Captain Blood: Library Edition

Rating:
Summary: Underwhelming
Review: I do love Sabatini, and I've read almost everything he's written, so it came as something of a disappointment to me to be less than blown away by the qualities of "Captain Blood." I have recently been making my way through his works and having heard so much good stuff about "Captain Blood," I was naturally looking forward to it. However, I was somewhat underwhelmed after finishing the story. Now, don't get me wrong, it's quite entertaining, and as one previous reviewer says, "it beats TV any day." But after the story got off to a rip-roaring start, with Blood falsely imprisoned during the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion and sent off to the Caribbean as indentured slave labor, it sort of putters off into a series of loosely connected episodes with Blood facing off against a collection of uninteresting bad guys (who, altogether, are about as threatening as paper tigers). I was also disappointed to see that Arabella Bishop, the alleged love interest, hardly shows up at all. (They greatly expanded her role in the movie, and one can definitely see why.) I suppose I was expecting a story of the scope and interest of Sabatini's "The Sea Hawk," which I highly recommend. "The Sea Hawk" has a far more compelling plotline, as well as a much more interesting hero and villain, and the heroine actually has a chance to do something. So, if you're interested in pirates and old-fashioned romantic fiction, go, get thee a copy of "The Sea Hawk"! "Captain Blood" makes a fine airport read, but I've seen Sabatini do better.

Rating:
Summary: Carribean Adventure
Review: I have 10 of the novels of Rafael Sabatini. Being a writer myself, I am constantly learning from this gentleman the proper use of the English language. Sabatini applies Occam's Razor to the language, evoking the most meaning from the fewest words. I have found myself often buried in the dictionary, looking up the meaning of wonderful, evocative words which have been forgotten in today's over-technical writing style. I have often just had to put a book of his down to figure out how he expressed this or that scene, or emotion, in so few words. Reading his novels is a writers delight!
This book is set in the late 17th century, when Spain ruled the seas of the Carribean. It is about Peter Blood, a physician who is sent as a slave to the island of Barbados, and who winds up leading a group of pirates out of Tortuga, in all sorts of interesting adventures on the sea, usually against Spanish shps.
All of Sabatini's novels are romances, and this is no exception. Peter Blood is a man of intelligence and refinement, holding a high sense of honor, and Sabatini makes you really like and identify with the character.
I had my atlas out while reading this one and learned all about the Carribbean and its islands, the Spanish Main, and naval warfare.
This is a delightful, superbly written book,a real page turner.

Rating:
Summary: Swashbuckling Across the Seas and the Years
Review: This reading was not my first acquaintance with the redoubtable Peter Blood. I first encountered him in this gripping tale about 47 years ago in the pages of a Classics Comic book. Readers nearing their sixth decade may recall these delightful comic books, which converted serious fiction into the colored drawings and essential dialogue of comic book characters, possibly in a desperate attempt to expose youngsters to literature in some form at least. However, I cannot say that I was particularly enraptured by the story of Dr. Peter Blood at that time. Perhaps I was yet too young to have the mature imagination required to appreciate fully the exploits that are so vividly described in Sabatini's book. In any event, I have now read the "real thing" and have enjoyed my vicarious adventure aboard the Arabella tremendously.

This Penguin Classics edition also includes a highly educational introduction that helps the reader recognize and appreciate the various themes that run through this grand historical novel. While the introduction can be totally ignored and the story enjoyed just for its sea-faring, swashbuckling adventurism, a little understanding of the genre of the historical novel, of Sabatini's sources, and of the type of protagonist exemplified by the character of Peter Blood will add to that enjoyment even further. In fact, not only did I read the introduction before beginning the story itself, but I went back and re-read it after finishing the novel, appreciating its contributions to my understanding even more.

I particularly like Sabatini's own comments that are quoted in the introduction: "It is demanded of the writer of fiction, whether novelist or dramatist, that the events he sets forth shall be endowed with the quality of verisimilitude. What he writes need not necessarily be true; but, at least, it must seem to be true, so that it may carry that conviction without which interest fails to be aroused." This reminds me of Coleridge's admonition that the successful reader of poetry must enforce a "willing suspension of disbelief" in order to mentally join with the author in the shared experience of writing and reading. In the case of Captain Blood, suspending disbelief is in no way a challenge. This historical novel, skillfully intermixing the factual and the fanciful, the real and the imagined, the history and the fiction, is a believable yet romantic tale straight from the Golden Age of Piracy on the High Seas.

What is amazing to me is that Captain Blood has, at the moment I write this, only about 20 or so reader reviews posted, while a modern novel I recently read, Ahab's Wife, has some 171 reviews! The pity of it is that Ahab's Wife is a poorly written, shallow, superficial sort of thing that will be hardly remembered 82 years from now, while Captain Blood remains as vigorous, exciting and enthralling a read as when it was first published 82 years ago. Why do we so often overlook the excellent-nay, say rather the outstanding-books that were laid in our laps before we were even born while we waste time with artificial garbage cranked out by modern hack writers?

The beauty of Sabatini's Captain Blood is that it is timeless. It will be as exciting for your grandchildren to read as it will be for you, and it will be there for theirs to read, too. This book is as modern as any can be and deserves your time to read it. I started to say "your effort," but it requires no effort to read. The suspense and action will carry you along as surely as the Caribbean winds filled the Arabella's sails and carried her effortlessly across the expanse of the sea from one glorious adventure to another.

If there is any weakness in this book where the modern reader is concerned, it is that few of us will understand Blood's occasional remarks rendered in flawless Latin. I regret that I am too ignorant to grasp the significance of those remarks, for I am certain that they hold wonderful irony and are quite meaningful in the situations in which Blood finds himself at the moment of their utterance. It would have been thoughtful of today's editor to take into account the fact that we are now largely ignorant of classical languages and to include a footnote or two translating those lines for us. Beyond this, I can levy no criticism against this edition of the novel, and I can assure you that any discerning reader who will suspend his disbelief and embrace the mythical romance of the Caribbean pirate will enjoy his time with this book.

Rating:
Summary: A tremendous romance of the sea!
Review: When my family moved into a new home when I was only 13, we found that the previous tenants had left a copy of this novel behind. And that is how I first met Peter Blood, one of the most intriguing characters in fiction. I don't know how many times I read that book as a teenager, but years later I acquired another copy and have read it several more times. I have never been disappointed in it.Dr. Peter Blood would probably have been content to spend the rest of his life in his quiet medical practice and tending his geraniums, but when he treats a patient who happens to be a revolutionist, he is charged with treason, is almost hanged, and is instead sent as a bond slave to Jamaica. There he is sold to plantation owner Col. Bishop, whose daughter Arabella takes a special interest in him. When the crew of a Spanish ship sacks the town, Blood leads some of his fellow slaves as they steal aboard the ship and capture it. Thus Capt. Blood becomes a pirate, a very noble one, but one who is sought by both the Spanish and the English. He names the ship the Arabella, and he cannot forget the lovely lady whose slave he had been. The ensuing story of Blood's fantastic career is one of the best sea stories ever written, and the love story is equal to it. I can't imagine any reader not becoming thoroughly engrossed in this excellent novel. And if you like this one and want to meet a character who is almost Blood's equal, try Sabatini's great novel of the French Revolution, SCARAMOUCHE.