Percival Keene

Rating:
Summary: Great Adventure Wnderful Humor
Review: A truly wonderful British man of war seafaring novel. Marryat is a wonderful story teller. Good characterizations a little mystery. One difference in the Marryat novels is the stories he tells about the pranks that some of the sailors and officers get up to onboard ship and ashore. And of course this is a usual part of shipboard life but the other officers such as O'Brien don't give us as much of this side of life at sea. Some of the pranks had me laughing nearly out of control

Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointed
Review: Having read Dean King's recommendation (as he is usually accurate), I was expecting something above the average - especially as it is included in a series of Classics...
Sadly, not.
Written in typical 19th Century style, it tends to verbosity and skirting around, instead of coming straight to the point.

Considering that Marryat was a disciple of Cochrane, there is remarkably little action and little detail of that... a few shots are exchanged, the enemy is boarded and the prize is taken in one easy lesson - none of the tension, tactics and strategems that feature so large in other nautical tales. Nor do we get under the skin of any of the characters, there is no fleshing-out of the personalities, so we end up not caring what happens to them.

Our Hero Percival stumbles from one lucky accident to the next in true Victorian story-telling style, but there seems to be no central theme to the plot, apart from his estranged father's aloofness and disguised patronage.

I kept expecting some surprise or twist in the tale, but only the expected happened.

Rating:
Summary: Great Adventure Wnderful Humor
Review: Marryat displays his colors in his usual fashion: "normal" people, real characters, and the tang of salt air in your nostrils as you read.

The unacknowledged son of a post captain, young Percival strives to do his duty to achieve his father's/captain's respect. Adventures ensue.

Easy to read. Less social critique than Mr. Midshipman Easy. Less gruesome reality than The Privateersman. Not his best, but it is still a good yarn!

Rating:
Summary: Usual Marryat - good!
Review: Marryat displays his colors in his usual fashion: "normal" people, real characters, and the tang of salt air in your nostrils as you read.

The unacknowledged son of a post captain, young Percival strives to do his duty to achieve his father's/captain's respect. Adventures ensue.

Easy to read. Less social critique than Mr. Midshipman Easy. Less gruesome reality than The Privateersman. Not his best, but it is still a good yarn!

Rating:
Summary: A lot of fun with great characters.
Review: This book was a lot of fun. There are a few great characters besides Percival. Captain Delmar, heir to a title and a large estate, is the father of illegitimate Percival and never acknowledges him as his son. He does take Percival on as a midshipman and guides his career. My favorite character is the young coxswain, Bob Cross. He takes care of our hero, protecting and advising him, and teaching him the ways of the navy. Our hero voyages on and goes through some adventures, fights some good battles, is captured by pirates, and saves the life of his future love. The book ends with a violent storm off the French coast and a shipwreck that is described in great detail. The first part of the book is devoted to Percival's Mother and his early childhood. Young Percival is a scamp, a rogue, and a prankster. He is not a particularly pleasant young man. His antics are funny and I felt sorry for his first schoolmaster. All of Marryat's books have a similar theme. A young man of noble birth (usually unknown to him) goes to sea, does good, wins promotion, meets his love, then return home to title, wealth, and fame. But Marryat's books are all a lot of fun and worth reading. They were written by a Royal Navy Captain that served in the Napoleonic War.