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Colony | Eden's Shore by Oisín Fagan | Review · Bookies' Favourite

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Hello, welcome to the Club bookies favorite book club.
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We discuss award-winning authors, nominated novels, best
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selling books, bookshelf stories and recently released reads.
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This episode is part three of our Read along chapter by
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chapter of Eden Shore by Oshing Fagan.
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This episode we're discussing Part 2, Chapter 3 Colony.
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This episode contains discussions about slavery,
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suicide, and the sexual exploitation of minors.
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We're hoping to speak with the author, Ashin Fagan, on the
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podcast once we've wrapped off this read along, so send us your
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questions for him. Hi, I'm Lucy and I am spitting
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into people's drinks in a Tavern.
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So I read this mainly again just by reading, but I did listen to
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a bit of the audiobook and then read over it again because I
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struggle with audiobooks. So I kind of did.
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My attention goes very quickly with them.
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So I was really excited about this section because this is the
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one that I felt like so much stuff happens and I don't
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really, I understand it. I didn't understand it my first
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read and I still don't know if IA 100% understand it.
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I think there's a lot of questions that I have that are
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kind of like, I feel like something's going on here, but I
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don't know exactly what's going on here.
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So I'm very excited to discuss it with you today, Aaron.
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I am Aaron and I am wandering through the gardens of the
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Document Mansion. I've listened to this chapter
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maybe 1 1/2 times or read lessons but I basically have no
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memory of this chapter from the original read through so this
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felt are very new and fresh for me.
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I actually really enjoyed this chapter and I think it might be
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my favorite so far. Yeah, it's definitely my
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favorite. I remember when I first read it,
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I was like, this is this is like The Wire, like the TV show,
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because it's just like there's so many stories going on and
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there's so many like people who have different motives.
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Open your textbooks to page 178. And here is a quote from Colony.
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The future is here. This colony is magnificent and
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hideous. It is everything.
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We are on the edge of the world, but we are really at the heart
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of the miracle. And you could be a part of this.
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We are warning from this point onwards if you haven't read the
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book yet and you're planning to come back to this discussion
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after you've done so. In Colony, we have an ensemble
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cast of characters leading our story, with only a handful of
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recurring characters from Part 1.
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This chapter takes place around 8 years following the ending of
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chapter 2. Land Isa, now a handmaid to a
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rich white girl, is heading a rebellion against Spanish rule
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alongside XI Jiang Lee, who is now promoted from Servanpoi to
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bodyguard of the Benjamin brothers.
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Their planned revolution on Christmas Day is funded by the
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Benjamins. Lee recruits another ethnically
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Asian character, petty con man Yi Zhangzhou.
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We also have a parallel story playing out with a Welshman,
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Lewin Chaffinch, who finds himself a pawn in the rebellions
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business, ending with a run in with the notorious Marianne
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Lynch. Let's start things off by
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discussing the main plots. So Zhengzhou is one of the the
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new characters that appears in the story.
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It starts his kind of story in Panama where he he's like a bit
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of a calm man and he obviously angers the wrong person.
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And so he then spends weeks on different coaches and ends up in
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Santa Maria where where obviously our story is set.
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Lee kind of recruits him to come and work for the Benjamins with
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him, like working as a driver for a lot of it.
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And again, Zhang Zhu doesn't really seem to care too much.
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He certainly doesn't. He just wants money.
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The first thing that he kind of gets him to do is to be involved
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in the the murder and assassination of Cricklow, who
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is a beloved character from the first section of the book.
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Cricklow has found out about a revolution that is being planned
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or revolt or rebellion that's been planned, and he has
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information about a shipment of arms that are being delivered.
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And Lee does not want him to live with this information
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because he obviously doesn't trust Cricklow at all, which we
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find out the reason why he doesn't like Cricklow later on,
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but he does not trust Cricklow. He uses Zhang Zhou to get
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Cricklow to another place to drive him somewhere using the
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seal of the Benjamins. And now this is like throughout
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this chapter, the seal of the Benjamins is really important.
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We know from the way Cricklow's talking that he clearly knows
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that someone wants to kill him, and I don't really understand
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why he went with Zhangzhou. But they don't get very far
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before Lee kills Zhangzhou and they stop somewhere and Lee
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kills him. And he does it in quite a like
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he makes curriculum look at him before he kills him and then he
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slits us through. Maybe he's also an alcoholic, I
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don't know. Oh I'm sure he 100% is.
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I imagine all those sailors were.
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Well, especially Geronimo and who we have confirmation on.
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Geronimo basically died an alcoholic and the the dying man
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that is heavily hinted to be Fuchs.
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Swedish Carpenter. IKEA.
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IKEA. But I thought it was very
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interesting that Cricklow was not at all loyal to Fuchs, who
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he has spent the last. We can assume he's spent the
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last eight years. Yeah, with him by his side.
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And Fuchs is dying. And he's just like, OK, well,
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can you hurry up? Because as soon as I finish
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smoking this, like, you better be dead, otherwise you're going
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to die alone. But Fuchs is still alive by the
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end of of his smoke, and he just leaves him.
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And Per. I mean, Fuchs does not deserve
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any sympathy. Yeah, but like he doesn't have
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any like loyalty from his friend.
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I don't even know if they would consider each other friends, but
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that's all that they have is each other.
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I know it's weird to think though that Cricklow probably
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dies first. True.
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Yeah. I wonder.
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I wonder if Fuchs is still alive.
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Also, we find out that Cricklow has a child with a slave.
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I need to lure him away. The two players are still there.
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The woman is there, his child. They can't see me.
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But also. So I'm just one thing.
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I am, since we're on this topic of the house.
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The players are in another room in this house, but there doesn't
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seem to be a room there. Yeah, I was so confused by this,
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this, that, like it's weird because it's, it's so close to
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the start. It's like I've kind of forgotten
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what I was confused about because I was confused about so
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much stuff later on. And.
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But yeah, you're right. Is this just to emphasize the
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fact that they're there but they're not to be seen?
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Maybe. Yeah, like they're off screen so
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much that they don't. Yeah, I don't know.
