Mutiny on the Bounty
By
[Atlantic Monthly and Little, Brown, $2.50]
I THINK I must have had some sort of hunch that this kind of book might appear. In the summer of 1930, in a small country bookshop in Essex, England, I picked up a copy of the famous old Barrow’s Mutiny of the Bounty, which I had been hearing about since boyhood. I read it, as was most filling, at sea, and I remember thinking to myself. ‘What. a story if some first-class narrator took it in hand.’ And now the two perfectly destined appointees appear. What could be more odd and more delightful than that Nordhoff and Hall, old brothers in sorrow, felicity, and ink, alumni of our perplexing civilization and now postgraduated into the cleaner world of Southern Seas, should revive again this classic story, retell it with masterly hands, and give a million jaded readers just the tale they need. This, in the truest and finest sense, is a Story for the unkillable Boy that lives in every worth-while reader.
Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, this book’s godfather, tells in his gay and charming preface how it all came about; how he and Dr. Leslie Hutson explored the British Museum and the Admiralty and the London bookshops for generously opened archives and records, even down to deck and rigging plans of the poor old Bounty; how a vast packing case of books and photostats was shipped to Tahiti, where the authors turned their backs on surf and sunshine for a while. They launched H. M. S. Bounty anew. She sails again, and now Lieutenant Bligh and Fletcher Christian the mate, Old Bacchus the surgeon and Roger Byam the midshipman, have put on that consummation of life beyond life — they are become characters of fiction.
Must we be factual? Very well: this is a retelling supposed to be set down by Roger Byam, in his old age (in the 1840’s), of the tragic voyage of H.M.S. Bounty. She put to sea in 1787 to bring breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. The ghastly scene of the flogging of the dead man down the aisles of the fleet, at the beginning of the story, warns the reader that this is a tale of cruel days. The brutality of Bligh,—a gentleman ashore and a tiger at sea,—the grievances of rations, the mounting discontent of the crew, the interlude of easy life in Tahiti, the mutiny, the return to Tahiti, the lovely romance of Tehani, the wreck of the Pandora, the open boat, the trial — what a feast of narrative is here, told in the best old-time manner. Told always with grace and simple beauty, with no capitulation to modern ticklishness: the idyll of Tahiti is perfect in restraint, where so many writers would have seized an opportunity for license.
I could go on at great length about this fine book, and the more I said the more I should detract from the reader’s legitimate joy. It is a significant return to the most ancient fundamentals of fiction, as prime and savory as the Odyssey. Two wise and honorable refugees from civilization, with time and happiness on their hands, have divined a great secret, and the wistful world of readers and Books of the Month (who are aware of that secret, too) hastens to pay them homage. They have brought us the true, the nourishing, the untaxable breadfruit of Romance.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY