Kalimantaan [Paperback]

C. S. Godshalk's first novel is an adventure story in which the excitement is as much mental as physical. In 1838, Gideon Barr sets sails for Borneo, the land he intends to rule. We first see this empire builder through relatives' letters, and he emerges as singularly unbalanced yet singularly driven. He is also, it appears, almost infallible, applying more subtle techniques than the usual smash-and-grab. Gideon is no less forceful in his personal life: he is the sort who will return to England to wed his cousin but bring back her daughter instead--not out of love or attraction, but out of Darwinian common sense.

This flawed hero is only the first in an endless procession of brilliantly drawn men who blend civility with violence, innocence with calm brutality. Some go to Borneo to obliterate their English past; others never had one, having been out to sea at 8 or 9. And the natives are as contradictory as their imperial masters: "Honest, gentle, respectful of even their smallest children, cherishing their lore and tales, and at the same time methodically preparing for their gory celebrations, refining torture, training infants to perform these abominations."

Later come the missionaries and, finally, the Englishwomen, on whom the tropics take a heavy toll. Plotting her return to England with her only surviving child, Gideon's wife writes to her mother: "We have slipped into an unnatural attitude here. We regard the children we lose as necessary casualties, as replaceable." This is a world in which social rounds are riddled with danger, literally.

Kalimantaan is a huge achievement, ambitious in scope, style, thought, historical imagination, and humor. Here Godshalk describes a group of Dutch colonists: "What breed are they? From what planet?... They are the most inappropriate form of life ever to take up residence in the tropics. Everything about them is wrong, their clothes, their religion, their food. A Dutch meal on the equator--sausage, pickles, schnapps--should kill you outright, yet they pile it in for breakfast. Their women deliver babes through withering heat and monsoon rot like rolls from an oven, and these slough off dengue fever as if it were summer complaint. They will break. But it is usually under some vague malaise of the soul..." Kalimantaan demands your total attention and immersion. Yet Godshalk's tale must be read for its romance, extraordinary populace, and anatomy of colonialism, and if you give in to its lush language, it will offer you an inimitable dose of death and desire, magic and malaria dreams. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

At the height of the Victorian Empire, a young officer of the East India Company carves out a small raj for himself on the forsaken island of Borneo in the Malaysian archipelago. Creatively using historical models in her vivid debut, Godshalk constructs her imaginary imperialist with painstaking local research and well-paced prose that unfolds in evocative vignettes. Gideon Barr braves dreaded pirates, insidious disease, monsoons and bloody reprisals from the native headhunters and the Chinese merchants who resent Britain's trade leadership. In a short time, with swift brutality, he manages to establish a thriving entrepot of English society based on the trade in rare spices and metals, opium, the "currency of heads" and "youth disposable as water." Godshalk's point of view shifts restlessly, from Barr, as he writes to his dead mother, to those who join him in his megalomaniacal pursuit, including his dangerous cousin and "dark counterweight," Richard Hogg, who will carry out his own ruthless expansion in the territory as the rajah's deputy. Yet Godshalk finds her steady narrative strength in the voice of Barr's 18-year-old English bride, Melie, through whom we are able to absorb the rich, sodden beauty of the archipelago, the startling diversity of its inhabitants and the humanity in the "phenomenon" of Barr himself. Godshalk's use of native names and words (too few are found in her glossary) helps bolster the illusion of an extraordinary, vanished world?though some less intrepid readers, frustrated by swimming pronouns without fixed antecedents and careless anachronisms in the speech of Godshalk's English people, might lose heart during this otherwise gorgeous, ultimately doomed journey. 50,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The folks at Holt are raving about this first novel from Codshalk, whose short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories. Her hero is a young Englishman who founds a private raj on the coast of Borneo in the 1800s.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A tour de force that took more than 20 years to complete, C. S. Godshalk's novel about the rise and fall of the early British ruler of Kalimantaan, Gideon Barr (on whose exploits Conrad loosely based Lord Jim), is one of the finest examples of literary historical fiction anywhere. Barr was one of those nineteenth-century adventurers who happened to be in the right place at the right time: he set out to explore and survey the South Seas but wound up ruling a private raj on the north coast of Borneo, to the consternation of the Dutch, among others. Godshalk conveys a powerful sense of remoteness through vivid descriptions of flora and fauna, while her characters--the usurped Dyaks and Malays, the wild young British men and their womenfolk, the "memsahibs" --are resurrected as willful, passionate, and proud beings. Notable among the latter is Barr's wife, Amelia. More than 20 years his junior, she acclimates to her husband and his fiefdom in a gradual process of familiarization and tragedy that draws the reader in and makes the whole place alive once again. Frank Caso --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Brilliantly colored but baggy debut about a 19th-century British adventurer, the eccentric figure who inspired Conrad's Lord Jim, and his kingdom on the north coast of Borneo. The strange tale of Rajah Gideon Barr starts with his mother, who left him in England to be raised by relatives while she went to the Far East, only to die without ever seeing him again. First apprenticing himself there with the East India Company, Barr returned to the region with his own ship, eager to carve out a niche but vague as to how to do it. Sent by the British on a suicide mission into pirate-ruled waters off Borneo, he confounded everyone and established a beachhead after putting down a local insurrection. A mix of shrewd dealing and brute force enabled him to expand his territory rapidly, aided by visits from his friend, the Admiral of the British fleet in the area, and by the permanent presence in inland forts of a motley collection of loners, fellow adventurers each with his own reason for serving in obscure regions. So the Raj was born, and as it matured, the trappings of civilization arrived: gardens, churches, and wives. Rajah Barr took an English girl, a cousin, to wife, even though he had already taken up with the bewitching former spouse of a slain Borneo prince; in spite of the coolness in the marriage, Barr's bride cast her own spell on the natives. Meanwhile, despite outbreaks of cholera and losses to the nearby headhunters not yet ``pacified'' by Barr's ragtag troops, his unlikely kingdom persisteduntil the long-suffering Chinese, taxed to the limit for the opium trade, lashed out. An unwieldy catch basin of a novel, desperately in need of firm editing. Even so, Godshalk offers many moments of pure fire and beauty. (First printing of 50,000; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"A spectacular book and at times a superb one." -- Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"C. S. Godshalk is not only Sarawak's Garca Mrquez, she is also the memsahib's Conrad." (John Spurling, Sunday Times (London)) -- John Spurling, Sunday Times - London