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I genuinely don't know. The rebellion seems to be manned
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by Issa and Lee. The Benjamins seem to be behind
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it, but I think they're really trying to keep their hands clean
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because they're smarter than to actually be heavily involved.
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But they will be reaping the rewards.
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Then there's a couple of other slave and like servant
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characters that are involved that show up throughout and
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Zhangzhou also gets brought into the rebellion.
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It seems like the rebellion is happening against the Spanish
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empire and the Benjamins are going to take control after this
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revolution happens. Their main plan is to build a
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highway between Panama and Brazil.
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So we know that this takes place in the in between because why
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else would they want to build a highway between the two?
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And I think the Dockies are going to fund it.
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So you kind of are. Everyone is using everyone for
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their own gain. Issa it's kind of when when she
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goes through her life, it's kind of discovered that she, I'm
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assuming is is taken by Crickloo after the events of land and is
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like lives with him for months. And it's not implied that that
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would be a nice experience at all to see.
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He seems horrible and she then asks Lee to rescue her from
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crickloo and he manages to get her a job in the the donkey
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household. And they're like a rich Anglo
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American family, actually just just English because I think it
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describes the donkey households as having no graves in their
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cemetery. So they have a cemetery there,
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but there's there's no. So I'm assuming they're all 1st
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generation. So do you know the the woman
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Lois or is who's clearly involved in the like the
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revelation, the revolt? Yes, she's in the kitchen,
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right? Yeah, but he mentions her and
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how would Crackle know her was something I was like, because
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Crackles like she's the one who ratted them out and I believe
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she is the one who ratted them out.
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But she's hinted at in the later on with Leon that she he thinks
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she's a sex worker when she comes to massage him and she's
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not. You're talking about stuff I
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don't even remember. So do you know right, OK, this
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is later on it's like. Yes, in the hotel.
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Hotel, He's got a really bad back and a woman comes up and he
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knows her name is Lois or is, and he's like, she's she's a
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nurse, even though she works in the kitchens, like she seems to
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be everywhere. She's kind of an interesting
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figure. Not really actually.
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She's mentioned throughout it like she's in so many pages.
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But yes, so quickly was like she's the one who rotted a mic.
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And I'm assuming because Cricklow is not.
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Yeah. So Lua is kind of like always in
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the background, but she's not. She's obviously very involved in
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all this stuff and she's able to get information from people and
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she's able to like, go around the place and like, be
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orchestrating a lot of things and getting information.
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Then we have this parallel story that plays out with a brand new
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character and Lewin, A Welshman. Now he starts off based in Santa
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Domingo. Am I saying?
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So he's, yeah, he's actually in a belief where we thought
11:29
everything was taking place, but definitely isn't.
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Well, I did. I thought it was 100%.
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So I'm assuming it's taking place in a fictional town
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somewhere along that Colombian Venezuelan coast.
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Yes, I think, I think that's probably right.
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So Lewin starts off, as we said in Hispaniola and he meets a
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French man who is very odd. His name is Maxim, English
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clearly isn't his first language, but I think he's
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weaponized this and I think he's purposefully, uh, using bad
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English to misdirect and come across as a bit more of an idiot
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than he actually is. He strikes me a lot originally
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and during my reread he's really struck me as being similar to
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Jacques in his innocence and how willing he is to befriend
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everyone. But upon a real lesson, I think
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he actually is much more smarter and has a lot more devious.
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Not yeah, actually I think he is a bit more devious than than
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what he is made out to be. It's such a weird interaction.
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He picks up Lewin's suitcase and basically acts dumb and is like,
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you're my best friend now come with me.
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We are both journalists, which neither of them are journalists,
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but they both lie to each other and say that they're
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journalists. And he convinces him to.
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He convinces Lewin to join him and to go to where all of the
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action is taking place in Santa Maria.
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I yeah, it's so like this part is so confusing because Maxim's
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his, his English is really weird.
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He's really like enthusiastic. There's definitely like a
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parallel. I think you were kind of
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touching on it. I think you've put it in like
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some of your notes for this. There's a real like Angel
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Jacques parallel between Lynn and and Maxime.
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But like, yeah, you, I'm still in two minds as to whether he's
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really thick or really smart. I'm like, yeah, I'm so confused
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because he's obviously smart enough that he's, you know, got
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this position from the Masons that he's like coming over to
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like, I'm still, I'm, I'm baffled by this character.
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I have no idea what's going on. Well, it seems like he is
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wanting to go to San Domingo to join the revolution and he has
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all these contacts. He's going to board the Jolly
14:16
Jenkins and to get there, and the captain is in on this and
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the Jolly Jenkins is actually bringing a shipment of firearms
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for the Revolution. The revolution is happening on
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Christmas Day, so they have to make sure that they have
14:34
everything there in time. So the rebellion is going to be
14:40
the uprising of the African slaves and the native people.
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So it it seems like Maxim is part of this revolution, and he
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reveals that to Lewin. Lewin is just there for the
14:54
ride. He's a secret poet, so I'm not
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really sure why he's keeping his poetry secret.
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It's so strange. I think it's this is the one of
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those things where it's like I remember there being more to him
15:06
and then the next, I think there's more to lean than meets
15:09
the eye. I think because why would he go
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with Oh, you kind of do get a reason that he goes with Maxime
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because he wants to keep traveling around the place and
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he's obviously like a freelance writer for is he doing freelance
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work for something? But not really.
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I don't even know what is he doing he.
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Says that he is, but I don't know if he is because it seems
15:30
like every time he goes to write, he's writing poetry.
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And he's not. Writing any kind of journalism?
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Yeah, it's it is interesting. So what happens on the boat is
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there's all these new new kind of captain, there's a new
15:46
everything and they're all talking to It's kind of similar
15:51
to Angels experience on the Atlas for Leon.
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But at one point Maxime goes to meet the captain and then they
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stop letting Leon out of his room and they keep telling him
16:04
that that he needs to be in quarantine because Maxime is
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sick. And then later on we find out
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Maxime is dead and has clearly been killed by someone on the
16:15
boat. He's clearly not actually been
16:16
ill and something that's interesting later on as we find
16:22
out that the shipment, they didn't bring as many guns as
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they said they would. And I was thinking, is there
16:27
something, is it like we were talking about this earlier?
