Beach Haven

​Bibliography
O'Brian, Patrick. 1973. H.M.S. Surprise. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.

Review by Michael Beach 

This book is the third in the series written by Patrick O’Brian centered on the British naval officer Jack Aubrey and his friend and ship’s doctor, Stephen Maturin. The series is set during the Napoleonic Wars when British and French warships often battled. My first introduction to this series was through the moving Master and Commander starring Russell Crowe. A work friend of mine gifted me the first two novels and I decided to continue the series.

As one might expect, this story is a continuation from the other two which I have already written reviews on here https://bhaven.org/reviews/master-commander
and here https://bhaven.org/reviews/post-captain.

This point of the longer story begins with Aubrey temporarily in command of HMS Lively. He is assigned to escort duty. The crew is less practiced than he would have hoped, but he manages to use them to sneak ashore to a Spanish fort on the island of Minorca and rescue Stephen who is imprisoned there. They go on to engage French ships with victorious effect. The permanent commander returns, and Aubrey’s career is left adrift.

The middle of the book returns focus to his romance with Sophie Williams to whom he proposes marriage. She accepts, but her widowed mother is not supportive since he has a fair amount of debt and an uncertain naval future. Jack has his own internal conflicts on this problem and is always finding ways to dodge creditors. Jack’s accomplice Stephen has his own love entanglement in an on-again off-again affair with a widow Diana Villiers who is also friends with Sophie.

Eventually the book puts Jack back in charge of a ship HMS Surprise. It turns out to be the ship he had served on many years before as a young midshipman. He fixes it up and sails for India on assignment. There are a number of close calls with ocean storms, doldrums, sickness, and times of low provisions for the crew. The result is a battered ship and crew when they get to India. Jack not only fixes the ship and provisions it, but in the process makes many improvements to the hull and masts. While in India, Stephen meets up with his love interest, Diana Villiers. They have some intrigue and adventures in several parts of India. They agree to meet in Madeira on their way home after the ship’s tour there. Diana also agrees to encourage Sophie to join Jack there. Before heading home to England, there is a substantial battle between the Surprise along with some less experienced warships manned by sailors from India. They are escorting a large convoy of merchant ships and come under attack by a number of French navy ships. A battle ensues and the British are victorious. Jack is the main hero and as a result receives a sizeable reward, enough to pay off his creditors and marry Sophie.

After another batch of repairs to the Surprise resulting from the battle, they sail home stopping at Madeira as planned. Unfortunately for Stephen, his relationship with Diana is off-again. She left word that she has married a wealthy merchant and they have gone to America. Jack initially has no word from Sophie, but at last they come together and resume their romance. Sophie is sure her mother will accept Jack after his turn of fortune.

As with the other O’Brian books, the writing is very engaging and he clearly knows his nautical and naval language. The details can be a bit hard to follow during the heated battles, even for someone like me with some experience sailing, but the reader is not lost. This book had less emphasis on the romance than the second book had and more on battles and expeditions into India jungles. From that perspective the balance was better from my point of view. 

Bibliography
​Lee, Harper. 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Harper Perennial.

​Review by Michael Beach
 
This is a well-known classic of American literature. I saw the movie starring Gregory Peck a long time ago with only scant memory of it. I knew it to be about a trial in the south, specifically Alabama. The trial was about an innocent black man, Tom Robinson, accused of rape. Despite evidence to the contrary, he is convicted, sent to prison, and eventually killed while attempting to escape.

Reading the book, I was surprised. I imagined most of the work to be mostly about the trial and interactions of the adults. In fact, most of the first half does neither of these things. Harper Lee introduces all the characters through the eyes of three children. Jeremy ‘Jem’ Finch, Gene Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, and Dill. Jem and Scout are the children of Atticus Finch, a widower. Dill is a friend who stays in Maycomb, their town, over the summer, living with an aunt. They interact with every sort of person throughout the book.

The story contains themes of racism, class distinction, and societal notions of honor. Every character uses the N-word. It is simply the vernacular of the time in 1930s Alabama. Atticus is central to all the goings on and is quickest to excuse what is, or seems to be, bad behavior of others. In many ways this is a coming-of-age story for the children. Their experiences and interactions with each other and the adults teach them about adult issues and attitudes. Social norms are in question throughout the work.

