The Book of Puka-Puka
by , New York: The Century Co. 1929. 8vo. 356 pp. Illus. $3.50).
READERS of the Atlantic are already familiar with the young trader who opened a store on Danger Island, remote and lonely atoll, where he was the only white man among natives as little transformed by American and European influences as may be expected in this day when the cowboy, cinema style, is known even in the South Sea Islands. But this connected volume of his reminiscences may fittingly be noticed here, for it contains many adventures not included in his magazine papers and some material which could not have made its appearance in a magazine with perfect decorum. Mr. Frisbie does not pretend that he observed a strict moral code in his amiable adventures among the South Sea Islanders. Nor does he make an unpleasant boast of conquests which were scarcely conquests. He has the unusual capacity of carrying his indulgences with a light hand and an easy conscience. If there is a distinction between healthy and unhealthy vices, few readers will hesitate to assign Mr. Frisbie’s to the former class.
This is an informal book, which pleasantly snubs the usual classifications. It is wholly free from the calculated search for the quaint, the systematic pursuit of ‘local color,’superstition, dark suggestions of orgy, and other meretricious inducements with which the usual travel book is larded. Nor does it make a parade of anthropological lore, dressed out with assumptions of learning. Yet there is an abundance of all that is real in any of these qualities in Mr. Frisbie’s book, unsystematically but entertainingly and honestly presented, with easy but resourceful and unfailingly effective language. Mr. Frisbie seems in all truth to have loved his solitude, his books, and the vagaries of trading with natives who bought shoes because they squeaked. If it could be said of him that he found them playing marbles and left them shooting craps, the liberal-minded reader will nevertheless feel that his influence was less destructive than the influence of men with higher motives but less understanding has often proved. He felt a real affection for his neighbors, and amused himself for years on end with observations of their habits and intimate penetration into their legends, ceremonies, and customs.
It remains only to add that in jacket, binding, and illustrations the publisher has done all that he can to discourage mature and self-respecting people from buying the book. There ought to be a new edition, but, failing that, better by far the book in its present form than not at all.
THEODORE MORRISON