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Is there a possibility that Maxim isn't real?
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Like he's actually against it all and he doesn't want the
16:39
could he be to do with the reason why there's less guns and
16:43
arms brought across? I, I don't know, I think I might
16:46
be just clutching at straws there, but I, I think it, I
16:49
would probably need to do a third read of that section to be
16:51
like understanding that a bit more.
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So I think he's a double agent. I think that he is trying to get
16:59
in on this revolution and he is trying to sabotage it.
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Or he's trying to pass back intelligence to the Spanish or
17:10
the French or something. Like maybe he's not even French
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and he's just playing off this entire thing because like, why
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would the French care? I mean, maybe they do.
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Well, they would. I think they would because the
17:23
part that we meet them at is the cap.
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That's where they go to get the Jolly Jenkins and the cap is in
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what is now modern day Haiti. So there there would be a French
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link here. Information is par in this
17:35
situation. So there's big revolutions
17:37
happening in Hispaniola, I think at roughly this time, massive
17:41
ones. So, and actually, to be honest,
17:43
the more you look into these little areas and like, just like
17:46
the pockets of like, it just seems like everywhere you look
17:48
like I was looking, looking into Panama, was looking into loads
17:50
of different places and it was like, you cannot go a minute
17:54
without there being these like revolutions and and revolts.
17:57
Well, not really revolutions, because a lot of the time they
17:59
didn't. They obviously didn't work out
18:00
great in the favor of them, the native people and the slaves,
18:04
but there's just so many that was really shocked by the
18:08
vastness. And a lot of these revolutions
18:10
seemed to, for my research seemed to have been from African
18:16
slaves or from the native people.
18:19
So I think Austin purposefully didn't locate this in a actual
18:26
place or an actual time or actual people.
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I think he just took influence from all of these things that
18:35
were happening and came up with a fictionalized version.
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But yes, I think that Maxine was discovered as maybe being a
18:44
double agent when he went to speak with the captain and
18:46
that's why he was OFT and Lewin clearly did not know what was
18:52
happening and he is then used as a pawn and basically under
19:00
threat that he has to do to do these things so.
19:03
Basically when he's leaving the boat, the captain lovering when
19:07
Lee Allen is kind of pushed off the boat onto a little small
19:11
like lifeboat and push towards the coast.
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And basically the captain says to him, there's 2 letters in
19:17
your bag. 1 is easy to find and the other one is really
19:21
difficult to find, but he's not to open them or touch them.
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And then so once he gets to Santa Maria, those letters are
19:30
taken by two people. And this that I loved because I
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was just like, this is so like something is going on in these
19:38
letters though we don't know. And the people they go to are
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quite interesting. Who takes the 1st letter?
19:46
Is it Noel Christmas or does not all Christmas take the 2nd
19:50
letter? No, the 2nd letter is taken.
19:51
By the 2nd letter is Marianne Lynch I'm pretty sure.
19:54
Wait, what? I thought it was like Lee or
19:59
someone. Well, so this is the thing.
20:02
Marianne Lynch finds the poem. I thought he was hidden.
20:07
I thought he found the letter. Wait wait wait.
20:09
So basically he loon wakes up one day and he doesn't have the
20:14
letter right the first. Letter.
20:17
Obvious letter and I assumed it was Louis Suarez because she's
20:20
been his nurse and coming into his room while he's been ill.
20:22
After he gets off the boat he's like in his in his in the hotel
20:28
for ages and he doesn't really know if night stay and he's like
20:32
and then lower. She seems to be there a lot and
20:35
I was assuming she took that first letter.
20:37
And then eventually he wakes up and he finds no Christmas, is
20:41
going through all his bags, and then he follows no Christmas to
20:46
find Verato. ESA Lee and Noel are rifling
20:51
through his stuff, but I don't. Do they get a letter from that?
20:55
I know they go through all this stuff, but it doesn't seem to me
20:57
like they get a letter. And then at the very end of the
21:00
whole chapter, Lynch shows up at this bar saying he's followed
21:06
Leon to the bar, and they give Leon some kind of alcohol.
21:13
That means that he kind of almost passes out or something
21:16
happens. And we see this is on page 254.
21:22
Marianne Lynch talked a letter beneath his shirt.
21:25
And this is also after he's been going through Leon's stuff in
21:30
this pub, and then he burns everything else.
21:34
So I'm assuming that Marianne Lynch gets the important letter.
21:39
And I feel like when they go through his stuff, this is no
21:42
Christmas for R2 and Isa and Lee, they're really disappointed
21:47
because they don't find the letter.
21:49
Even though they do find this thing of poetry, they don't seem
21:51
to find the letter. OK.
21:53
And then I think Marianne Lynch gets it at the end.
21:55
The relevance is that we don't even know what's in these
21:57
letters, but. The hope we can assume it's it's
22:02
messages for the revolt, for the rebellion, but it's.
22:06
It is interesting the fact that it's like Noel, I imagine Loa is
22:12
like who I think gets the 1st letter.
22:14
I imagine she work is working closely with Isa and Lee.
22:17
It's the fact that they know that there's a second letter
22:19
they need to be looking for. There's so much stuff that is
22:22
almost like it is like one of those kind of like spy novels
22:24
because I think it's like Isa and Lee also have like a
22:27
language that only they understand that they write to
22:29
each other in. And she seems to will get some
22:32
very complicated information from notes that he sent there.
22:34
So it obviously is a complicated secret language.
22:37
And there's also there's so much about the Benjamin seals, the
22:42
like their kind of stamp with the bird on it and it's like a
22:46
bird with no eyes or something. And like they seem to like use
22:51
that a lot or it seems to hold so much weight, but it, I don't
22:55
know the significance of it. I really struggled to be like
22:57
there. There's definitely something
22:58
more to this, like there's something more to that seal.
23:01
It seems to like get things moving in certain ways.
23:03
So I just get the impression that the Benjamins are so
23:09
powerful they're known worldwide.
23:11
We already know this because whenever Angel was boarding the
23:15
ship in Liverpool, the Benjamins were name dropped.
