One Big Damn Puzzler

I've read these critical reviews and I have to say that some have taken this book much too seriously. Someone accused the author of misogyny and others are saying it's a political statement hating on America... I don't see it that way at all. The women in Regency England had less power than these islanders...and the politics is largely backstory. The American stereotype is no secret; I was not offended.The protagonist is this endearing guy that just wants to help people on this island get reparation money. He gets to know them and they get to know him, and it is their mutual interest in each of the other's customs that has you reeling! By the end of the book this guy is completely integrated, whereas before, he thought his ways were superior. That's kind of a simplistic way to sum it up, but the less you know about the details of the book the more delighted you'll be by it. This book comes complete with a native trying to bring Shakespeare to the average islander, and I am telling you, I was tickled! I love Shakespeare. Snob that I am, I could not help but adore this book. You can't read it for too long without laughing out loud, which is one of my favorite things to do while reading! Harding crafts a vivid story; one that makes you feel like you've lived there a bit and know your way around. I felt like I was hiking with them in that jungle, like I was feeling the humidity and laughing at their jokes. I felt like those islanders were my friends...I can close my eyes right now and picture them. Even after finishing the book you keep it in that coveted space on the bedside table with the other well-loveds to be opened again and again because you want to go back there. The most critical review said something about the pidgin being horrible, but I respectfully suggest that it is supposed to be. IT IS A COMEDY. Just HILARIOUS. LOL!I found this book in the library; it was a random selection. People weren't making any book suggestions I liked so I took a chance...and I liked it so much, 1) I couldn't put it down, 2) I had to buy my own copy because I knew I wanted it at my disposal, and, 3) I immediately told any friend that would listen that they needed to read it. Life is too short not to visit fictitious worlds such as Harding's, that poke fun at civilization, 'wisdom,' ignorance, sexuality, and politics. There are enough ideas to keep a book club discussion going for quite some time (as you can imagine from the different reviews posted). The reviewer who couldn't finish the book needed to be reading non-fiction, probably, but for those adventurous enough to lose control in someone else's imagination and park pretension at the door, a highly enjoyable tale!! I loved my time on this island. ;)

I first read this book several years ago and the title was as I have titled my review; quite a lengthy one you will agree, so when I saw it with the shortened title I decided to purchase it to read again and to loan to my friends. It is a great read and quite 'different'; not sure what genre I would list it under. It has some quite serious issues but mostly is a very humerous read. I would recommend it highly

I fell in love with this book from the opening lines, as an inhabitant of the island transcribes Hamlet into patois. Despite the humour John Harding's message of the often negative influence western society and money have on other ways of life comes through clearly.

I had a lot of fun reading this book. I laughed as I went thru its pages. The story also conveys its message, mostly on the effects of civilization and human behaviour. I totally recommend this book.

Another great read -- funny throughout.

I thought this book would be extremely witty but I didn't find it so. It was marred by coarseness, which I felt didn't have a place in the whimsical style it pretended to. The story sounded engaging but in the end I couldn't finish it as it didn't grab my interest.

Had to purchase this for a class and I really enjoyed reading it. I kept this one for my book shelf.

This was a great book to read over a few rainy days as it's quite big and the narrative flows beautifully. It's a very well told story, of an unusual nature. It's set on a small Pacific Island where the native people have had brief contact with the outside world but have maintained a firm grasp of their indigenous ways.Americans came by after the war, used the island as a weapons testing site and left it full of land mines.The British came later to build resorts for cruise ships but left buildings half finished and in a derelict state, and no cruise ships ever came.THEN one day an American lawyer arrives. Eventually he reveals he is there to seek compensation on their behalf for the loss of limbs and lives caused by the mines that the Americans left behind.As he discovers the island and tries to understand the indigenous culture, we observe with him. We also have William tell us about his past and his struggles growing up with OCD and as an adult making his way in life with this disorder.In between chapters we have Managua's side of the story. He's an elder in the tribe, translating Hamlet into pidgin English and struggling with Shakespearean concepts and how they fit into the culture of his tribe. He opposes the idea of the west coming to the island and changing their way of life. He wrestles with concepts and is the voice of caution in his community.There is a nice interval at the end where we revisit the island one year after William's initial visit and then five years after that.In this story there is ample discussion of issues current to our times but put in a context we can distance ourselves from and therefore take a more pragmatic view of topics like globalisation, cultural identity, mental disorders, gender issues....All together this becomes an interesting and entertaining read and another great example of John Harding’s great skill as a story teller.

