Description:
The limits of human endurance, man's instinct for survival and dogged perseverance characterize The Rope Eater, Ben Jones's debut novel. After deserting the Union side in the Civil War, 17-year-old Brendan Kane heads north to New Bedford and signs on with an expedition sailing north to conduct Arctic exploration. A crew of ragtag shipmates is formed. None of them has any survival training, appropriate clothing for the harsh elements, possessions, or close ties--nor do they have a better idea than sailing on the Narthex for a purpose unknown to them. They are all outsiders, misfits, or men with a need to get out of town, for whatever reasons. One of the crew says, "Two years of work, maybe more, low wages, but a shot at some real money if it goes well." This hope for something that could change their lives keeps them going when the odds against them become overwhelming. After several weeks at sea, the Captain tells them that they are looking for a "temperate archipelago covered by trees of fantastic colors that grew from the heat of the earth rather than the sun--a lush Garden of Eden in the heart of the Arctic." This is not happy news for men who have been fantasizing legendary gold mines. The voyage continues through the most hostile environment imaginable. The men are always cold, wet, hungry, and at the mercy of the capricious movement of icebergs--it is a bleak, horrific life aboard ship, unrelieved throughout the entire book. Jones's writing is starkly beautiful, filled with authentic details about ships, the Arctic reaches, navigation, ship handling, weather and exposure. There are echoes here of Cold Mountain and The Navigator of New York. The descent into madness of Dr. Architeuthis, an obsessive taker of measurements; Aziz, the three-handed Muslim boiler-tender who tells Brendan the awful story of rope-eaters; the vagaries of the rest of the crew--these all add color and welcome texture to the gray-white sameness of being surrounded by icebergs. Readers who revel in the hardships and exploits of Ernest Shackleton, William Laird McKinlay, or Robert Falcon Scott will enjoy this story of men against nature in its most relentlessly unforgiving aspects. --Valerie Ryan
| 