23:19
But somebody else is a maxim and mentions that the Benjamin Hotel
23:24
is known worldwide. And I think they just have so
23:30
much influence that they can their signet ring and their
23:38
their family Crest is going to be have a lot of influence no
23:44
matter where you go or no matter who you're trying to communicate
23:47
with. So I don't think that there's
23:51
even necessarily more to it than that.
23:54
I think it's just a very recognizable symbol and you it's
23:59
very powerful because if you need something from anyone,
24:04
whether it's people who are part of the rebellion, they know that
24:08
the Benjamins are involved. Are people outside of the
24:12
rebellion, they just know who the Benjamins are.
24:14
So it's going to really move things along and.
24:18
I think we should mention the fact that the rebellion doesn't
24:20
happen in this this section of the book.
24:24
It kind of ends with Marianne Lynch getting that letter.
24:26
So Marianne Lynch and Lewin now seem to be best buds.
24:31
They arrive at some woman's door and she's got a candle.
24:37
Yeah. She lets them inside, and then
24:39
the candle goes out. Who is she?
24:41
What? I'm confused.
24:43
I I literally have no idea. I I'm not 100% sure I've, I'm
24:48
trying to think of like I was so like tempted to read the next
24:52
chapter because I was like, I have a feeling I know, but I'm
24:54
not sure I know. But I definitely remember the
24:57
last time being like when I read it the first time being like, Oh
24:59
my goodness, what happens next? And then I just go straight into
25:01
this random play and I was like, wait, what?
25:06
This chapter revolved around the play so much, and it was
25:11
mentioned constantly. And the theatre, yeah.
25:14
So whenever Zhangzhou arrives to the Benjamin Hotel, he's like,
25:19
what's this? There's like a, a Masons are
25:23
working on architectural plans and at the hotel.
25:29
And he's like, what is this? Turns out that the theatre is is
25:34
built right beside the hotel. And now they're connecting it or
25:38
integrating it more into the hotel.
25:40
The Benjamins have funded the theatre and they fund a lot of
25:48
the performances that are put on there.
25:51
We know that the players, the actors from the play that
25:56
everyone is talking about, they are staying at Cricklow's house,
26:02
so there's a connection there. We also find out, is it Lewin?
26:08
No, Chuck? No, not Chuck.
26:10
Bert. Bert, the son of Osgood, travels
26:15
from England and has to basically take up the role of
26:19
his father, who he didn't really know.
26:22
And he is much more sympathetic to these slaves and to the
26:29
native people because that's who he was raised around.
26:32
He goes to see a play but the play is mainly performed in
26:39
Spanish and only once a week is it performed in English so he
26:43
doesn't see it and because he doesn't understand Spanish.
26:48
The Dokie family and they love this play and they name drop it
26:55
as St. Angel's Colony and I wonder.
27:00
Who could have written that book?
27:01
Sorry, that play. I wonder who wrote that?
27:04
Then we also find out through ESA's flashback that basically
27:11
it fills in the blanks for us what happened since the end of
27:15
land. So at the end of land, Flores
27:17
woke up and at the brothel with where he had arrived to with
27:23
ESA, but ESA is missing. Turns out that ESA had awoken
27:28
before him before he had woken up and she travelled outside and
27:34
met Cricklow who basically kidnapped her and I think just
27:39
like abused her for months and months.
27:42
I think we have to assume that because just firstly, just
27:45
Cricklow, you know, he's one of the five people who's going down
27:50
and abusing the slaves. So we know he has no problem
27:53
with anything like that. She's so desperate to get away
27:56
from him that she's, like, pleased to the Lee, the Chinese
28:01
boy she doesn't know. But they have that kind of weird
28:04
bond that they've had since Lee spared Flores and Isa from
28:11
Chuck. So.
28:12
So we know that there's something going on there.
28:14
But yeah, like, I can't read it and not think that Cricklow is
28:22
in some way abusing her. Yeah.
28:24
And also Lee, when he's explaining to Jean Joe why he
28:29
they have killed Cricklow, he says explicitly that Cricklow
28:35
hurts children. And that was something that is
28:38
happens before we get ESA's kind of commentary of what happened.
28:41
Whenever Cricklow has kidnapped ESA and Lee finds ESA again,
28:52
it's in the foundations of the theatre as it's being
28:56
constructed. So again, this is all happening
28:59
around the theatre and I don't, I don't know why that's
29:03
important. Like I can't figure it out.
29:05
I think it's, I think you're right.
29:07
I agree with you. I don't know why, but it's 100%.
29:09
There's something to this. There's something to the play,
29:11
there's something to theatre. There's something to.
29:13
Yeah, I wonder if it's just like, what's that to Shakespeare
29:17
quotes? All the world is a stage, and we
29:20
are merely. Players or something?
29:22
Are we all just playing roles that that we're destined to
29:27
play? Yeah.
29:28
And I think that there's something in this, this whole
29:32
section, and it was something that I, I remember thinking
29:35
really strongly when I first read it was just like the, the
29:37
capitalism of it all. Like this is kind of the era of,
29:42
of, of capitalism of it taking over from those kind of old
29:46
European ways of seeing things. And like the kind of not, not,
29:50
maybe not feudalism. I'm definitely not a historian,
29:52
but like everything changing from from it being the the
29:58
people, unlike every like I was. So there's so many quotes from I
30:03
think Lee and also from Chuck Benjamin that were just like
30:07
idolizing and glamorizing this idea of capitalism and like
30:11
having wages instead of slavery. And it is like, OK, that is
30:15
definitely 100. I don't think there's much in
30:18
this world that's worse than slavery that you could ever
30:20
imagine. So I think any step up from that
30:24
is obviously a good you're going in the right direction.
30:26
But I think that the fact that Lee especially is kind of being
30:30
used in this because it's not. They think of it as kind of
30:35
almost like that meritocracy element of capitalism where
30:37
everyone's going to get a wage and everyone's going to have a
30:40
quality. And these are just things that
30:42
aren't like we know this from the history of the Americas.
30:45
Like this does not happen. This is not.
30:49
It's almost like it appears to be such an amazing leap forward
30:54
for for the Native Americans and for the slaves.
