This novel not only had the
best blog pitch I have ever read (shamefully, I have had it on my kindle since
December and have been remiss in writing this blog post ), it has the best
opening chapter of any book I can recall. Ever.
Reader, it is gripping.
It is subtitled The
Adventures of Peregrine James During the Second Circumnavigation of the World and
it takes those of us smitten with nautical lore to a time and tide oft
abandoned by novelists who would much rather pursue the great Napoleonic-era
vessels of the late 18th and early 19th Century.
Its freshness, its panache;
but also the skilled hand that leads us happily along are what solidified this
as the best nautical story I have read since I turned the last page of The
Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey by Patrick O'Brian near a
decade ago.
Let me start with the
opening chapter....A Fine Morning to be Whipped... and a fine chapter
to guide any of us who employ or passion for scribbling. We meet Perry
and we fall in love with him by the second sentence.
We are immediately thrust
into the time and circumstance that led him to his unfortunate whipping post as
the grey dankness of a November sky settles around him. In just a few
pages, Perry is given a reason to run off and join Drake, an entire backstory,
a well-rounded bout of characterization. You will love him.
I loved him immediately. If
this book had instead been Perry's Adventures on Land Escaping Whipping Posts,
you can bet I still would have read it.
Nonetheless, and fortunate
for those of us who enjoy a bit of the salty brine in our literary adventures,
we are given a first-class glimpse into life aboard an Elizabethan-Era vessel.
Hill has more than done his homework and descriptions such as the following
pepper the fast-flying pages:
At the stern, a half deck
and a poop deck were built above the main deck and on top of one another, so
that the rear of the ship rose higher than the forepart, something like the
posture of a cat crouching to strike. On the half deck I saw Drake, his fiery
hair unmistakeable, as was his pose of command.
While Cook's assistant Perry gets more than
his fair share of unintentional espionage ashore, it is his life and the
politics interred in the planks and shafts of the vessel that best caught my
imagination. To add, Hill's beautiful writing:
The ship shuddered like a
horse preparing to gallop and then surged forward as one sail after another was
set. I craned my neck and watched them swell with wind, a garden of strange and
beautiful flowers blooming in the moonlight. The highest sails, the
topsails, had square red crosses in their centres, but the lower ones, the main
courses, were plain white. Small dark blotches against the canvas were sailors
balancing on lines far above the deck.
Hill doesn't hold back with the similes which
spring the ship to life as a living, breathing entity and it is this reverence
for a vessel: suffused with the breath and palpitating pulse supplied by the
rigours and efforts of the men onboard
Peregrine’s adventures are a series of vignettes
---from land and at sea--- interspersed with historical trimmings and sewn up
together in great detail. Marooned,
kidnapped, on expeditions of espionage, for a lowly cook’s assistant, Perry is
given a fine taste of life at a time when politics and warfare interwoven to an
extent that test his conscience.
What struck me about Perry was how he was a
perfect counterbalance of light, hearty adventure, riddled with a wry wit and a
cunning way of capturing circumstance and a human who realizes his own misgivings
and shortcomings. At the death of a friend and comrade, Perry turns to
retrospection and consequently to moodiness. Perry is refreshingly human. To
recall O’Brian, I was most taken by his series because of the depth of
characterization. Here, I felt deeply for the characters ( even those in
periphery are well-painted) and the myriad of circumstances that bind them
together and rift them apart.
Hill’s grasp of dialogue and his apt attention
to infusing fictional banter with historical gravity (especially when it comes
to painting scenes from the history books with Frances Drake and Thomas Doughty
in play ) is wonderful.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough to
lovers of nautical fiction. Most know that I have waded through what seems an
endless array of nautical stories in hopes of recapturing the feeling and
essence that wafted from the pages of an O’Brian story--- often to no
avail. I cannot WAIT for the next
adventure to hit stores.
For those who are uninitiated to nautical
fiction; but are captivated by history ---there is enough in the pages of humour
and adventure to keep you engaged.
I would like to thank the author for the opportunity to review this book and offer a mea culpa for my tardiness in this post
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