Atticus is not the only adult with more modern sentiment about race and class relations, but his allies are but few as he acts as legal counsel for the accused, Robinson. He and the children are threatened, and near the end of the book are attacked by Bob Ewell. He is the father of the girl who accused Robinson of rape and of beating her. In reality, the girl threw herself at Tom, the father saw it and beat his daughter.

It goes without saying that Lee is masterful in her style in capturing the nature and dialog of the characters. The circumstances and attitude ring true for the time and location. Her storytelling brings the reader into the world of her creation, yet one that feels like they could be actual events. The version I read is the 50th anniversary edition. 
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Bibliography
​Hespelt, E. Herman, Irving A. Leonard, John T. Reid, John A. Crow, and John E. Englekirk, . 1946. An Anthology of Spanish American Literature. New York: Appleton-Century-Crosts, Inc.
 
This anthology contains many original works, and excerpts of original works. As the title implies, all the authors are Hispanic. One could argue that first portion authors are not American authors, but rather Spanish authors writing in the ‘new world.’ For example, some of the more interesting writings to me are up front. They include memoirs of several Spanish conquistadors, contemporaneously written by members of their teams with specific assignment to capture events. These were generally also religious representatives intending to convert indigenous people to Christianity. As a reader of history, one has to take these accounts for what they are. The saying goes that history is written by the victor. Reading these sorts of historical memoirs, I tend to assume they are only loosely true, but they do show a great deal about the perspectives of the author if not the subjects.

I think my favorite section includes gaucho stories. These are mostly poems and remind me of comedic cowboy poetry of the American ‘wild west’. I found the most entertaining to be Fausto written in 1866 by Estanisao del Campo. In the poem, Anastasio el Pollo relates to his gaucho buddy Laguna the story of Faust. He stumbles into an opera house while visiting the city. He sees the play and believes he is watching actual events happening in front of him. He has never been to a play and did not understand the idea of fiction. The whole thing reminds me a bit of some of the work done by Andy Griffith when he would recount Shakespearian plays using ‘down home’ or ‘red neck’ expressions and a southern accent to tell the story.

As one might guess, this anthology contains a wide range of prose and poetry, some comedic, others patriotic, historical, or emotional. Their is a short exposition in English at the beginning section of each writer's works giving a short bio of the author and some descriptions of their writing style and focus. The actual works are in the original Spanish. Since the writings range from the 1500s through the mid-1900s, and includes authors from many countries, the Spanish language used differs from piece to piece. I was comfortable with most of it, but kept an online dictionary close at hand. 
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​Bibliography
Reeman, Douglas. 1986. The Iron Pirate. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Review by Michael Beach
 
This story is set in the waning years of WWII. It centers on the German heavy cruiser called Prinz Luitpold. As some of the German fleet were bottled up in the Baltic waters around Scandinavia, the ship receives orders to break away and sail into the north Atlantic to act alone sinking as many support ships of the allies as possible. They are to specifically avoid military ships that might engage them and only approach ships that have little or no defense. They rightfully assume most of the British and American combatants would be busily engaged guarding the invasion of Europe that began in France. They wreak havoc as hoped. As word gets out of a German rogue, some of the British fleet had remained in South Africa during the invasion of Europe. The admiralty of that part of the fleet give chase, eventually sinking her.

The characters on the German ship are twisted into several love triangles. Captain Dieter Hechler was embarrassed by his wife’s constant cheating. She comes aboard before the ship’s departure from the Baltic and attempts to seduce her husband. He refuses her. He rightfully suspects she is pregnant and trying to cover her state by claiming the child to be his. A former classmate of Captain Hechler who is now Admiral Leitner, comes aboard with a public relations film crew and a famous woman aviator to create hope for the German people who are beginning to suffer from losses in battle and bombings in the homeland. He also brought with him some boxes that are quickly locked away, their contents not even disclosed to Captain Hechler. They turn out to be valuables stolen from Jews and political prisoners destined for execution. These poor souls included the wife of the ship’s medical officer, Doctor Kroll. Over time the captain and women pilot fall in love and have an affair. As the ship engages in its final battle, Kroll kills Leitner because of his hiding information surrounding the death of the doctor’s wife. Several crew members abscond with the admiral’s boxes of jewels and money. Many survive and later find themselves in prisoner camps, eventually returning to Germany.

