‘Mr Pip’ is set in the island of Bougainville, part of Papua New Guinea, during the civil war of the 1980s. Mr Watts is the only white person in the district, an eccentric but likeable man married to Grace, one of the island’s previous top students whom he met in Australia. He takes on the role of teacher to the children of the district. The story is related by Matilda, a fourteen-year-old, who in her turn is one of Mr Watts’ top students.

Mr Watts uses ‘Great Expectations’ as an introduction to literature and language, and more; the whole book uses it as a theme, and Matilda becomes more and more involved with the person of Pip who stars in the story.

I certainly learned something about this island and its people, and some of the horrors of the war. But it was written in the kind of style that entirely failed to move me, even when it was shocking towards the end.

I suspect I don’t really get ‘literary fiction’: this book has been highly acclaimed and was on the Man Booker prize shortlist. Possibly because it is undoubtedly original. However the characterisation and descriptions were rather flat, and the ending tried to tie up a lot of ends in a somewhat implausible way.

I was lent the book, and am glad I read it; but it’s not really my kind of book.