drive to affirm his country. His concern is to dig under the myth of Samoa and reveal the true Faa-Samoa, the way of life still lived by the majority of the population of those islands in the villages of their countryside. It is the picture of this village life, and the effects on it of papalagi values, which is the main strength of this novel. In “Leaves of the Banyan Tree” Wendt creates in his imaginary village of Sapepe, a microcosm embodying the goad and bad of the Faa-Samoa. The book covers s period of 50 years and details the rise of Tauilopepe, head of a family in the village to a position of wealth and power. His purpose and methods are opposed by his son Pepe, and the middle section of the book (which contains most of the title story from “Flying Fox”) is especially moving in its portrayal of Pepe’s troubled rebellion against his father’s values. A fascinating, complex and powerful novel which impresses itself deeply on the mind of the reader.