30:57
But it is not a leap forward. It's it's movie fractionally a
31:01
jump forward. But it is like they're still
31:04
under the control of the Benjamins.
31:06
And I think something that's really important is like Lee
31:10
believes that he is, you know, this is going to be equality and
31:14
slavery is going to be abolished and all this stuff and that the
31:16
Benjamins really believe in this.
31:18
But then we find out that the Benjamins of the people that
31:20
brought Varatu back into slavery and they clearly wanted him
31:24
because they knew that he was really good with horses and he
31:26
was the best person in the area with horses.
31:28
They're still always, you know, capitalism is just about money.
31:32
Like it it's, it's always going to push people down to have some
31:39
people rise up and have all the money and all the all the
31:42
wealth. And they're certainly not going
31:44
to be the Native Americans and they're certainly not going to
31:45
be the slaves. They're going to be just rich to
31:49
you people of European descent in the Americas.
31:51
It's never going to be. It's not equality.
31:54
But I don't think that they, these characters can see it
31:56
because it is. It's not slavery and slavery is
31:59
that like rock bottom and which it is true and it is a rock
32:03
bottom, but I just, it really got me like the way they talk
32:06
about things and I just, I was, it was an element of it that I
32:09
really, really loved. Because I think that definitely
32:13
if you grow up in the West and the way that we're raised, it's
32:15
like we do think of this world that we live in, like democracy
32:19
and capitalism and all this stuff as being like it's freedom
32:22
and it's so good. And it was like kind of almost,
32:26
almost as well of the the Civil War in America.
32:30
And we think all this is amazing, like everyone was in
32:32
the slave and we kind of glamorize it and romanticize it.
32:35
But it's like what happened after it's again, it's better
32:38
than slavery. But you still treated these
32:40
people with like the most stand and the most like never letting
32:43
them actually participate in society.
32:45
And not that's just what's happening here.
32:47
Like this revolt. There's only one winner, and
32:52
it's the Benjamins. Like they're the only people you
32:55
might think like they. The people on the bottom might
32:57
feel like something slightly better, but it's it's not
33:01
actually going to be better. The Benjamins are interesting.
33:04
Obviously Osgood is the least developed out of all of the out
33:11
of all the Benjamins. Or at least that's from my
33:13
opinion because in the previous chapter it was Chuck who was
33:16
dealing with stuff. This chapter starts with it's
33:19
seemingly Osgood. Osgood is the the mean brother
33:24
that we will be learning from in this chapter, but he gets killed
33:28
almost immediately by A1 armed native.
33:33
Or at least that's what we're told.
33:35
Yeah. So Osgood is the kind of main
33:37
character, the start of it. I kind of think that the things
33:41
that Lee says are coming from Osgood because clearly since
33:45
land, Osgood and Lee have had a more strong relationship than
33:50
maybe Chuck and Lee. Now Lee seems to have such a
33:54
strong relationship with the Benjamin family.
33:56
I think at times like Chuck's like your, your family, which is
34:00
so strange because obviously he's, he's a Chinese boy that
34:02
they've brought in and you know, I imagine like it just is
34:06
strange, but they trust him implicit, like they trust him
34:08
implicitly. And you can tell that even in
34:10
land when Chuck trusts Lee to go and, and say what's in front of
34:15
them. But I, I think that Mama
34:19
dearest, which is the, the matriarch of the family who's
34:23
barely in it, but you can definitely feel her, her
34:25
presence. You get the feeling that she
34:27
doesn't necessarily trust Lee. I I got that vibe from her and
34:33
but when Osgood dies, Lee is very upset and I kind of get the
34:37
feeling that Lee takes everything Osgood said is very
34:40
serious. And I imagine there was
34:42
differences between the brothers and Chuck maybe was less like
34:47
revolutionary in spirit, more towards that kind of capitalist
34:50
idea. And maybe Osgood was more like
34:53
your Angel. You're like, we're so like
34:55
freedom for everyone kind of thing.
34:58
Slightly more. And I have a feeling in my head,
35:01
just from the things that we read that Chuck had an
35:04
involvement with the death of Osgood.
35:07
The nephew Bert, I would just assume he has no nothing
35:13
involved in, well, like he, he probably has quite nice
35:16
sentiments. He just wants to be back in
35:18
England though, yes. But I also get the sense that he
35:21
is a much more open to the moralities of the revolution
35:28
rather than gaining anything from it.
35:31
Definitely if I was Chuck, I'd be scared of him, but I don't
35:34
think that he has any real impetus to go out and push for
35:37
things. But I think that he definitely
35:39
like he he talks about the fact that he wishes that he could
35:43
like talk to the people working in the house, the servants and
35:45
the slaves and he he has a good time with Lee and Yee.
35:50
Like he really loves you when he's like doing impersonations
35:53
of people and stuff. I really love Bert because he's
35:55
just seems so sweet. Like he's one of my favorite
35:57
characters and I read him. I was just like, I just felt so
36:00
sorry for him. I think as well, he could have
36:02
been such an easy character to not give any depth to or to make
36:07
him like a bit of a trope. But he I don't think that Oshing
36:11
does make him a trope. He makes some kind of really
36:14
human in a way. And also the fact that he's
36:16
like, he turns silly at one point.
36:18
He's like, do you like me? And I just feel so sad for him.
36:21
And he's on a diet as well, which is really crap for him.
36:24
I feel bad for him. Can we talk about Marianne
36:26
Lynch? Yes, go ahead.
36:28
I have had this obsession with nighttime.
36:30
So I when I read the book first, I really loved it was
36:33
specifically this chapter starts talking about nighttime in a
36:36
really specific way. It's kind of mentioned in the
36:39
previous ones in certain ways, but like this one, actually, we
36:45
talk directly about nighttime. It's described exactly what it
36:48
is. Everything's kind of laid out
36:50
and it is the bodies and the people who have died on their
36:56
way to the Americas, very specifically the slaves mainly.
36:58
But I suppose anyone. And it's kind of like what we've
37:03
learned has this kind of like epiphany kind of thing where
37:07
he's he thinks about, you know, all the spices, all the things
37:11
that he has and he's grown up with sugar and everything are
37:15
all built on night time, which is the deaths and the
37:20
destruction of the people who they who have been slave,
37:23
enslaved. And Marianne Lynch seems to not
37:28
be far away from nighttime. He mentions nighttime the most.
