A review by nwhyte
Men Against the Sea by Charles Nordhoff, James Norman Hall
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2927397.html
I read Men Against the Sea during a particularly insomniac night; it's the shortest of the three books, told in the voice of the (historical) surgeon's mate of the Bounty, Thomas Ledward, explaining the epic 41-day, 6,500 km journey taken by Bligh and 18 others in an 7-metre long open boat from the site of the mutiny (near Tofua, one of the Tonga islands) to Kupang at the western end of Timor, avoiding the potentially hostile shores of Australia and other islands - one man was killed at the very beginning, on Tofua. It is an extraordinary feat of navigation, and Nordhoff and Hall succeed in spinning it out; the internal tensions among the 18 survivors are easy to imagine and well portrayed. The impact of their ordeal on the men's digestive systems also is a disturbing but reasonable detail. Interestingly, Samuel is portrayed here as just another crew member; the previous book's anti-Semitism has disappeared. The book ends with Ledward taking his leave of Bligh, who is on his way back to London. In real life, Ledward was one of the five crewmen who died very soon after they reached Batavia (where they all went shortly after arriving in Timor).
I read Men Against the Sea during a particularly insomniac night; it's the shortest of the three books, told in the voice of the (historical) surgeon's mate of the Bounty, Thomas Ledward, explaining the epic 41-day, 6,500 km journey taken by Bligh and 18 others in an 7-metre long open boat from the site of the mutiny (near Tofua, one of the Tonga islands) to Kupang at the western end of Timor, avoiding the potentially hostile shores of Australia and other islands - one man was killed at the very beginning, on Tofua. It is an extraordinary feat of navigation, and Nordhoff and Hall succeed in spinning it out; the internal tensions among the 18 survivors are easy to imagine and well portrayed. The impact of their ordeal on the men's digestive systems also is a disturbing but reasonable detail. Interestingly, Samuel is portrayed here as just another crew member; the previous book's anti-Semitism has disappeared. The book ends with Ledward taking his leave of Bligh, who is on his way back to London. In real life, Ledward was one of the five crewmen who died very soon after they reached Batavia (where they all went shortly after arriving in Timor).