Alice Te Punga Somerville

Arguably the point of the best novels is to give readers a tour of the author's mind. Sometimes this is even unintentional, but nobody could read, for example, [b:A Confederacy of Dunces|310612|A Confederacy of Dunces|John Kennedy Toole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562554946l/310612._SY75_.jpg|968084] and not feel like they know something about John Kennedy Toole's dark funny brain.

Essays, on the other hand, are a more literal version of that. The best ones feature the author either thinking or seeming to think on the page. Whether they are pondering a specific problem ([b:E Unibus Pluram|49950979|E Unibus Pluram|David Foster Wallace|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1569783213l/49950979._SX50_SY75_.jpg|73556492]) or decoding their personal history ([b:Goodbye To All That|23248292|Goodbye To All That|Joan Didion|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546989905l/23248292._SY75_.jpg|42791117]), one feels like they know the author when it is all over.

There is a distinction there that is still significant. The former evoke emotion by way of reader response, while the latter do so mostly through empathy.

Two Hundred and Fifty Ways... is tough, in that on a surface level, it's a funny conceit, struggling with an academic assignment that has too many entry points. Sometimes freedom is shackling.

But the essay's clever gambit is to highlight that it's impossible to do justice to Captain Cook, not because every human being contains multitudes, but because his historical personhood has been obliterated by what he did. There is no "where" to begin at. There's just too wide a range of reactions to his "accomplishments" for any one human to encompass his actuality. He is, literally, conjurer of a new land (for Europeans) or destroyer of a home (for Māori). And whereas other controversial figures can be seen in shades of grey, the polar nature of these choices means no mitigating factors can soften one's stance for those two groups.

I wish this was taught in American High Schools; Te Punga Somerville is a lively writer with a perspective most European descended children would never get near. Yet there is a distancing effect, with the Captain Cook dichotomy revolving around conflicts in which Americans are uninvolved. It pulls some of the charge out of racial justice issues that are dominating some school boards. There is a need for empathy that this book raises without touching specifically on the sins of our continent’s forefathers. It’s well worth reading if one is willing to reflect on the terrors of Western colonialism, while not taking it quite as personally.… (mais)