The Enchanted Island of Mamago by Joel McCaw

If you go on a journey to “The Enchanted Island of Mamago” by Joel McCaw, be prepared for rough seas, laughter-filled gales, and a few rocky passages where the ship almost runs aground. It is an adventure with strange people and eccentric plot lines that is wrapped in a thrilling but utterly absurd journey.

The real Mamago, whether enchanted or not, is actually a chain of islands off the coast of western South America, somewhere in the far vicinity of the Galapagos. The main conflict centres on a fierce contest between biologists on surrounding islands over who will inherit a valuable collection of rare butterflies.

Children of the late collector, Emory and Evangeline Bryce, travel by slow boat to see the competing facilities and choose which should be included to their father’s collection. Following the Bryce siblings’ travels through a shipwreck, an attempted coup, the capture of a priceless sea turtle, a discussion about the legacy of Charles Darwin, and countless more follies and disasters, the story then careens off course.

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I’d describe McCaw’s writing as Gothic slapstick in terms of style. In a sardonic parody of romanticism, he depicts vast subjects like nature, sea trips, and falling in love. When the author’s purposefully overdone grandiloquence sets up a whopper of a punch line, as it does most of the time, it is extremely enjoyable.

Unfortunately, the third-person narrator does more than just relate the story; it also inserts itself into the prose by making a number of unnecessary comments. In the best case scenario, an omniscient narrator who teases readers with obtrusive comments like “as you will see later” and “Well, you get the idea” comes off as redundant or distracting, and in the worst case scenario, downright unpleasant.

Full-throttle burlesque is combined with just the right amount of satire and inside jokes in “The Enchanted Island of Mamago” to keep intelligent readers interested. Every few pages, a fresh hilarious absurdity or wild plot deviation is introduced. Its breakneck pace makes for a dizzying narrative that can be confusing, and although there are occasional clunkers among the jokes, the overall laugh per page ratio is quite high.

About The Book

Being the Perils and Adventures of a Young Butterfly Collector in the Land of Darwin. A loopy, larky, action adventure, romantic comedy, set in what the Spanish conquistadors called, Las Islas Encantadas, the enchanted islands.

They believed that they materialized out of the mist, or rose up from the sea in response to some ungodly force which caused them to appear in unexpected places. So, it is not surprising that Captain Sarly Manner of the MS.

Southern Comet came upon one as suddenly as he did in the Southern Pacific one dark and stormy night, when his ship ran aground on the Mamago Island off the coast of South America in the vicinity of the state of Urador.