Once Upon a Bookshelf

[Disclaimer: Have been all kinds of crazy-sick the past few days so haven't had a chance to write this up until now. Had the flu, turned into the worst sinus-cold-potentially-sinus-infection ever and yes. Not fun. Still doped up on cold medication to help relieve the pain in my head and am hoping to not have to go to walk-in clinic over the weekend if it turns out that I really do have a sinus infection. So forgive me if this does not make as much sense as I hope it will.]

My parents are currently working on de-junking their house at the moment, and in the process asked me to look through numerous boxes of books to see if there was anything I thought we should get rid of or anything I wanted to read. Most of their books I had read through high school (Wuthering Heights, The Scarlet Letter, etc.; no wonder I ended up thinking I didn’t like classics) but as I had no interest in books with sailors on the front covers back in my high school days, Billy Budd escaped my notice.

Billy Budd was left unfinished in 1891 due to Melville’s death and published in numerous different variations since his death, starting in 1924. According to Wikipedia, I read the wrong copy of this book. The version I read is an earlier version of text considered to be more along the lines of what Melville wanted - the title is aparantely supposed to be Billy Budd, Sailor: (An Inside Narrative), the ship they sail on is supposed to be a different name, there isn’t supposed to be a preface, etc. etc. etc. That said, this is the version I read, thus this is the version I am going to talk about.

Billy Budd, formerly of a merchant ship, is recruited to sail on a British warship during the Napoleonic wars. Other than a speech impediment that only appeared when excited or under duress, Budd is practically the perfect person - he’s good looking, amiable, and everyone loves him from the moment they meet him. Everyone, aside from Claggart, the Master-at-Arms. While the completely innocent and naive Budd does not realize this, Claggart soon seems to have quite the grudge growing against Budd until it gets to the point where Claggart falsely accuses Budd of mutiny.

The book was a little bit difficult to get into at first. I didn’t particularly care for the way the book was narrated, and it’s really hard to like a character that is practically perfect. Of course, the speech impediment ended up being his Achilles’ heel, which made him a bit more relatable - I don’t communicate well verbally with other people, so I can understand his desire to physically act out due to frustration - not that his acting out was forgivable by any means, but it makes it more understandable.

This book really made me ponder things. It wasn’t an easy read, but it was thought-provoking, and deals a lot with the issue of good-vs-evil, and goes into how someone should be punished if what they did was not what they meant to do. Doing the best thing for the fleet, versus doing the best thing for one man; doing your duty to prevent future trouble versus doing what is right. I don’t know what I would have chosen to do in the situation that Budd’s captain was put in.

This was my second book for the What’s in a Name challenge, and is my selection for the “book with a first name in its title” category.

Fourteen years before the beginning of this story, there was an earthquake in Port Royal that unleashed some magic into the world. This magic manifested itself by giving all existing babies in the Port Royal area the ability to walk on water. Fourteen years later, only two polliwiggles (people who can walk on water) are left - Monk and Jolly.

These two teens meet up after Jolly’s ship is sunk, and her crew is killed by poisonous spiders - she’s the only one able to escape, and washes up on the island where Monk’s family is now living in hiding. After Monk’s parents get killed by the Acherus (a creature of the Mare Tenebrosum, a sea that exists in a world beyond our own), Monk and Jolly set off on an adventure on a ship manned by ghosts, in order to learn how to stop the evil stuff that’s treatening to enter our world.

I wish this book had been written, published and translated about 15 years ago - I would have loved to read this book then! Not that I didn’t completely love it now, but kids always have a different perspective on stories, you know? It is, in my opinion, the perfect adventure novel. It’s got everything you could possibly want - pirates, gold, a pirate princess, magic, ghost pirates, , the potential for a little bit of romance and sailing the high seas in order to stop evil other-wordly beings from destroying our world.

This was a non-stop adventure from the moment the book starts in the middle of a sea battle. There’s never a dull moment, and I really really really want to get my hands on the other two books in the trilogy asap so I can find out what is going to happen.

This book is called Pirate Curse in the USA, and was tranlsated by Elizabeth D. Crawford. I’m not sure how different the translations would be, but the one translated by Bell was fabulous. From the reviews on amazon.com, the biggest difference seems to be that Jolly and Monk are called polliwogs instead of polliwiggles.

