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evergreensandbookishthings 's review for:
Sharks in the Time of Saviors
by Kawai Strong Washburn
I’ve been sitting on this review, as I am still at a loss for the right words. The description of the book grabbed my attention with what sounds like magical realism. It’s about a boy who survives a curious encounter with sharks, and comes away changed, perhaps with special “powers.” But, it is only used as a small vehicle to incorporate the history and mythology of ancestral Hawaiians.
Sharks is not light reading, it is not page-turning. Dense, cerebral, visceral and haunting, it is the portrait of a family as it slowly falls apart and knits back together. The multiple POV chapters contain mostly internal monologue, and lay bare the affects of Hawaiian colonization, and the complexities of racism for Hawaiians.
“My time as a mother was the same as those last gasping breaths of the owl, and soon enough you’d have to gently sit down my love, fold it up into the soil of your childhood, and move beyond.”
I didn’t always feel compelled to reach for it, but parts of it took my breath away and I’ll never forget it.
Traveling to Hawaii during the pandemic, albeit later after we had all been vaccinated and boosted, still gave me pause. (It was the reason we postponed our trip for 2 years - feeling it was the least we could do to keep the people of Hawaii safe, as well as ourselves.) The pandemic has opened our eyes to so many problems and inequities in society, as with the ways Hawaii can be exploited. (Ooof, watching The White Lotus, too.)
We made sure to visit visit a national park and put extra money in the collection box, tipped those in the service industry generously, and did not include our car in the the traffic on the quiet and remote road to Hana. I am glad that some legislation is beginning to crop up: Maui County is an acting a two year mortorium on new hotel and lodging construction, for example. I am not sure when, or if, we will return to beautiful Hawaii. But, in the interim, we have made a donation to @ohana_kulaniakea and would encourage other visitors to find a charitable organization to support, too.
Sharks is not light reading, it is not page-turning. Dense, cerebral, visceral and haunting, it is the portrait of a family as it slowly falls apart and knits back together. The multiple POV chapters contain mostly internal monologue, and lay bare the affects of Hawaiian colonization, and the complexities of racism for Hawaiians.
“My time as a mother was the same as those last gasping breaths of the owl, and soon enough you’d have to gently sit down my love, fold it up into the soil of your childhood, and move beyond.”
I didn’t always feel compelled to reach for it, but parts of it took my breath away and I’ll never forget it.
Traveling to Hawaii during the pandemic, albeit later after we had all been vaccinated and boosted, still gave me pause. (It was the reason we postponed our trip for 2 years - feeling it was the least we could do to keep the people of Hawaii safe, as well as ourselves.) The pandemic has opened our eyes to so many problems and inequities in society, as with the ways Hawaii can be exploited. (Ooof, watching The White Lotus, too.)
We made sure to visit visit a national park and put extra money in the collection box, tipped those in the service industry generously, and did not include our car in the the traffic on the quiet and remote road to Hana. I am glad that some legislation is beginning to crop up: Maui County is an acting a two year mortorium on new hotel and lodging construction, for example. I am not sure when, or if, we will return to beautiful Hawaii. But, in the interim, we have made a donation to @ohana_kulaniakea and would encourage other visitors to find a charitable organization to support, too.