There are other story lines and romantic parings. For me, the romantic angles were not appealing. Intimate interludes are at times described in a rated-R level in my estimation. Also, in my estimation, these portions of the book add little to the story and are unnecessary. They could have been toned down and still help the reader to understand how the relationships influence events and outcomes. The battle scenes and internal tensions that result are well written and realistic.  One other distraction for me is how the author tends to shift suddenly from on scene to another. Often the discussions in distant locations and with different characters seem almost intertwined. At times it can be difficult to follow the transitions, or rather non-transitions. 
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Bibliography
Steinbeck, John. 1937. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin Books.
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Review by Michael Beach
 
The copy I have of this novella is modern, as in it’s a fresh copy. I’m not sure if novella is the correct term, but it’s bigger than a short story and smaller than a novel. I had heard the title in the past, but without knowing the nature of the story. It is set during the great depression. Two migrant ranch workers leave one town after having had ‘trouble’ there. George Milton and Lennie Small travel together to a new ranch in a new town for work. George is the 'smart’ one, Lennie is mentally challenged and physically large. Lennie is attracted to weak things such as mice and rabbits, but inevitably kills them by petting them to death. He apparently had some similar issues with a human girl in the last town they worked in, not killing her, but doing something inappropriate that got them ousted.

Now on the new ranch they run into issues with an overbearing coworker, Curley, who is the boss’ son, and his wife who flirts with all the workers. Lennie is given a puppy which, as with other small creatures, he eventually kills through being too rough with it. Curley and Lennie eventually get into a fight and Curley is hurt badly. Nothing really comes of it as he started the whole thing, but from that point on he looks for every chance to get George and Lennie into some kind of trouble. Eventually, Curley’s wife approaches Lennie when he is alone in the barn. When she learns of the death of Lennie's puppy, she flirts and invites him to stroke her hair. When she realizes how strong and rough Lennie is she starts to scream. He tries to quiet her but ends up killing her in the process. George and Lennie have to escape the mob bent on lynching Lennie. George attempts to distract the hunting of Lennie by participating in the search party. He knows where to find Lennie as they had preplanned a meeting place. George shoots and kills Lennie to spare him the torment of the mob.

There are all sorts of undertones to the story. One of the workers is black and there are tensions between him and the other workers. There is tension between the owner, the boss, his son, and the son’s wife when it comes to their interactions with each other, but in particular with the workers. Steinbeck captures the despair many felt during the depression, as well as the rough language used among the ranch hands. Readers should be prepared for that. His masterful writing style makes the way character inner-stresses display themselves in character interaction very believable. He captures what must have been a common fate among many who suffered the ills of the great depression.

Bibliography
Steinberg, Ted. 2000. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natrual Disaster in America. 2nd. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Review by Michael Beach

In this work, Ted Steinberg looks at human action increases events that count as catastrophic through increasing where we live and work. He also speaks to how our modification of geography, flora, fauna, and climate also increases the number and severity of natural disasters.

In terms of impact to human life, Steinberg shows how the poor, elderly and minorities are impacted more than those who have more means. In some examples such as specific floods, he shows how land values are higher as distance from flood zones increases. As land value increases the purchase prices grow beyond the ability of lower income home buyers and renters. In lower cost flood zones where poor people can afford to live, the increase of insurance costs means they are less likely to carry flood coverage. If all people could afford to live at higher elevations, then fewer buildings would be built in flood-prone areas and losses would be less.

Other examples are shared throughout the book where human activity adds to both the frequency and impact of largescale disasters. Crowded cities give way to faster spreading pandemics. As with pandemics, closely compacted homes built from combustible materials have made large fires engulfing whole portions of cities. Floods along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, the burning of Chicago, Hurricane Katrina, and the list goes on.

There are, of course, many ways to mitigate both the frequency and impact, but they all take two things; money and social will. At least in the case of modern construction there are improvements, but generally only where zoning rules require them for new construction or major renovation. That doesn’t protect existing structures, nor do such efforts guarantee complete survivability. These efforts still don’t address where people live based on their economic strata. In America, we are slow to want to preclude people from their freedom to live where they wish, or at least where they can afford to. There are no easy answers, and the answers we do have are partial at best. 
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Bibliography
​O'Brian, P. (1972). Post Captain. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.

Review by Michael Beach
​
This is the second in a series of stories that depict the military career of a fictitious sailing captain in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Jack Aubrey, his friend and ship surgeon Stephen Maturin were made famous in the movie adaptation of a later volume. That movie Master and Commander starred Russell Crowe as Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Maturin.

