Title: Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters Author: Philip Eade
Published: June 3, 2014
Genre(s): Nonfiction
Page Count: 384
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Sylvia Brooke was one of the more exotic and outrageous figures of the twentieth century. Otherwise known as the Ranee of Sarawak, she was the wife of Sir Vyner Brooke, the last White Rajah, whose family had ruled the jungle kingdom of Sarawak on Borneo for three generations. They had their own flag, revenue, postage stamps, and money, as well as the power of life and death over their subjects—Malays, Chinese, and headhunting Dyak tribesmen. The regime of the White Rajahs was long romanticized, but by the 1930s, their power and prestige were crumbling. At the center of Sarawak's decadence was Sylvia, author of eleven books, mother to three daughters, an extravagantly dressed socialite whose behavior often offended and usually defied social convention. Sylvia did her best to manipulate the line of succession in favor of her daughters, but by 1946, Japan had invaded Sarawak, sending Sylvia and her husband into exile, ending one of the more unusual chapters of British colonial rule.
Because Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters got off to such a rough start, it was perhaps 100 pages before I really began to get into the hang of things. While Philip Eade has evidently done copious amounts of research, he included far too many irrelevant details in the beginning of it—“setting the groundwork” I’m sure, but not in a way that was especially necessary. This biography, then, was interesting some of the time, but far from a captivating piece of work. It’s hard to put my finger on things exactly, but it seemed like the author focused on the wrong things about the Ranee Sylvia’s life.
Prior to reading this, I had never heard of Ranee Sylvia, or the 3 generations of white Englishmen that ruled over the Raj of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. I feel like in its jacket copy, Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters is made to sound a lot more exciting than it really is. Because in spite of the promise of good material, this book was, by and large, rather dull.
It’s not that Ranee Sylvia didn’t do anything of interest—she did. But Eade’s presentation was not engaging, and oftentimes he focused far too much on things that weren’t strictly important when speaking only of Sylvia’s life. And in spite of the copious number of extant letters and journals that are available, I had no real sense of who this woman was. “Eccentric”, sure, but what? A good biography shouldn’t just relate facts in a dry, unenthusiastic manner; I need more than that. And though the life of this historical figure isn’t, probably, as strictly exciting or adventurous as publicists would have had me believe, there was no reason for it to be so dull.
Beyond that, I confess that I didn’t much care for Philip Eade’s authorial presence, which was very evident in the text. While I admit that it’s impossible to write completely without bias, the author seemed to be extremely cautious to only show Sylvia in as undamaging light as possible. He never really delved into the problematic nature of the governance of Sarawak in the first place, though he spent countless pages discussing small governing crisis. Considering that the rule of Sarawak was “given” to the Englishmen because the local Malays were “too incompetent” to rule themselves, it would seem like at least some discussion of British imperialism would be appropriate. It was very expertly avoided, however. To my dismay, even, Eade speaks in a very pro-imperialist tone in the epilogue of the book, dismissing the modern governance of Sarawak with something that read suspiciously like disgusted condescension. And though Eade is certainly entitled to that viewpoint (and, from conversations with my modern Malaysian friends, I know that the state of the Malaysian government is hardly excellent), I hardly like him for it all the same. Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters adopts a very blatant tone in support of white colonialism and right of conquest, and for me it was very off-putting. I also don’t like the fact that I know more about the author’s ideals than I do about Ranee Sylvia’s.
I must confess to not being particularly impressed with this. It’s very dry and takes a rather long time to get anywhere that even vaguely interesting. Philip Eade’s research is good, but his distant and clearly one-sided delivery left much to be desired. Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters hardly lives up to its promise, and aside from a highly interesting anecdote about Errol Flynn, I do not consider myself to be much improved by the reading of this book.
