Continuing on with my reading challenge (I'm nearing the end!) I chose Mutiny on the Bounty for the category of a "A book with multiple authors." It also had the added benefit of allowing me to cross off a book from the list I have pinned up by my desk of every book Rory Gilmore reads, mentions, etc. during the duration of Gilmore Girls. What's important to remember about Mutiny on the Bounty is that is a fictionalized account of the (in)famous mutiny; my edition has a foreword from the authors that goes into their sources, some of the changes they made, etc., but I think it would be easy to think that this was actually a personal account because of the way in which it is written.
In the book, Nordhoff and Norman Hall remove one of the midshipmen from the Bounty and replace him with their narrator, Roger Byam, basing him upon the original sailor but deviating in some respects. Byam tells the story of how he was invited to join the Bounty's crew for a bit of adventure by its captain, William Bligh, on a journey to Tahiti to gather breadfruit trees for transportation to the Indies, during which he will compile a dictionary and grammar of the Tahitian language for use by others journeying there. After a paradisaical stay in Tahiti, while en route to the Indies, Bligh's temper seems to get worse and worse and feuds he started with the crew before Tahiti are refueled and exacerbated, culminating in the mutiny, led by the first mate, Fletcher Christian. Byam is not involved in the mutiny, but is forced to stay aboard the Bounty because there's not enough room for all those loyal to Bligh in the launch he and some of his supporters are forced into. The rest of the book deals with the aftermath of the mutiny for Byam, and includes two "splits" that break off into the other two books in the trilogy--one book deals with Bligh and the men in the launch, and the other with Christian and some of the mutineers going to the Pitcairn Islands.
This is a classic seafaring story. Byam is the perfect choice for a narrator because his position allows us to sympathize both with Bligh and the loyalists as well as with the mutineers. It is, however, a story that is definitely not plot-driven as there is no plot, rather just a tale of how the mutiny came to be and what happened to Byam and the others after. Not everyone lives; a good number of the crew meet their demise in various ways. The story seems to proceed in spurts, with Byam sometimes relating every day, sometimes skipping over weeks or months at a time. He's also not the greatest, abandoning his wife and child in Tahiti in favor of the hope of naval glory back in England--something that was probably a common thought process and motivation for his time and place, but a shitty action nonetheless. And because the story is based in fact though not entirely factual, the "villain" of the piece, Bligh, never gets his comeuppance. And because this is a "classic," aka it was written in an earlier time (originally published in 1932) it has that old-timey feeling to it, and the writing can sometimes be dry and seem rambling. Still, this was an overall enjoyable read and one of the foundation books of its genre.
4 stars out of 5.
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