CVS Pharmacy is selling THE BOUNTY "The true story,"new from Viking, for $4.99. That's almost one cent per page: it's 491 pages long. It's also one dollar per pound: the beautifully bound book weighs 5 lbs.
I can't leave this subject alone. A History professor at Melbourne U, Victoria, Aust., wrote a book on that subject. His surprise at the end was that Fletcher Christian, and the rest of the island survivors of the mutiny were murdered on Pitcaine by the South Sea Island mutineers. They wanted the women for themselves.
Another aspect: The bounty was taking breadfruit (there's a picture in the book) to Jamaica in support of the slave trade. Soon after the mutiny England banned slave trading. America followed some years later but England was first. Jamaica today is an English Protectorate. One year the Queen was there on her birthday.
It's hard to believe in the face of Charles Laughton's truly great Oscar performance, but the History prof. says that Bligh was the Admiralty's hero and he commanded many another ship. After the trial of Bligh there was another mutiny, and this time 36 mutineers were hung before the fleet. England feared the French Revolution might leak over to England and undermine the Monarchy.
MGM, I learned from another source, almost cancelled their production of the 1935 Mutiny movie for fear it might exacerbate labor agitations in Culver City: LA Times for 1935 reported that blood ran in the streets of Hollywood, labor negotiations stymied by the woosening Great Depression that had finally caught up with CA. (My family was inveigled by my rich grandmother to return to Australia.)
Both books, the profs, and this one by Caroline Alexander, are not history, nor are they fiction. They are fictionalized history. Shoot, they are fiction. We'll never know what happened.
Barry
2 comments:
The book is an excellent bargain. I love getting a good deal on an interesting book. Have you seen the most recent remake of Mutiny on the Bounty with Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian? I'm curious as to how you think it compares with previous films.--Sheria
I felt the same about WWI, even though my Grandfather was a Veteran (French, though he fought in Serbia). I was mostly interested in how it set up WWII, so I asked myself, what if the Germans had won? Led me to this pretty astute essay http://www.johnreilly.info/wwi.htm. Turns out there's an entire world of alternative history writing out there. Very tempting to try it out, but the research!
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