37:31
He's the first character to mention nighttime.
37:33
He often says he's going to drag people to nighttime.
37:36
He talks about bringing people's bodies and like baptisms towards
37:40
places and through water multiple times.
37:43
He's constantly, he's definitely the person that you associate
37:47
with nighttime. So I was kind of like Izzy,
37:49
almost like a Chiron figure Karen.
37:52
I can't pronounce that properly. I always said Chiron, but it's
37:54
definitely not. It's like Karen.
37:57
So he's the the ferryman in the river Styx in Greek mythology.
38:02
And I was kind of looking it up and I found that there's like an
38:06
Irish version of him called Mana Mana mclear.
38:11
He's like a trickster or something to do with like the
38:13
sea And and I don't know if he's anything to do with death.
38:16
I maybe the I don't know enough about this characters and maybe
38:21
the Karen thing is more of a actual link because I feel like
38:28
at times Marianne Lynch is the person who is taking people to
38:34
nighttime or something like that.
38:37
Because any So basically in Greek mythology, there are
38:42
people who can't cross the river and are stuck in on one side.
38:47
I can't, I don't know much about again, I really shouldn't be
38:50
talking about things I know nothing about.
38:51
But they're like, there's these people that are stuck.
38:55
And I almost see nighttime as that, like the people who aren't
38:58
able to make it to the afterlife because of things that have
39:02
happened to them in their own lives.
39:04
And I, Marianne Lynch describes at one point that all you can
39:09
hear is screaming and he's like, they're screaming.
39:11
And I kind of got the vibe that it's like nighttime, he can hear
39:15
them. And sometimes as well, it's like
39:17
you're not entirely sure if his motivations are good or bad.
39:20
And I have a feeling that maybe he's trying to make the best
39:24
outcome happen, even though it might not be the nicest outcome.
39:28
So just another thing to add on about Marion Lynch, whenever
39:32
they are drinking and he does reappear and and has this
39:36
interaction with Lewin, first of all, why is he there?
39:41
Why is he interacting with Lewin?
39:43
Lewin's trying to leave at that stage, isn't he?
39:46
He's trying to hit. But I think he wants the letter
39:49
and that's why he's followed Lewin and he makes he gets Lewin
39:52
to. So the woman serving them in the
39:55
bar is serving this weird American alcohol, which is like
39:59
chewed up root and then spat back out.
40:02
And that's what all the Europeans and are drinking at
40:05
the bar. But when Marianne Lynch comes.
40:07
They start drinking whiskey and he's like gets gets whiskey and
40:12
I was thinking is he put something in there because Lou
40:14
and then seems to kind of black out and he does while he's
40:17
talking to him, he's blacking out and we get the story of
40:21
Ferratu and his his time as a slave while he's talking to
40:24
Lynch. Also, I did a bit of research on
40:27
his name. So Lynch obviously is very, very
40:31
common name here, like a very common name.
40:34
So I never even thought to like look at anything And it actually
40:37
means Mariner or having ships. And Marianne is a name either
40:42
means grace or apparently drop of the sea or like bitter,
40:46
bitter grace. And I was like, he is kind of
40:49
bitter grace, but I'm not entirely sure if like I'm pretty
40:51
sure AI told me about the bitter Grace, but I couldn't find it on
40:54
anything else. So I'm kind of concerned that
40:55
it's not doesn't mean that. Does Marianne Lynch somehow give
41:01
Lewin a vision of the slave because he asks Lewin to toast
41:11
and Lewin goes to toast but what?
41:15
What is it that he. Goes to can't think of what to
41:17
toast and he and Marianne's like close your eyes and then they go
41:22
into the story of Verato. So there's a slave called Verato
41:26
who is from the area. He was freed himself and lived
41:34
as a free man and helped other slaves free themselves, get
41:37
enough money to free themselves. And then through no fault of his
41:42
own he is then again enslaved by the Benjamin family.
41:46
And the Benjamin family are pretty horrific to him.
41:50
But only him, his one daughter Erica, and one son for out of
41:57
the second are enslaved as part of this.
42:00
But he has lots of other children.
42:01
Basically the Benjamins are like, we'll sort out your
42:03
problems if we can have you and your son as slaves for the rest
42:08
and their descendants for the rest of their lives.
42:10
And basically he doesn't want to give Erica his daughter.
42:15
But the Benjamins need a wet nurse, I'm assuming for Bert.
42:19
And so basically they take Erica as well.
42:22
She offers herself and then Erica dies giving birth on the
42:27
fields because they don't let her take time off.
42:30
So Viratu is obviously extremely bitter about this.
42:34
Also Bert remembers Erica very fondly and remembers Luca but
42:40
who is her son? But he was taken away to
42:42
England. Bert is Osgood's son and
42:45
Charles's nephew. He is taken to England and then
42:48
brought back at the start of the sort of this chapter.
42:52
So he doesn't remember. He doesn't know what happened to
42:54
Erica. And then the next kind of
42:55
section after that, it's like, open your eyes kind of thing.
42:59
And that's when Marianne's pocketing his letter and they
43:01
toast to all mankind. And that's kind of like the kind
43:06
of seems like the moral of the story that's previously told.
43:09
It's kind of like we want this to be good for everyone.
43:12
Yeah. And then it makes me think, is
43:16
Marianne Lynch a good guy? Is he actually?
43:25
It's to me, I I read that as he was radicalizing Lewin and he
43:34
was giving him a reason to support the rebellion because
43:39
Lewin at this point was leaving. He didn't want anything to do
43:42
with this. He was used as a pawn and he was
43:45
on his way out. But now it seems like, from my
43:49
understanding that he has shown him the entire life of a slave.
43:56
And now Lewin is on board for the revolution.
43:59
And it's like, yeah, I'll join. Now, also, up to this stage,
44:03
Marianne Lynch hasn't been involved in the revolution, from
44:06
our understanding. But if he's pocketing the
44:08
letter, that is clearly related to this in some way.
44:15
So is he a good guy? Like we know that he's
44:19
potentially saved Angel by sending him away.
