Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
May. 25th, 2010 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreI’ve seen the 1935 movie with Errol Flynn often enough that I was worried the book may end up a bit of a rehash for me, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Possibly because, while the movie is fairly faithful up through Blood’s escape from slavery (about 1/3 of the book) it changes things up quite a bit after that. In particular, most of Blood’s adventures as a pirate are left out of the movie, and the remaining events are altered a good bit. This is arguably the most famous pirate novel out there (though I suspect a lot of its fame comes from the movie) and possibly the ur-pirate novel as well.
Peter Blood is a former soldier who returned to medicine, only to be falsely accused of treason when he tends to a member of the Monmouth Rebellion who’s been wounded. Predictably, the rebel gets off due to his connections, and Blood is transported to the Caribbean as a slave. There, he’s purchased by the cruel Colonel Bishop at the urgings of Bishop’s niece, Arabella, who took pity on him, as he was about to be bought by someone even worse. Granted, I’m not sure Bishop was much better, as his only good quality is that he’ll sometimes let his much kinder niece influence him. Blood gains some esteem on the island once his medical background is discovered, but still plans to escape, and becomes a pirate when he does so.
Lots of fun, with engaging leads and an interesting plot, and considerably less sexist than expected. (I tend to be leery of adventure novels, despite many of the older ones technically having many elements I like.) But then, I kind of think general treatment of women in fiction comparatively improved drastically in the first half of the 20th century, and then had a backlash in a lot of ways. (Or rather, ran into “well, we’ve done enough, no reason to bother anymore” mindset in many things.) About what you’d expect regarding race and class, but without the “did you really just…” of many contemporaries.
And now I’m (mostly) caught up with blogging I wanted to do before WisCon, and will be largely AFK until I get to Madison tomorrow. Not sure how much I’ll be on there, though Kraehe is coming with me and we’re mooching off of wireless.
Peter Blood is a former soldier who returned to medicine, only to be falsely accused of treason when he tends to a member of the Monmouth Rebellion who’s been wounded. Predictably, the rebel gets off due to his connections, and Blood is transported to the Caribbean as a slave. There, he’s purchased by the cruel Colonel Bishop at the urgings of Bishop’s niece, Arabella, who took pity on him, as he was about to be bought by someone even worse. Granted, I’m not sure Bishop was much better, as his only good quality is that he’ll sometimes let his much kinder niece influence him. Blood gains some esteem on the island once his medical background is discovered, but still plans to escape, and becomes a pirate when he does so.
Lots of fun, with engaging leads and an interesting plot, and considerably less sexist than expected. (I tend to be leery of adventure novels, despite many of the older ones technically having many elements I like.) But then, I kind of think general treatment of women in fiction comparatively improved drastically in the first half of the 20th century, and then had a backlash in a lot of ways. (Or rather, ran into “well, we’ve done enough, no reason to bother anymore” mindset in many things.) About what you’d expect regarding race and class, but without the “did you really just…” of many contemporaries.
And now I’m (mostly) caught up with blogging I wanted to do before WisCon, and will be largely AFK until I get to Madison tomorrow. Not sure how much I’ll be on there, though Kraehe is coming with me and we’re mooching off of wireless.