Although he's mostly forgotten today, Marryat was a tremendously popular author of naval yarns who actually was a captain in the Royal Navy during the Golden Age of Sail. This book is the story of Jack Easy, a wealthy young man raised up to believe in a ridiculous version of equality - no one has to work, all property is held in common, the thief is equal to the philanthropist, etc.. I think the author was taking aim at republicanism with his satiric representation of Jack's philosophy. Of course this brand of 'equalism' is inherently ill-suited to the Royal Navy in which rank is everything and disobeying orders subject to harsh punishments. This doesn't prevent Jack from yearning to go to sea, and with the influence of one of his relations, he succeeds in gaining a place as a midshipman. Middies have a peculiar fascination for fans of naval fiction. Sometimes as young as 12, they were expected to behave like officers, but did not have the true benefit of rank. Nevertheless they had duties and responsibilities, including overseeing the hands who were considerably older and more experienced. It was not unheard-of for a teenage mid to be given command of a prize vessel. Like all officers they were of the gentlemanly class, required to be able to read and write, to learn complex navigational mathematics, and to have considerable personal income to outfit their sea-trunks, buy uniforms, and sustain themselves while at sea. Jack does not especially excel at his shipboard duties, and often tries to "argue the point" and fall back on his equalist philosophy instead of obeying orders. He is so likeable that he manages to stay in the captain's good graces. Although initiially unpopular, he stands up to a bully and gains the goodwill of all the "young gentlemen." His defense of equalism wins him the affection of Mephistopheles or "Mesty,", formerly an African prince who was sold into slavery and eventually gains a kind of freedom aboard the English vessel. It is thanks to Jack that Mesty is upgraded from "boiling the kettle" or serving as cook and steward, to a corporal aboard the ship. Mesty's dialect and depiction may offend some readers; ironically, while trying to demonstrate that Africans are not inferior to Europeans, Marryat may end up giving offense to those who would judge 18th-century people by today's standards. Although not particularly diligent about his daily tasks, Jack is courageous in battle, and Marryat's naval experience really shines in these exciting passages. All the horror, the valour, the fear and battle-lust is brilliantly described and the action passages are real page-turners. At one point, Jack even jumps ship for a rather long time in Spain, initially to fight a duel, and yet somehow returns and manages to avoid being hung as a deserter. At times the goodwill of the captain towards his upstart mid defies all reasonable belief, even given Jack's wealthy, influential father. During his hiatus, Jack falls for a girl and promises to return to marry her. Eventually he decides he must leave the service, and his father's death hastens this decision, which surprises no one, as his inheritance leaves him much too absurdly wealthy to be a midshipman. After setting his father's estate in order, banishing the shiftless servants who have been told they are "equal" to their master, he purchases his own ship and sails back to Spain to collect his inamorata, all notions of equalism entirely forgotten.
I stumbled on this book while reading In The Kingdom Of Ice by Hampton Sides, which is an interesting book about the testosterone-laden attempts to reach the north pole, and the interesting characters involved. Sides mentions that a major character, George De Long, had been influenced by the books of Frederick Marryat, who had lived at the end of the 18th century. A quick search of Project Gutenburg produced several of Marryat's books, including this one.I was first surprised by Marryat's writing style. Were it not for a few archaic terms I would have thought that the book was written in the last few years as a historic novel rather than being fiction of the times. No wading through the tedious language of other early 19th century writers.The story, being of a naval theme, does require some understanding of sea life.There is some gentle derision of some of the popular culture of the time, such as an interest in 'leveling' society and in phrenology, some humorous situations, much less blood and gore than might be expected in a naval book, and the moral that good and honest sometimes wins the day.If 'historical novels interest you, particularly the Hornblower books, try this one.I am now reading another Marryat book, The Children of The New Forest, which is a story of England in the times of Charles I and Cromwell, with a bit of Robin Hood about it. Once again, the good guys win.
Do You like book Mr. Midshipman Easy (2003)?
A great seafaring yarn. The protagonist is a combination of Horatio Hornblower and Huckleberry Finn, and Marryat in some ways prefigures P. G. Wodehouse in his wry, comical sensibility. In fact, I had a hard time believing it was written in the 1830's; it seemed much more modern. Word of warning: Don't get the Bibliobazaar version. It's rife with typos, many of which affect the impact of the humor. I still really enjoyed it, but it would have been less distracting if it hadn't been typeset by a team of chimps.
—Chris Callaway
I'm a little surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Not that I expected reading it to be a chore, but I read it more just to have a book on the go than out of any particular enthusiasm. However, I was very quickly won over by its satirical tone and wry humour--not to mention Marryat's fondness for puns. Many of these are amdittedly strained (he has more fun than he should with Easy's name, for instance), but I quite like bad puns, as a rule, as part of the punning humour, I think, is an arch self-consciousness about their awfulness. Anyway, I laughed out loud several times reading this book, especially in its satirical treatment of philosophy, and of the difference between theory and practice. Our hero (as he is consistently called throughout the book) has a foolish gentleman-philosopher for a father--foolish because he believes in the equality of all men, a perspective which Marryat is at some pains ultimately to discredit--and absorbs his lessons, until going to sea beats silly philosophy out of him. The book is highly episodic (early on, indeed, I wondered whether Marryat had any real idea of where he was going), as Jack Easy gets into innumerable scrapes, and then out of each one, as often as not by sheer luck, but at times through wit or cunning. Marryat does occasionally address some of the more serious implications of life in the British navy in the early nineteenth century, but overall one gets the impression that it's mostly larks, apart from the occasional combat at sea, leading to a few unnamed supernumeraries getting reduced to fragments which are thrown overboard, their blood then scrubbed away. (As this might suggest, this is not a children's book, though it is often seen to be one--my edition is published by Puffin, for instance). Even murder tends to be treated with humorous sang-froid, as in one scene where Jack and his buddy debate whether throwing the still-living body of a guy they've shot overboard would be murder or not; they debate whether they should just shoot him dead first, then debate over whether the fact that he's half-dead already mitigates any guilt that might accrue to them for finishing the job. So, if you're reading this expecting realism, or trenchant political commentary on the abuses of power, you will be disappointed, if not repelled. (There is, however, a remarkably sympathetic depiction of a black character--sympathetic for 1836, anwyay--in the figure of Mesty, a prince in his own land who was enslaved, then escaped, joined the navy, and ends up one of Jack's trusted crew). Indeed, at times, Marryat's endorsement of monarchical power and the less than humane practices of the navy grate somewhat. Fortunately, however, he devotes most of his energy to humour, satire, and adventure.I'm more likely to quibble about this edition's lack of explanatory notes, as the nautical jargon gets pretty thick at times, than I am about Marryat's conservative politics. and though he is conservative, that doesn't stop himm having some good runs at other topics worthy of satire, such as religion and love.
—Dominick
Es könnte vielleicht ganz nett für zwischendurch sein, wenns kürzer wäre, aber auf meinem Reader sinds über 300 Seiten und nach 80 ist nicht so viel passiert außer das Jacks Dummheit in wieder und wieder in doofe Situationen gebracht hat und "HAHA schau wie LUSTIG das ist!!"...und ja das ists beim ersten mal aber beim siebten Mal kann man dann nur noch sehr müde lächeln.Das ist wie manche Sitcoms die auch nur drei Grundgags haben...eine Folge kann man immer wieder mal schauen aber nicht drei hintereinander
—Aoife
