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Loading... The Adventures of Captain Horn (1895)by Frank R. Stockton
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  PhilSyphe | Jan 28, 2021 |  no reviews | add a review
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Early in the spring of the year 1884 the three-masted schooner Castor, from San Francisco to Valparaiso, was struck by a tornado off the coast of Peru. The storm, which rose with frightful suddenness, was of short duration, but it left the Castor a helpless wreck. Her masts had snapped off and gone overboard, her rudder-post had been shattered by falling wreckage, and she was rolling in the trough of the sea, with her floating masts and spars thumping and bumping her sides. The Castor was an American merchant-vessel, commanded by Captain Philip Horn, an experienced navigator of about thirty-five years of age. Besides a valuable cargo, she carried three passengers -- two ladies and a boy. One of these, Mrs. William Cliff, a lady past middle age, was going to Valparaiso to settle some business affairs of her late husband, a New England merchant. The other lady was Miss Edna Markham, a school-teacher who had just passed her twenty-fifth year, although she looked older. Ralph, a boy of fifteen, was her brother, and she was taking him with her simply because she did not want to leave him alone in San Francisco. But when the storm had passed, and the sky was clear, and the mad waves had subsided into a rolling swell, there seemed no reason to believe that anyone on board the Castor would ever reach Valparaiso. . . . No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.4Literature English (North America) American fiction Later 19th Century 1861-1900LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.25)
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Wikipedia in English
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I almost stopped reading after the first few pages, as what you get is a third-person narrator explaining how Captain Horn’s ship is wrecked on an island. None of this is dramatized, therefore it’s similar to reading a newspaper article.
At long length, I came to some dialogue exchanges between Horn and a handful of survivors. This interested me enough to continue. I usually like shipwreck tales, providing they aren’t dull and uneventful, and hoped this one would start to improve.
The story adds some suspense when Horn and friends learn that a motley crew known as the Rackbirds share the island with them. The Rackbirds keep five African men slaves, of which one escapes and seeks shelter with Horn’s group. From here, it builds to what appears to be inevitable conflict, but sadly the outcome is a complete let down.
The anti-climax regarding the Rackbirds sets the tone for the rest of the book, as whenever Horn or one of his comrades face any danger, it’s easily overcome.
So, rather than an exciting face-off with the Rackbirds, Horn instead discovers a lot of gold. What to do with the gold, how to move the gold, and how to distribute the gold dominates the rest of the story. From this point, which is about one-quarter into the novel, I found myself skipping paragraphs, as the narrative becomes monotonous and passive.
For instance, a long section features Horn moving the gold from A to B. We get lengthy sections of Horn or one of the other characters wondering what they’ll do about such and such a thing, which is usually relating to the gold. I found this very boring.
Also, we have a lot of occasions where one character reads/hears about what another has been doing, so you get lengthy details of past events “told” as a second-hand account, as opposed to “showing” these event as they happen. Little is dramatized. It’s all explained in passive prose. (