Alyssa Gillespie


A Review of Pete Hay's Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul

 

Pete Hay
Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul
Walleah Press, Tasmania
175 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-877010-92-7
Available through:
Walleah Press
Booktopia
Book Depository

Discovering the soul of something can be as elusive as the wind. Still, Pete Hay searches and catalogues his journey as he does so in his collection of essays Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul. This collection embodies the interdisciplinary approach so favoured by Hay as he looks at an island, Tasmania, through lenses of science, politics, artistry, experience, and heritage. Recurring throughout this collection is the importance of placemaking, not being born to a land but committing to it and following through on the duty of care that commitment entails. Hay’s concept of commitment brings forth a second recurring theme, that of environmentalism. With a delightful array of themes, topics, and narrative tones this collection marries the scholarly with the personal to deliver bite sized essays.

Over the span of twenty-three essays, Hay looks to a variety of subjects with varying aims. The collection blends together personal and observational essays with academic essays addressing capitalism, politics, and environmentalism, and short essays that draw attention to the importance of art. Each essay is a smaller part which comprises a larger image. This larger image portrays the power of the people of Tasmania and their capacity for resistance. Reading Hay’s insights presents an opportunity to reflect on the hierarchy of society by drawing the reader's attention to the absoluteness of science, despite it being a web of variations per brand of science, and problematizing the concept of public interest. The contents of this collection are thought provoking and poetic with enough candidness to make the experience pleasurable and readable.

What makes Forgotten Corners an engaging collection is the palpable passion and humour that Hay expertly laces through each of his essays. His fervor for the island and the microworlds that exist within the forests of Tasmania comes through in most all of the essays included in this collection. His desire to see these spaces and places acknowledged and preserved can be found in “Defending the Wild Lands,” “The Breath of Vast Time,” and “On Albatross Island - Science and Myth.” His comedic capabilities are especially evident in his tales of his time spent as a young labourer in “What I Did on My Holidays,” his remembrances of his dogs in “Murphy versus Descartes - Domum Invenio, Ergo Sum,” and while recounting the time he spent working with Matthew Newton in “Art in the Forgotten Corners - The Photojournalism of Matthew Newton.” This passion and humour combine together to create a spellbinding collection that confronts the complexities of environmentalism on a political island while capturing the necessity to care despite this.

The lack of singular focus is both a strength and shortcoming of this collection. The diversity of the essays makes for a captivating reading experience that allows readers to peruse the collection in any order they desire. Despite this freedom, the essays sometimes come across as disjointed due to the lack of thematic connection. An example of this is the closing essay “Books Are the New Zucchini.” Despite this essay being an appealing and humorous read, it stood as an outlier among the other more environmentally focused essays. However, whether or not collections of this nature should be or need to be threaded together is a matter of personal opinion, making this perhaps more of a trivial shortcoming than a detrimental one.

Overall, Hay highlights the ways in which one can engage with the soul of an island. Through art, through activism, or through the people, just to name a few. This collection is an excellent read for scholars of island studies, budding activists of all academic backgrounds, or any person who cares about islands. Each essay stands on its own as a succinct testament to Hay’s experiences. While knowing the soul of an island may not be entirely achievable, as islands are continuously changing settings, searching for the soul is an enlightening and prosperous journey that each islander confronts in their own way on their own terms.

Alyssa M. J. Gillespie is a born and raised P.E.Islander with an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and English from the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI). As a Master of Arts in Island Studies thesis student, she is applying her degree to the study of rural youth on Prince Edward Island and their migratory habits. When not researching her thesis, you can find her writing poetry or working with the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies.

 
 

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