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Bezig met laden... In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon (2003)door Joan Druett
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.   )1   Stbalbach | Aug 7, 2016 |  Perhaps I've too many similar stories that even authentic ones seem formulaic. A sadistic captain terrorizes his crew. Some or all of the crew rebels. In this case, captain is killed. drama and legal issues ensue. The captain of the Sharon was killed by some islander crewmen picked up in the Pacific, but not before he beat a black crewman to death. The islanders then took control of the ship, which was single-handedly retaken by the first mate, who became a hero for his action. The inquiry afterward seemed to avoid the issue of mass desertions before the murder; and the one surviving killer was never even charged with a crime. Author Joan Druett pieced this together from journals recently uncovered, written by the third mate and cooper. While embellished to create a full story; Druett doesn't stay too far from what is known. The result is rather thin...we never really know the characters too well, foreshadowing is not couched in mystery, ("...little did the captain know he had but 17 months to live." While I'm not expecting a completely over-the-top fictional account ala Melville, a little more plausible connecting of the dots could have resulted in a more robust story (say, like Erik Larson). If you like 19th century nautical adventures -- and I do, In The Wake of Madness might scratch an itch. There are a lot of good fiction and non-fiction books covering these same waters...this one doesn't quite make it to the bow, however. ( )1 JeffV | May 29, 2012 |  ) Radella | Jan 12, 2010 | An interesting read. This is the account of the cruise of the whaleship 'Sharon' out of Fairhaven Mass. from 1841 till 1845. Whose Captain was murdered a year later by three of the crewmen. And then the ship being almost single handedly being retaken by the third officer. The story mostly unfolds through the journals and letters of the Third Officer Benjamin Clough and the ships cooper Andrew White. Also other ship logs from other ships that crossed their path. Two things make this simple account very interesting; One, it reveals the sinister side of the whaling industry. At this time, whaling at it's height with over 700 American ships hunting for whales. This leads to ships being manned by sailors with little or no experience. This also seems to be the case with many captains as well as many were given this post at very young ages with only one or two cruises under their belts. This inexperience and youth seems to be a factor in the violence of many Captains to their crews. Two, these years (1841 to 1845) were the same ones that Melville was sailing the same waters. Where he jumped ship (the whaleship Acushnet ). He had seen many of these same conditions that are described in the book on his ship. Also as there were over 20 deserters from the Sharon he might have heard tales about the Mad Captain who flogged a seaman to death. The author Joan Druett references Melville many times during this narrative. She also dwells on the reasons that this chapter in whaling history is not well known. All in all a very readable and interesting history. ( ) usnmm2 | May 16, 2009 | resident Joan Druett. I've read two of her earlier books about females at sea and greatly enjoyed them. Recently I discovered that Druett has begun to write a mystery series featuring a character who's a member of the U.S. Exploration Expedition. (I reviewed a book about this expedition earlier this year.) Since I'm fascinated by the Expedition and I enjoy Druett's writing, I couldn't wait to get my hands on one of these mysteries, so I scurried over to Barnes and Noble's website. I wanted to get free shipping, so I just *had* to buy two books. I bought the first in Druett's mystery series, A Watery Grave, and this one: In the Wake of Madness, The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon. In its day, the murder of Captain Howes Norris by three native sailors aboard the whaleship Sharon was sensational stuff, but the entire story was never told and interest died out rather quickly. Recently journals written by men on board the Sharon were unearthed, Druett read them and wrote this book. I gobbled it up. The story began in Martha's Vineyard in the late 1830s. Druett sets the scene by explaining how the entire whaling industry began and why it eventually centered in New Bedford. She tells us the backgrounds of each of the important "players" on this voyage: Captain Howes Norris, First Officer (and relative of Norris) Thomas Harlock Smith, Second Officer (and another Norris relative) Nathan Skiff Smith, and Third Officer Benjamin Clough. When the Sharon sets out on this voyage, Druett gives enough particulars about how to go whaling and life aboard a whaler to keep you fascinated without going into overkill. Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, weaves in and out of the picture. He was at sea during the same time, knew some of the sailors on board the Sharon, and experienced many of the same things they did. Fortunately, he did not experience Captain Howes Norris. One of the many tidbits I learned while reading this book is that New Zealand was a center of the American whaling industry and, for a while, had more Americans living there than practically any other nationality. Once the British government took over there, they made it uncomfortable for the Americans who were forced to look elsewhere for a base. But I digress. In the Wake of Madness is a deft blend of history and mystery. ( ) cathyskye | Jan 4, 2007 |
Her swift, absorbing saga of the sea invokes malice, mayhem, murder, and, hovering over it all, Herman Melville. The Sharon, a whaler from Fairhaven, Massachusetts, set sail in the spring of 1841 with a crew of about 30 under the command of Captain Howes Norris, a man likable enough on shore who metamorphosed into a mean-spirited martinet once the Sharon was at sea. A sharp harpoon, a keen eye, an unerring throw. In 1841 the whaleship Sharon sails out of Massachusetts for the rich hunting grounds of the South Pacific. Halfway through the voyage, Captain Howes Norris is brutally murdered by three native seamen, while the rest of his crew is out chasing whales. Druett, an award-winning maritime historian, recreates this story using the captain’s log, crew lists, newspaper accounts of the time, as well as the recently-discovered personal papers and journals of two of the original crewmembers. Since the murderers were “savages,” no official inquiry was ever made into the crime. An imaginative retelling of an old sailor’s yarn, this book offers a fast-paced story, an in-depth look at whalemen and the dangerous lives they led, and a glimpse into the psyche of a man very much like Melville’s Ahab. Nonfiction accounts about whaling tend to intone Melville's name like a mantra, and Druett's volume about the bedeviled 1841–1845 voyage of the Sharon is no exception. By any measure, the expedition was a catastrophe, with mutiny, desertion and the mid-voyage murder of Capt. Howes Norris by South Pacific Kanaka tribesmen....Druett draws on recently unearthed journals from the voyage to assemble a terrific account of an unusually eventful voyage. She has the good sense to maintain a light touch on the events, and manages a perfect balance between telling the story in an unfussy yet dramatic manner and honoring its complexity.
After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history's most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett's riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack to recapture the Sharon, killing two of the attackers and subduing the other. An American investigation into the murder was never conducted--even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. Joan Druett, a historian who's been called a female Patrick O'Brian by the Wall Street Journal, dramatically re-creates the mystery of the ill-fated whaleship and reveals a voyage filled with savagery under the command of one of the most ruthless captains to sail the high seas. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)909.09645081History and Geography History World history Other Geographic Classifications Air And WaterLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3.85)
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