Love, loss, Shakespeare, anthropology, subterfuge, globalism, language, obsessive-compulsive disorder and cheerful communal defecation - really, does a book need anything more? Having just finished One Big Damn Puzzler, a novel by John Harding in which a remote South Pacific island plays host to an uptight American lawyer intent on righting the past wrongs of his countrymen, I'm inclined to say not. It's common for hyperbolic reviews to claim a book 'will make you laugh and cry', but One Big Damn Puzzler did absolutely that, and sometimes in the most unexpected of ways.The title comes from Hamlet, of course. If you don't remember Shakespeare writing that line, that's because this Hamlet has been translated into the local pidgin English by Managua, the enigmatic tribesman whose literacy (and cunning) gives him the edge over his fellow islanders. The startling ways in which the islanders use their form of English to render certain concepts is often played for laughs, although never in a way that patronises the speakers; often, it's the islanders' language itself that seems to draw us into the book and creates the world in which the events take place - rather as Florence's idiolect did in the last of Harding's novels that I read, Florence & Giles. The vivid simplicity of their language, and the way that words are turned about to give them a whole new perspective, seems to echo the islanders' lives and beliefs: sometimes familiar, sometimes incomprehensible, and sometimes simply working to a different, but entirely valid, logic.William Hardt, the fastidious, wary but ultimately well-meaning lawyer who inadvertently shakes up the status quo, is at first baffled and frustrated by the islanders' firm belief in magic, as most of us would be, and yet his OCD behaviours are simply a set of private magic rituals of his own. Similarly, his taboos are really no more rational than those of the islanders, who believe you can sleep with pretty much whoever you like before you're married, but sharing a meal in a partner's house is a dangerous no-no. The way that William gradually comes to value the island, its people and its culture is touching and convincing, albeit ultimately bittersweet: One Big Damn Puzzler is often moving, but it's never sentimental, and there's often a sting in its tail.Full of echoes of Shakespeare - boys dressed as girls are a recurring theme, for instance, and sometimes even boys dressed as girls dressed as boys, as are ghostly fathers and comic love spells - One Big Damn Puzzler is a rich and multi-layered novel full of endearing, larger-than-life characters, many of whom I'm sure will stay with me for a long, long time. This book had me weeping like a baby at a scene in which a pidgin-speaking Hamlet addresses the exhumed skull of his late 'she-boy' admirer, such is the author's skill in making us absolutely a part of the islanders' topsy-turvy world. I would heartily recommend it.

I remember reading an article in The Guardian recently about books that make you laugh out loud. I would add One Big Damn Puzzler to that list, I'm a big fan of PG Wodehouse and parts of this book reminded me of some of Plum's farcical plots - there is even a pig! There is a deeper, more bittersweet side to the story too though, if you have a dry eye after reading the islanders' version of the Yorick scene in Hamlet then you're made of sterner stuff then I am.It's a book that owes as much to The Tempest as to Hamlet and references other Shakespeare plays too but if you're not a fan of the Bard don't let that put you off. The memorable characters, humour and compassion combine into a delight of a book I highly recommend.

I loved this book. as a cultural anthropologist, I have spent a lot of time reading the famous debates about different cultural models of conception and this book really uses those debates to great effect. I loved the way the book integrates credible ethnographic description with a very entertaining and well written story. The hero is delightfully flawed and easy to dislike at times, but Harding does a great job of making him ultimately redeemable. The part of the story which deals with the main character's psychological issues is also extremely well done. I know we're not supposed to laugh at mental ill health, but Harding manages to convey both the real tragedy of obsessive compulsive disorder with side splittingly funny accounts of what happens when you try to pack a house full of conflicting OCD sufferers for an extended period of time.I can't praise this book enough. It was one of the most intelligent and funny books I've read in years.

Love this book Touching on themes of transgender, love and westernisation of people to name a few. Read for laughter, poignancy and inevitable modernisation

This book starts well but has tedious longeurs which prevent you getting caught up in it. Long descriptions of OCD are tedious and one is not sure if the author is drawing parallels between OCD and strange native customs. The humour derived from an attempt by a native islander to translate Shakespeare into his language is lost in a polemic about the perils of modern life.