The world of wooden sailing ships in the early 19th Century is small indeed as we meet many familiar names: Bligh, Joseph Banks, and Captain Cook. No doubt can exist about the authors' nautical credentials which breath salt air into these stories and made them best sellers in the 30s. POB readers will find the shipboard details comfortable.
What's kept the story of the Bounty alive in fiction, non-fiction, and
film? One of those true events which eclipses fiction. Events which turned
inevitably into a tragedy forced by political and war time necessity.
by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, Little Brown & Company,
Paperback, 691 pages, $19.95. Contains the complete text of the three novels
in the trilogy which attempted to capture the truths from an actual celebrate
event:
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The first book in the trilogy tells the story of the mutiny and the
most famous court martial in naval history. Bligh's successes and skills
fall prey to his own defeating personality traits. Whatever societal contributions
he made and might have made were inexorably changed by the revolt of Fletcher
Christian. Both now provide both fictional and non-fictional material that
will continue to fuzz the edges of the truth. What caused the revolt: love,
lust, Bligh's stupidity or prudishness? Future generations, just as our
parents, and ours, will reexamine the facts and offer new interpretations.
In some ways, _The Caine Mutiny_ retold the Bounty's story but cast familiar
participants in a different light.
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Bligh successfully leads his non-mutineers through an open-boat passage
unparalleled in nautical history. The extraordinary voyage of 3600 miles
by Bligh and eighteen men in an open boat, the Bounty's launch displays
both the leadership and seamanship that Bligh's contemporaries credited
him. Does the extraordinary accomplishment change the man or provide us
a better understanding of him?
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Christian, the leader of the mutiny, a gentleman and betrayer of his
friend and mentor, escapes punishment. There still exists no unraveling
of the mystery as to where Fletcher Christian disappeared. The third novel
speculates on the activities of the mutineers, including Christian, who
avoided recapture. Whether through inevitable retribution, the workings
of a guilty conscience, or a simple lacking of the skills to survive, the
story provides a conclusion to a mystery not quite solved when a British
ship discovers Pitcairn Island and the strange inhabitants whose stories
may be true or guilt-hiding fabrications. A newly published novel _Mr.
Christian_ provides another view.
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a novelby Bill Collett, W. W. Norton, 1995, hardback, 294 pages, $23.00. Contemporary writers are looking at Bligh with fresh eyes and this current novel hardly sanctifies him while permitting him to have a last say. Imagine it is 1817 and Bligh is reviewing his life. Like most of us, he can't separate his problems from the fact that he is the problem. Bligh survived several mutinies, not just one but there is always the last mutiny. Yet pause with me and read his epitaph: Sacred to the memory of William Bligh, Esq. F.R.S., Vice Admiral of the Blue. The celebrated navigator who first transplanted the breadfruit tree from Otaheite to the West Indies. Bravely fought the battles of his country; and died beloved, respected and lamented, on this seventh day of December, 1817. Aged 64.
" ... presents a more sympathetic portrait of the crusty, cursing
sea dog than can be found in Nordhoff's classic trilogy. ... [Bligh's]
kaleidoscopic memories alternate with scenes in which a bitter, disputatious
Bligh copes with his domestic life, and together they present a highly
colored picture of early 19th-century British society. The denouement includes
anotehr mutiny, an irony that readers will appreciate." Publishers
Weekly.
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by Sam McKinney, McGraw-Hill, Hardback, 224 pages, 45 illustrations,
10 maps, 7 x 10 inches, $22.95. McKinney uses primary sources (contemporary
logs and journals, including Bligh's) to produce this history of an event
so significant in Royal Navy history.
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by John Mckay, USNI, 1989, 120 pages, many photos, drawings, plans,
and detailed sketches, $36.95. A member of the Anatomy of the Ship series
with the usual superb graphics. Thanks to a reproduction built in Australia,
the book has many photos as well. We know Patrick O'Brian uses the Anatomy
of the Ship and models to visualize the action and movement about ships.
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132 minutes, Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, and great sailing shots,
$29.95.
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by Leonard F. Guttridge, 1992, hardback, 318 pages, 57 photos, bibliography,
index, 2 maps. 6 by 9 inches, $27.95. This fascinating study provides a
casebook of mutinies that have occurred throughout the world over the past
two hundred years.
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