44:25
In the last chapter he tried to send Flores away and Flores did
44:31
survive but obviously with some disfiguration.
44:39
I wonder if Jacques was a French spy.
44:45
Oh here, that's well, he was killed for a reason, but would
44:49
they have killed him for being a French guy or someone else have?
44:52
Do you think if Marion Lynch is thinking like 10 steps ahead, he
44:57
might have thought this is an easy way to get rid of him and
45:01
it benefits what the group needed at that stage?
45:05
Yeah. And, and we did have some kind
45:09
of slight indication that, uh, Shaq knew more than he was
45:15
letting on. And we know from the very start
45:20
that they're very conscious that there's French spies.
45:23
Yeah, yeah, that's and yeah, that's something I never thought
45:29
of, but yeah, there's probably something to that.
45:31
I wonder. Yeah, I'm wondering like, yeah,
45:36
yeah, I think we'll need to read the next chapter and like, be
45:39
able to try and put all these strands together, like.
45:42
Yes, connect it all. Connect everything, like go
45:45
through each character and be like where did they go?
45:47
What happened with them? What's going on?
45:49
Well, yes, why? Why did everything happen?
45:51
So I just want to reference the class system.
45:55
A lot of this chapter seems to revolve around the classes way
46:01
more than the previous two chapters.
46:04
So this one you have at the top, you have the Benjamins and the
46:07
Dockies and then basically everyone else is below that.
46:12
And but it all seems to be revolving around class like the
46:15
revolution seems to be. So everyone can be equal, even
46:20
though that's not necessarily how things are going to turn
46:23
out. But I just think that that's an
46:25
interesting theme throughout this.
46:29
This chapter continues with the the trend of mothers and women.
46:34
Again, women aren't particularly well developed in this, but they
46:38
are more than in the previous chapters.
46:42
Isa is really the only character that we properly get to follow
46:46
here. That's a woman.
46:50
But Mothers continues to be a trench.
46:52
You've got Mama Dearest for the Benjamins.
46:57
You have the mother of Cricklow's child.
47:01
You have Isa looking for. She's going to take a baby
47:07
monkey from the Mothers. Well, there's Erica and Luca.
47:11
And then whenever Fuchs is dying, he sees his mother.
47:15
Yeah, it just. Continues.
47:17
And we know Fuchs obviously has trauma with his mother.
47:20
Then we kind of have a little bit of a trend or an upset to
47:25
the trend of timelessness. So in the previous two chapters,
47:28
that was a trend with Angel losing time because of his
47:31
sickness and Flora is losing time because of his drinking.
47:37
This chapter seems we don't have that as much.
47:42
And one of the things that I noticed is anywhere that the
47:45
Benjamins are, there seems to be clocks.
47:48
That is so interesting. I would never picked up on
47:51
something, but that is. Yeah, that's so interesting.
47:54
Well, in land Chuck had mentioned when he wanted to buy
47:59
this town, he said, oh, we can put a clock here.
48:03
Yeah, I think he needs to be home on time for his mum as
48:05
well. Yes.
48:07
They seem to be the only characters that that go by time.
48:10
That's very true. That is so true.
48:13
But we do have one character who does seem to have missing time,
48:17
and that is Lewin. Definitely.
48:19
Whenever he gets trapped in the boat, confined to his quarters
48:24
on the Jolly Jenkins, he doesn't know.
48:28
His watch stops working. He's thinking, oh, this must be
48:32
day three, but he's not sure because he doesn't know.
48:35
There's no window so he can't see daylight, and it's only if
48:39
he looks underneath the door whether or not he can see if
48:42
it's daytime or not. I do love how Ocean Fagan uses
48:46
like time he's and it's throughout the whole thing.
48:49
It's like, yeah, as you said, the Benjamins seem to be the
48:52
only people that are like. And the Dockies.
48:54
The Dockies, because whenever Isa is going out outside in the
48:59
very start of this chapter, she passes a grandfather clock.
49:03
You have pointed this out to me. There's an entire part where.
49:06
Can I just say, can I point out at this point that the only
49:09
reason I just read about a butterfly, like the first
49:12
sentence about a butterfly, obviously didn't remember it
49:14
from my first reading because I don't pick up on those things.
49:16
But I was like, as a joke, I sent it to you, right?
49:21
I was like, because obviously Aaron's going to immediately be
49:24
like this butterfly is everything.
49:29
You messaged me back going I think it's Jack Jacques spirit
49:33
and I genuinely don't know if you're joking or not.
49:37
No, I'm not joking. I actually.
49:39
How have you got this? Because I was like, after I read
49:42
this, I knew you were further on the book than me.
49:44
I was like, I was like really reading into this butterfly
49:47
going how could this possibly, how is he possibly going to do
49:50
this? And I was like, he must be
49:51
making fun of me. Was the butterfly with Verato?
49:55
What's? The.
49:56
Slave's name Verato. When he was going to die and he
49:59
was joining nighttime, was it almost like the butterfly was
50:06
assisting him to travel from the land of the living to the land
50:10
of the dead? Much like if you're saying that
50:13
the butterfly leaves just before they get to the river, it could
50:16
be Marianne Lynch it. Could be Marianne Lynch if he's
50:20
a puka and he can transform into different creatures.
50:25
No, but he's also be, he's also like a kind of Karen figure
50:29
here. He's the ferryman.
50:32
Oh yes, yes, yes, but, but maybe, maybe the butterfly is
50:35
Marianne Lynch, and that's how he's keeping an eye on the
50:39
revolution. I reckon if Austin Fegan
50:42
actually does listen to this, he's like, what the hell is
50:44
wrong with these two people? Like I just wrote a butterfly.
50:47
Just another thing that I wanted to get to is families.
50:52
There's a lot of this chapter revolves heavily around
50:56
families. You have the Benjamin family,
50:58
and they have integrated Lee into their family, almost like a
51:04
son. Then you have Issa, who has lost
51:07
all connections to her family. She's been integrated into the
51:11
Dalkey family, but even then she doesn't feel like she's
51:14
necessarily one of them. Then we have Max, the French
51:19
fellow, and he refers to everyone in the rebellion as his
51:23
brother. And then you have Bert, who is a
51:27
member of the Benjamins, but he doesn't identify with any of
51:32
them. He sees Luca as his family more
51:36
than the actual Benjamin, so he sees the slave boy that he was
51:40
raised with as more family than anyone else.
