Abstract
Over the past couple of decades, island geographies has become a firmly established field of research within the discipline of geography. This is in part due to the growing range of innovative contributions (literary, conceptual, empirical, ethnographic) that engage, and increasingly challenge, traditional Western and colonial perspectives of the insular and isolated island, as was previously figured in such classics as Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, the Island of Doctor Moreau and the Blue Lagoon. Today, contemporary engagements with island and archipelagic studies often interrogate – but also move beyond – figures of insularity, towards how islands are implicated in dynamically shifting relations of island, ocean, ship and other things. Here, island scholars – including Elaine Stratford, Godfrey Baldacchino, Liz DeLoughrey, Phil Hayward, Alison Mountz, Adam Grydehoj, Elizabeth McMahon, Jonathan Rankin, Johnny Riquet, myself and many others – have sought to think relationally about islands. We have also engaged with the ‘oceanic turn’ that is similarly challenging continental and land-locked geographies, as has been developed by geographers such as Phil Steinberg, Andy Davies, Jon Anderson and Kim Peters.
Island studies, then, is very much an active and dynamically growing field of research. Yet, even as a wide range of critical tools are now emerging, the relationship between islands and popular fiction has not been subjected to any detailed or systematic analysis. I am pleased to say that Island Genres, Genre Islands more than fulfils the task. Published in the innovative Rethinking the Island Series (edited by Elaine Stratford, Godfrey Baldacchino and Elizabeth McMahon), a key argument of this book is that island studies cannot be separated from a concern with the textual life of islands. As such, there is a need to further expand our understanding of this textual life beyond the confines of high culture (studying Agatha Christie as well as Shakespeare, James Bond as well as Édouard Glissant).The central argument is that ‘thinking about islands can help us better understand popular genres and reading genre novels can help us rethink islands’ (p. xvi).
Structurally, Island Genres, Genre Islands considers four key popular genres – crime fiction, thrillers, popular romance fiction and fantasy fiction – from the perspective of island (literary) studies. Each part has an opening chapter that foregrounds how islands function in that genre, followed by detailed analyses of books from within that genre. Part I ‘Island Crime, Crime Islands’ examines how in crime fiction islands tend to function as isolated and bounded, and as sites for murders and investigations (such as in writings by Agatha Christie and G.W. Kent). Part II ‘Island Thrillers, Thriller Islands’ explores the question of real-and-imagined island geographies (Ian Fleming’s James Bond and Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt Adventures). Part III ‘Island Romance, Romance Islands’ examines the positive romance of islands, while Part IV ‘Island Fantasy, Fantasy Islands’ interestingly unpacks the literary cartography of islands, where it is revealed how no islands are isolated entirely, but are rather associated with relational, archipelagic and oceanic forces (Ursula K. Le Guin’s archipelago fantasy Earthsea).
Given what I said earlier about the recent relational turn in island studies, perhaps it is inevitable that I was drawn to the final part of the book (Part IV), because Crane and Fletcher note that while an increasing number of geographers have only recently begun to unpack the relational and archipelagic nature of island life, ‘fantasy fiction has been thinking with the archipelago for decades’ (p. 153). This really got me thinking, and I found myself in agreement. After reading Island Genres, Genre Islands, I am inspired to think more about popular fiction’s relationship to these wider debates presently taking place in geography.