The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper by Simon Leys
Melbourne: Black Inc., 2005 ISBN 1863951504
I picked this book up for a little break from the two rather heavy books I'm reading at the moment, which will not doubt grace these pages in due course. It's small size (both in page length and dimensions) fitted the bill, and it's something I've wanted to read for ages.
As the title suggests, the book consists of two essays, that are not related other than they are both to do with the sea. They were written many years apart - Prosper written in the 60s, The Wreck of the Batavia after the release of Mike Dash's Batavia's Graveyard, when Leys realised that his long-standing project (or thought) to write a book about the Batavia in which he would lay bare the entire episode was no longer viable.
In The Wreck of the Batavia, Leys provides a short and pithy overview of the voyage, wreck, and insanity that occurred to the survivors while awaiting rescue. His main point though, is to try and get under the skin of Jeronimus Cornelisz, the brutal leader of the mutiny. He makes much of his potential relationship with Johannes Torrentius, a brilliant painter who was arrested for blasphemy and atheism not long before Cornelisz signed on to sail in the Batavia.
Prosper is a short essay about Leys' trip in one of the last sail-powered tuna fishing boats (a yawl) out of Brittany. It's more of a character study than anything else, with Leys describing the (mostly) old crew - their histories, their relationships with each other, and how their particular skills were being overtaken by technology. It isn't much more than a fragment, but vividly brings to life a time, a place, and a crew.
This book was just the tonic as a break from some more serious reading. Leys was a fine stylist and knew how to write - and the physical book is a pleasure as well, with some nice plates that add to the experience.
Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell
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