51:43
Starvation and thirst seems to have been a really big trend
51:47
throughout this. You had mentioned before that
51:49
Birch was on a diet. We also get a reference to the
51:53
fact that the history are filling in the blanks of Isa's
51:57
past and she had to fast during that uh ceremony or on the run
52:05
off to the the maturation ceremony.
52:08
And then we have Lewin. When he was on the Jolly
52:11
Jenkins, he was extremely thirsty and kept begging for a
52:16
drink. Umm, sorry, when we're on this,
52:19
a recipe you should have done was fried chicken.
52:21
There's so much fried chicken. They do eat fried chicken.
52:25
Oh it's disgusting. As someone who doesn't eat
52:28
chicken, I would eat that spit cake before I would eat what
52:31
they're describing as eating. There's so many graphic
52:34
depictions of chickens in this book.
52:37
I think you should get a full chicken and cook it.
52:41
Well, keep an eye out on our social media.
52:43
I might be coming to you with an entire fried chicken.
52:48
I wonder if chickens. Sorry, now that you just
52:52
mentioned chickens, they're flightless birds, so they're
52:55
kind of trapped in this location.
52:57
Is that almost like all of these characters?
53:01
You have the slaves that are brought over and they're
53:04
trapped. They they don't have freedom.
53:06
You have the native people who don't have freedom.
53:09
And even the likes of Angel, whenever he arrived to the
53:12
Americas, he wanted to leave. But he's trapped.
53:15
There's no way for him to leave. Well, I think there's a lot of
53:18
stuff about birds through throughout the whole thing.
53:20
And this is something that I remember making fun of you again
53:23
at the start of the first one just being like, why is he
53:25
always finding something that I have not found anything.
53:27
But there's still, and there's also stuff about eyes quite
53:30
frequently through it. And the birds in the eyes did
53:33
meet with the eyeless bird that Osgood has that.
53:36
He in the signet ring. Yeah, that we haven't kind of
53:39
worked out what kind of bird it is, but like it's so
53:43
interesting. Like all that stuff is like
53:45
stuff that I'm actually paying attention to now.
53:46
Languages. A language is used very
53:49
interestingly here because you have, as as we had discussed,
53:54
Maxim seems to purposefully weaponize his lack of the
53:58
English language. And and then we have Isa, who
54:02
has lost touch with her own language, and Abel speaks to her
54:09
and she understands it, but she can't speak back to him.
54:14
And she has a secret language that she has developed with, uh,
54:19
with Lee. That that's such a colony like
54:22
thing about, you know, the idea that very quickly Isa doesn't
54:26
know her, her original language. I mean like, like Austin Fagan's
54:29
Irish, and that's such a big thing even nowadays in Ireland
54:32
is like the idea that nobody knows their own language.
54:35
So do you want to quickly just talk about these foreshadowing
54:39
Easter eggs and references? Yeah, um, so I'm going to, we've
54:43
already kind of talked about the theater and the players again.
54:45
This chapter starts with a dream like the previous chapters,
54:48
which is interesting. Also kind of that blending of
54:51
dream and reality. In chapter 2, when Flores and
54:56
ESA leave the town after it's ransacked, they walk into a
55:00
circular clearing that has black reflective stones, and that's
55:05
where they meet Lee and the Benjamins and all these Chinese
55:10
workers as they're heading to the town.
55:13
In this chapter, I believe it's Lee who is training up 16
55:20
soldiers at how to fight for this upcoming revolution, and he
55:25
does it in a clearing with reflective black stones.
55:31
Oh, I did not. I did not get that.
55:33
That's so interesting. There's something that happens
55:35
in this book where there's a bunch of Native Americans are
55:39
bringing a lot of cattle. There's like red steers across
55:42
the town. Leon bumps into them and there's
55:45
a coy that tries to like charge him but is sent back by the the
55:51
the the natives and I think that's a bit of foreshadowing.
55:55
Just another reference to cows and living.
55:58
I think when he arrives at the Benjamin Hotel and all the
56:02
artwork in the hotel is of cows. Yeah.
56:06
So this chapter really reminded me of Les Miserables, the
56:12
ensemble cast, the work toward a revolution, the love triangle,
56:17
the class systems. There was just so many points
56:21
that I I was convinced, like I I couldn't stop but thinking that
56:27
that it was very reflective. And I don't know if Austin was
56:30
inspired by them is when writing this particular chapter, but I
56:36
couldn't help but constantly draw connections between the
56:41
plot lines in that and the plot lines in this chapter.
56:44
Thematically there's a lot of similarities and yeah, it's a
56:47
big cast and also that part of the book, it all of a sudden
56:51
changes the cast because it's like 8 years in the future from
56:53
then or some amount of years in the future.
56:56
So there are definitely similarities and also the Tenard
57:00
Tenardies who are like the kind of middle class to working class
57:05
ones. They at the end when they get
57:08
money from Marius, there's only two of them left.
57:12
They go to the new world and have slaves.
57:17
I think it's very specifically said that they get slaves.
57:19
I love this chapter. I think this chapter is amazing
57:22
and and it's made me really want to read the next chapter.
57:25
Like I'll probably read the next chapter really quickly.
57:27
Yeah, this is a 5 star for me 100%.
57:30
Yeah, yeah, this is definitely a five star and I think this is my
57:33
favorite chapter so far. It redeemed itself after Land.
57:37
Not that land was a disappointment, but it it wasn't
57:40
for me. A five star.
57:42
This is a 5 star. Yeah, definitely.
57:45
So read along and share your thoughts on Instagram at Bookies
57:48
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57:51
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57:56
each week until we finish the five chapters of Eden Shore.
57:59
Remember to send us your thoughts and questions for the
58:02
author, Austin today. Next week we'll be discussing
58:05
Part 2, Chapter 4 Play. Subscribe on whatever podcast
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58:21
from Colony. If the era rages, then rage is
58:25
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58:28
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