It seems to be a week of endings for me. First HP and now Horatio. I’m going to start off by saying that this is a must-read for Hornblower fans - although I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re working your way through the books until you are completely finished. While this book wasn’t written by C.S. Forester, C. Northcote Parkinson has done a good job at writing a fictional biography that stays true to the characters and events in the actual Hornblower series.

The book starts off with Hornblower as a child, and continues on until his death - as biographies tend to do. Each chapter touches on a different time in Hornblower’s life - or rather, a different position held during Hornblower’s career. While it goes into the events that happened during the books, it also talks a bit more about what happens between the books that Forester didn’t write about and you don’t get to read about. It also goes in depth with what the world was like. A good majority of the last part of the book talks about steam engines, their development, how it will be the future for boats, and Hornblower’s involvement with the development, which isn’t really touched on in the series. We also get to read about how other people react to Hornblower’s promotions and successes - a lot of his peers weren’t too happy with how quickly Hornblower got promoted in some instances, or the special treatment he gets, which (again) the books don’t really go into. It gives a bit more perspective to the series as a whole.

It’s a great book for going deeper into Hornblower’s life and career, and was definitely a good way to say goodbye to the series; it reminded me of everything I had read previously, and gave me a deeper glimpse into who Hornblower was. I feel I got to know Hornblower so much more in this book than in any of the previous Hornblower books I’ve read.

He was a penniless orphan and began from nothing, making his way in the service without interest of any sort, gaining each step by an entire concentration on the work to be done, unenvied by those who lacked, and who knew they lacked, his resolution, his knowledge and his skill. . . He was never fearless, as some men are, but forgot his fears after battle was joined. He became a legend for saying no more than he needed to say but I knew him as he really was, a man of humility, of humour, of kindness and charm. . . he will always be remembered in the Royal Navy as one of the finest officers of his day.

I have a feeling that when I revisit the Hornblower series, before reading one of the novels, I will read the corresponding chapter in this book, and see how that will effect how I perceive the novel.

Bonaparte’s been defeated, and Hornblower is now Rear Admiral, and has a command in the West Indies (or, the Caribbean). Even though it’s peace-time, that doesn’t mean Hornblower has an easy job - there are still plenty of adventures for our favourite naval character to get into. Pirates, a group of people who want to rescue Bonaparte and reinstate him as Emperor in France, intercepting slave ships, hurricanes … it’s like the adventure never ends.

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as previous books, but it was a good ending to the series (novel-wise). Each chapter stood on it’s own making the book feel like a collection of short stories, very similar to Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. It was, however, somewhat disappointing that the only characters that we really knew from previous books to be in this one were Hornblower and his wife.

I don’t really have much to say about this book. I’m somewhat mourning the fact that this is the last book in the series. I always get that let-down feeling at the end of a good series.

Lord Hornblower is the second-last book in the Hornblower series. It’s been a year since the events in The Commodore; Hornblower has spent the year recovering from typhoid. When he is over the typhoid, the first thing he has to do - under the utmost secrecy - is deal with a group of mutineers. Not on his ship, obviously, because everyone loves Hornblower, but on another ship in the navy. Coincidentally, someone’s ship who was on the Indy with Hornblower. That’s one thing this book has - a lot of reappearances of people from previous books. More so than any of the other books.

Of course, the mutineers episode only leads to Hornblower convincing a French city to renounce Bonaparte, and events that Hornblower started lead to the end of the war. Except it’s never that easy. As soon as they believe the war is ended, it starts over again, while Hornblower is in the middle of France. (Bad news for our Horry!)

I hate to say it, but I very much think that this is my least favourite of all of the Hornblower books that I’ve read thus far. There were some things that happened in the book that I really did not like - but won’t get into for the sake of those who have yet to read the book. But more than that, I just found that this book felt very disjointed. There were huge gaps of time in between chapters; it was almost like there were chunks missing that could have been in there to make it smoother. The events in this book felt like they could have made up two separate novels, if both were developed more. First, the dealings with the mutineers; secondly, the part where Hornblower is back in France with Marie and the Comte de Gracay (from back in Flying Colours) leading a rebellion of sorts against Napoleon. I really wish that there had been more to that second part than just a few chapters.

I have to admit, however, that I thought this ending was much better than endings in previous books.