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Title: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander ISBN: 0-670-03133-X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 15 September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.32 (44 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
Comment: Countless rebellions have taken place since Fletcher Christian overtook Captain William Bligh in 1789, but it is the story of the mutiny on the Bounty that has taken permanent hold of the public's imagination, to be played and replayed on stage and screen. Why this is so is amply demonstrated by Alexander's ( The Endurance, 1998) fast-reading and gripping narrative, which draws on a host of primary-source materials, including letters, diaries, logs, and court transcripts, to provide an in-depth, well-researched look at all the elements that went into the history-making event. From the overly cramped quarters of the ship to the enticing depiction of the generous and sensual Tahitians to Fletcher's elusive motivations, Alexander leaves no detail unexamined. She makes a convincing case that Bligh has been unjustly maligned, mainly due to the machinations of mutineer Peter Heywood, who escaped the hangman's noose at his court-martial but sought to deflect evidence of his central role by exaggerating accounts of Bligh's temper tantrums; furthermore, Alexander underlines Bligh's navigational skills with hair-raising descriptions of his 4,000-mile voyage in an overloaded open boat, which brought the loyalists to safety. Other narrative highlights include the discovery, after many years, of the mutineers' families on Pitcairn Island. A rollicking sea adventure told with enormous confidence and style.
Rating: 2
Summary: bligh should flog this book
Comment: Being a fan of the story of the mutiny on the Bounty, I was overjoyed that a book about the subject had come out. Little did I know, Caroline Alexander would tell the story as well as the actual voyage turned out- a disaster.
The book is plodding, slow, and incredibly tangental. Little time is spent on the actual mutiny or mutineer's motivations, instead focusing on the political ramifications of the peripheral characters. Pages upon pages are spent on the background of the family members of the mutineers, the mutineer's attorneys, and presiding judges of the court martial.
Even the description of what happened to Fletcher Christian and the mutineers on Pitcairn island is barely explained, and is often confusing. While trying to be objective, the author fails to speculate or theorize on some of the more interesting areas of the mutiny, principally, the real motivation of Fletcher Christian. The author's need to site actual passages from the court martial transcript, while well intentioned, goes awry. She fails to tone down or explain the confusing flowery language used by the 18th century sailors.
If you want to read a good book on the subject, read Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian by Richard Hough.
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!
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Title: Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen ISBN: 0066211735 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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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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Title: Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by ROBERT K. MASSIE ISBN: 0679456716 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 28 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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