"It is no exaggeration to say that Godshalk easily rivals Conrad in her achievement." -- Michael Upchurch, Chicago Tribune

"Kalimantaan may be the wisest book about love since Gabriel Garca Mrquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. . . . It may also be the best historical novel of the past ten years." -- Scott Stossel, The Boston Phoenix

"Ravishing . . . . Godshalk has a genius for cutting to the heart of things, as if the time for leisurely and considered acquaintance didn't exist." -- Alice Truax, The New Yorker

"Readers will never think of Kipling or Conrad in quite the same way again." -- Brian St. Pierre, San Francisco Chronicle

"The work of a born storyteller . . . a first novel of formidable imaginative power." -- Annette Kobak, The New York Times Book Review

The story of Victorian social mores superimposed on a remarkable tribe of fugitives, missionaries, and romantics on the dangerous coast of Borneo.

"This book is a lovely surprise, I really never wanted it to end. It's like being taken to a magical unknown planet, yet suddenly realizing it all takes place on this globe in mysterious Borneo and Sarawak: a beautifully written, elegant and rich dream." --John Fowles

"Will be read and re-read ... a truly bewitching novel." --The Edmonton Journal

"A first novel of formidable imaginative power ... a brilliantly subtle panorama of life forces played out in the face of death. Kalimantaan is the work of a born storyteller."

--The New York Times Book Review

"A rich evocation of place and time ... a literary adventure story." --The Globe and Mail

"A tour de force ... one of the finest examples of literary historical fiction anywhere."

--Booklist (Starred Review)

"Kalimantaan may be the wisest book about love since Gabriel Garcia Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. Ambitious, beautifully written, with a richly woven tapestry of themes and ideas, it may also be the best historical novel of the past 10 years." --The Boston Phoenix

"Vividly robust and atmospheric ... A stunning novel, beautifully written in a lush abundance of images and insights, as damply sensual and surprising as its setting ... Readers will never think of Kipling or Conrad in quite the same way again." --The San Francisco Chronicle

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

C.S. Godshalk lives north of Boston, is a prizewinning writer of short fiction, and is at work on her second novel.

Based on a true story, KALIMANTAAN is the mesmerizing tale of what happens when an Englishman creates a private kingdom on the coast of Borneo in 1830. Donada Peters's deft reading transports listeners into a haunting realm--colored by white-hot sun and deep green jungle, peopled by honorable headhunters and half-mad colonials. Peters negotiates Godshalk's elliptical style effortlessly, never losing the listener in the author's sudden shifts of scene. She brings the passions and sorrows of the international cast so vividly, so heartbreakingly to life that listeners may find themselves laughing or crying aloud. Passersby will stare, but lost in another time and place, you will not notice. A.C.S. Winner of AUDIOFILE'S Earphones Award. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.