Percival Keene (Book Thirteen of the Marryat Cycle)

Angebote / Angebote:

In Percival Keene Marryat goes back to a character-style that he first introduced in Frank Mildmay. In both books, the "hero" is a bit of a low-life-proud, rebellious and, many times, downright mean. He was criticized for that style when Frank Mildmay first came out, so he stayed away from it for a dozen years, but, with Percival Keene, he reverted. Keene is the bastard son of an upwardly mobile captain in the Royal Navy. For social reasons, his father will not recognize him, but, instead, works behind the scenes to help him along. The book is full of the usual Marryat high-seas adventures in which the young officer is lost during a battle and thought dead, then finds his way back, confrontations with pirates, storms at sea, and so forth. But the fascination is with Keene himself. He is noble one moment, and mean-spirited the next. He shows unbelievable courage and integrity in one set of circumstances, but not in another. He is, to be sure, a low-life, but but he is an intriguing one. In many ways the book is a refreshing departure from the hero as a cross between Superman and Dudley Do-Right. Keene has flaws. So do we all. But couple that realism with Marryat's unquestioned ability to tell a sea yarn, and you have a very interesting read.