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Title: The Bounty: The True Story of the mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander ISBN: 0-14-200469-3 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 25 May, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (45 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Enthralling, Exciting (4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5)
Comment: "The Bounty" is a well-researched piece of history that translates into an exciting and enthralling story. Alexander delves into the facts and the myths of the famous "mutiny on the bounty."
For those not familiar with the story: in the 1790's a british ship, captained by a William Bligh, was seized by its crew led by a Fletcher Christian. Bligh and some crew numbers were cast overboard in a small craft in the middle of the South Seas, basically left to die. Amazingly, they survived and made it to mainland. Christian and company returned to the paradise of Tahiti. Some crew members stayed there (and were eventually captured and brought back to England for court martial) while Christian and company (with the addition of some beautiful Tahitian women)sailed on to Pitcairn Island.
History and Hollywood have embellished the story: Bligh was pure evil, Christian pure nobility. The crew wanted to return to Tahiti where they had found true love.
Alexander debunks most myths. Bligh certainly was tough; however, no more so than most captains of his era. Christian was impetuous, likely borderline mad, and had been drinking heavily the night before the mutiny. Most interesting, Christian's family--and that of a fellow mutineer and Christian relative Peter Heywood-spent a tremendous amount of time and resources in the future decades defending their relatives' reputations and reshaping the story into the present day myth. (They were then helped by Hollywood.)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Alexander captured the tension of the mutiny and subsequent court martials brilliantly. I feel (like other reviewers) that she had a bit of bias towards Bligh (thus the four stars) and I almost wish she had just written it from his perspective.
Still I would recommend this book to those who love historical stories, seafaring books (e.g., "Master and Commander") and just plain old good yarns.
Rating: 5
Summary: A superbly well written adventure
Comment: Caroline Alexander takes a story you perhaps thought you knew-the 1789 mutiny on board the HMS Bounty-and says something new about it, in a style that is both economical, elegant, and exciting. In a first chapter that is a masterpiece of simple story-telling, she structures the fantastic story: "Captain" William Bligh (in fact, he was only a lieutenant) commanded the HMS Bounty to Tahiti, suffered the mutiny of part of his crew, and navigated a simple row-boat across many thousands of miles of the Pacific to be rescued. A second voyage, undertaken by the HMS Pandora, discovered many mutineers on a distant island, taking them into custody, only to be broken up in a terrible storm, its survivors (crew and prisoners) enduring a second open-boat voyage to safety. On return to England a length court-martial condemned many of the mutineers to death, but left unscathed young Peter Heywood, convicted but later pardoned.
The traditional view of things (i.e. the one you 'know' from the movie versions) has Bligh as a torturer, the famous Fletcher Christian as a defender of the ordinary sailor's rights, and Heywood as an innocent bystander. Through careful reading of seemingly every contemporary document-including every bit of the trial transcripts-Alexander subverts the story to one of privilege rebelling against authority: whereas Bligh came from a family of extremely modest means, Christian and Heywood both came from old and well-connected families who, after the courtmartial, ensured their own good names by besmirching Bligh's.
This is not sensational journalism but careful scholarship, and even if you don't agree with Alexander's 'take' on the subject, you will enjoy hearing the sailor's own first-person narratives, as well as Alexander's careful reconstruction of what actually occurred.
This book was nominated for the National Book Critic's Circle award for non-fiction; it was richly deserved. "HMS Bounty" receives my highest endorsement as well!
Rating: 4
Summary: Tale of the Bounty, and of how the legend came to be
Comment: Caroline Alexander has written an interesting exploration of the mutiny aboard the Bounty, and then, how the legend of the Bounty which has Bligh as a villain and Fletcher Christian as a hero came to be.
Alexander is at her strongest when discussing Bligh. She gives us a coherent tale of the man, prior to the Bounty, during the voyage, and afterwards. It is interesting to note the legend of the Bounty becoming established during Bligh's own lifetime, and Bligh's dismissive reaction to that. Perhaps more could have been written concerning the second mutiny against Bligh, twenty years after the first, in Australia. Alexander contents herself with a short defense of Bligh (whom she clearly admires, and in the text devotes herself to his defense)
The lengthy description of the court martial of the captured Bounty crew members is another highlight of the book, which is worth reading just for that.
Also interesting is the attention devoted to Peter Heyward, a poor relation of several naval families who is convicted in the court martial but is later pardoned and goes on to a successful naval career. Alexander tries very hard to make a connection between Hayward's family connections and the pardon, but the sources are just not there for her. Heyward, interestingly, was also seen as a key character by Nordhoff and Hall, writers of the book "Mutiny on the Bounty", who made the character based on Hayward (Roger Byam) the central character of that book.
While the book tells how the Bounty legend began, a chapter continuing past the deaths of the last of the Bounty crew (which ends the book) and showing how the legend reached its present state, with the Nordhoff and Hall trilogy and the several movies, would have been helpful. Greater discussion of the voyage of the mutineers on the Bounty and their lives on Pitcairn Island would also have been good--it receives scanty coverage as is (though Alexander paints a fascinating picture of the efforts to obtain information from Alexander Smith, last of the mutineers on Pitcairn).
Good reading. Recommended.
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Title: Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick ISBN: 067003231X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 10 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester ISBN: 0066212855 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Endurance : Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander ISBN: 0375404031 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 03 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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