As a following work to the first in the series, I was somewhat disappointed. The fist was called Master and Commander, but was not the book the movie was set on. The first focused mostly on the military action with battles and courts martial in the aftermath. There was some romance, but it was tangential. Post Captain is pretty much the opposite. The beginning of the book tells of the romantic exploits that continue well through the first half of the book. Aubrey is also plagued by creditors. He is forced to use all sorts of intrigue to avoid capture by them.

Eventually, he is given an usual ship to lead. It was captured by the British navy, but based on its construction its handling is difficult. The ship is not really suited to military action. At the same time, the crew are nothing like those of his first ship, the Sophie. At issue are the senior enlisted men and junior officers who are not the best at leading. In particular, the main mate of the ship has a harsh style and morale and performance run low. Eventually, Aubrey takes matters into his own hands by purposefully engaging his ship separate from his main orders. The result is the capture of several enemy vessels, but the loss of his own. In the aftermath, Aubrey is found to not be responsible for the loss.

The next section of the book puts the main characters back in the realm of romance and financial intrigue. Thankfully, this part of the story doesn’t take up so much space because Aubrey is tagged to become the temporary captain of HMS Lively. The actual captain is called to be a member of Parliament so Aubrey gets custodianship. Most of the assignments he has on Lively are as an escort for merchant shipping. He has a few engagements with enemy vessels, but things finally go well when they encounter some Spanish ships taking gold to Cadiz. In the engagement one Spanish ship is lost to an explosion. The other two are captured along with their cargo.

During this last engagement, Aubrey’s love interest is aboard as Maturin previously convinced his friend to transport her and some of her friends to a city in the south. Aubrey and his girlfriend, Sophie, agree they cannot marry while he is still poor, and that they will not marry anyone else.

Bibliography
Dowling, D. O. (2016). Surviving the Essex: The Afterlife of America's Most Storied Shipwreck. Lebanon NH: University Press of New England.

​Review by Michael Beach

The version of Surviving the Essex I happen to have is an uncorrected proof. I have access to some books in this condition due to where I work. The actual shipwreck of the Essex was inspiration to at least two works of literature. The ship was a whaler out of Nantucket and was sunk after colliding with, or being rammed by, a large sperm whale. The accounts of survivors varies so it’s not all that clear exactly what happened. As you no doubt guessed, the work Moby Dick by Herman Melville was a take on the real-life story. The other work examined here by David Dowling was by Edgar Allan Poe titled The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. I read both of those works many years ago, so I found the connections Dowling makes to them informative. While Melville wrote in the man-versus-nature vain, Poe’s version focused on the dark themes of death and cannibalism.

After the Essex sank, the surviving crew split into two groups. There was disagreement which direction they should take their boats to find rescue. Captain George Pollard led one group, and his first made, Owen Chase, the other. Both suffered and cannibalism was involved. The first mate blamed the captain for leaving the ship during the whale hunt. He had joined one of the harpooning boats and left the mate in charge. Others blamed the poor ship handling of the mate during the whale encounter. The captain’s version was never published. The mate published a version that put himself in a heroic light. Decades later another crew member published an account as well.

There are many books published about the events of the wreck and its immediate aftermath. This book by Dowling is not one of those. Instead he turns his attention to sociological issues. For example, there is a question about the process one boat went through to select the victim on which the others would feed. The decision was to draw straws for both the victim and who would have to do the killing. There is disputation that in Pollard’s boat, he was the shooter and the victim was his nephew. Dowling explores the numerous conflicting accounts of survivors and especially Chase’s version. He also shows some parallels in Pollard’s second ship which also sank after striking a shoal. He explores how Pollard continued to live in Nantucket and became a solid community member despite the two ship-losses. He wraps up the work examining the anthropomorphism resulting from many authors ascribing human motives to the whale involved. Not unlike ‘Bruce’ in the movie Jaws, most depict a vindictive whale bent on revenge.

​The human-element for me was in the shaping of the story by survivors to cast themselves in the best light, the selling of the story in the form of profit making books, and imposing of human motives on the whale. Case eventually also captained a number of whaling ships later, but ultimately failed in economic endeavors. Pollard became a respected citizen of Nantucket. 

Bibliography
​Heilbron, J. L. (1996). The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck and the Fortunes of German Science. Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press.
 
Max Planck was a contemporary of Albert Einstein. They knew each other and worked on projects together in their respective roles in the physics community in Germany before WWI and in the interwar years. Plank provided some theoretical ideas that helped Einstein work out his special and general theories of relativity. Unlike Einstein, and many other of their colleagues, Planck was not Jewish. As Hitler’s Nazi party came into power, Germany’s scientists had to decide. Would they continue in Germany and serve ‘from the inside’, making the best they could of it? Would they stay and risk whatever the Nazis decided about their fate? Would they leave Germany and continue to pursue their scientific careers elsewhere? How vocal should they become, supportive of the new regime, publicly opposed it, or stay relatively quiet about political issues. Einstein left for America and became very vocal about his opposition to Hitler’s government. Plank decided to stay in Germany and continue his scientific leadership role.

For Planck, his decision, he said afterwards, was not to support Hitler, but to try to preserve German science and scientist from within. He encouraged Jewish scientists to remain in Germany as WWII approached. He also worked to shield them from policies that would put their positions and their lives at risk. Eventually he failed at both. In fact, he was even pressured to be openly supportive of Hitler’s government. On one occasion he attended a public meeting about the German scientific industry. It’s not clear how much pressure was placed on him, but he attended dressed in Nazi regalia and joined the crowd at the end in the Nazi salute, visibly mouthing a “Heil Hitler” as the meeting closed.
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German science, at least in the field of quantum mechanics, we often at the forefront of advancement. During WWII, theoretical lost to practical weapons creation. Most of the best minds left Germany so the field suffered even more from a sort of ‘brain drain’. Heilbron concludes, “Planck remained in office largely from a sense of duty owed not to individuals, certainly not to the state, but to the institutions of German science he served” (Heilbron, 1996, p. 207). Others noted by Heilbron thought of Planck more as a coward, or worse, a sympathizer. Perhaps his motivation is impossible to know for sure, even by Planck himself, yet his actions are unavoidable. In attempting to maintain status quo while everything was changing around him, his own standing and Germany’s as well were permanently damaged in the 1930s and 1940s. Nations that benefited by the emigration of German scientists are still world scientific leaders, especially in quantum mechanics.

O'Brian, Patrick. 1970. Master and Commander. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company.
 
A friend of mine gave me this book a few Christmas seasons ago. When I saw the title, I assumed this was the book that inspired the movie starring Russell Crowe. As it turns out there is an entire series of these books by Patrick O’Brian. The movie was an adaptation of the sixth book in the series. The book I read this time is the first book in the series. The volumes are all called Master and Commander, except after this first in the series (this one I read) the rest have a subtitle. For example, the sixth book the movie was made from is Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

In this first book, Jack Aubrey is made captain of a small English naval ship called the Sophie. He meets Stephen Maturin on shore. Maturin is a medical doctor. They become friends and Aubrey talks Maturin into joining him as the ship’s doctor. Most of the book depicts a series of military exploits around the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar, generally against French shipping. On a few occasions they go up against man-o-war vessels and conquer. They manage to rescue British and ally prisoners on some of these ships. They also attack a shore-based enemy fort.

Eventually the tide of war shifts for the Sophie when she is attacked by a larger, faster, and better armed French Frigate. The crew is captured, ransomed back to the British navy, and stand before a court-martial on Gibraltar for losing their ship to the enemy. The captain and crew are eventually found not to be responsible, but Aubrey and Maturin are left without a ship. While on Gibraltar they witness a definitive battle in the strait between British and French ships. England wins, and not long after, Napoleon loses in his land campaign in the first Napoleonic War. Suddenly many navy officers are shore-bound with an unsure future. That’s where this first book in the Aubrey saga ends.

My friend who made this book a gift to me gave me the second as well. She jokingly called the series a ‘man’s romance novel’ since they are written in a similar style, but focus on wartime action. To be sure there is some romancing by Captain Aubrey, but this is minimized. Aubrey has a fling with an old love who it turns out is the wife of a member of the admiralty. This indiscretion comes back to haunt him. He is not penalized in the court-martial toward the end of the story, but finding a new ship to command becomes elusive in the post-war era. Despite all the enemy ships he captures as prizes, his loss of the Sophie in battle becomes enough reason for him to become a former master and commander.