Customer Reviews

The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read the "Bounty Trilogy" over 40 years ago, and I never forgot the fascinating story of the Bounty. As the years passed,I read other books on the subject, including Bligh's account of the voyage and mutiny. All were interesting.

Finally, we have a wonderful new book on the subject. "The Bounty" could not have been a more enjoyable, and fascinating reading experience. I am still depressed the book is finished.

The book tells as true a story of the muntiny as one could expect. It was not,of course, like the old "Bounty Trilogy," but it was written as well, and told a wonderful non-fictionl account of the events. I learned more background, and the fate of the crew and others involved in the mutiny. The section on the court martial was extremely interesting.

I think this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Caroline Alexander takes a story you perhaps thought you knew-the 1789 mutiny on board the HMS Bounty-and says something new about it, in a style that is both economical, elegant, and exciting. In a first chapter that is a masterpiece of simple story-telling, she structures the fantastic story: "Captain" William Bligh (in fact, he was only a lieutenant) commanded the HMS Bounty to Tahiti, suffered the mutiny of part of his crew, and navigated a simple row-boat across many thousands of miles of the Pacific to be rescued. A second voyage, undertaken by the HMS Pandora, discovered many mutineers on a distant island, taking them into custody, only to be broken up in a terrible storm, its survivors (crew and prisoners) enduring a second open-boat voyage to safety. On return to England a length court-martial condemned many of the mutineers to death, but left unscathed young Peter Heywood, convicted but later pardoned.

The traditional view of things (i.e. the one you `know' from the movie versions) has Bligh as a torturer, the famous Fletcher Christian as a defender of the ordinary sailor's rights, and Heywood as an innocent bystander. Through careful reading of seemingly every contemporary document-including every bit of the trial transcripts-Alexander subverts the story to one of privilege rebelling against authority: whereas Bligh came from a family of extremely modest means, Christian and Heywood both came from old and well-connected families who, after the courtmartial, ensured their own good names by besmirching Bligh's.

This is not sensational journalism but careful scholarship, and even if you don't agree with Alexander's `take' on the subject, you will enjoy hearing the sailor's own first-person narratives, as well as Alexander's careful reconstruction of what actually occurred.

This book was nominated for the National Book Critic's Circle award for non-fiction; it was richly deserved. "HMS Bounty" receives my highest endorsement as well!

"The Bounty" by Caroline Alexander, is not only a thoroughly researched book about the infamous mutiny at sea that took place well over 200 years ago, but the story is told in a way that will keep you turning the pages as if you were reading a captivating adventure novel. I was most impressed by this account of the events, and learned new and interesting details in every chapter.

From logs and journals, personal letters, court martial records,and many other reliable sources, Alexander pieces together the story, and makes it an exciting read, From the planning stages of sending a crew for Breadfruit, to events transpiring at sea, the mutiny itself, Bligh and his loyalists dangerous but miraculous sea voyage home, the search and capture of the mutineers, the court martials, the consequences,and events and people pertaining to the years of aftermath,the events unfold in remarkable detail .

Everyone involved, including not only the ship's company, but the natives of 'Ohtaheite'(Tahiti), the families of all involved, the Sea Captains that made up the jury, and even the descendants of the mutineers, come to life with Alexander's detailed descriptions of their characters.

The story is a complex one, and as with most stories, there is more then one side. Was Bligh really a monster? Perhaps no one will ever know which side is the more accurate, but through testimony of the court martial and personal writings and quotations, we get a good look at what took place and a good idea of why it happened. The Author makes the maze of the people and places easy to follow. Included to refer to while reading is a complete list of the ship's company, denoting who were mutineers, and which loyalists were detained with them. Charts following the various journeys indicating the routes and pictures of portraits of nearly everyone important to the case are shown, as well as drawings and paintings made of the islands and the natives(even the descendants of the mutineers).

A most enjoyable and informative read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in this famous historical event.

"I have been in Hell this fortnight past and I am determin'd to suffer it no longer"...reportedly said by Fletcher Christian as told by a witness at the court martial.....Laurie

also recommended:
South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage

of the infamous Bounty Mutiny that eschews the ususal Hollywoodization of the drama (Fletcher Christian, handsome, romantic, agonized/Capt.(actually Lieut.)Bligh, cruel, dictatorial, insensitive. This book offers a reconsideration of the character of Bligh, especially placing it in the contemporary setting of 18th century naval life. It finds that the answer to why this mutiny happened must be assumed to lie within the psychology of Fletcher Christian, rather than any supposed shipboard tyranny of Bligh. The latter was, she points out, a student of Cook, and thus sparing of the lash as well as takiing pains to see that his crew was nourished, clean and well-exercised so that fatalities on the long voyage were minimized. Those who take their image of Bligh from Charles Laughton or Anthony Hopkins, might be amazed to learn that Bligh was all of 35 years old at the time of the voyage.
Along with her delineation of Bligh, the book offers a fascinating and probing portrait of Peter Heyward, a Bounty midshipman who somehow did not enter Bligh's launch and yet, through family connections, managed to get a King's pardon from his mutiny conviction.
Overall, this book offers a sober, grown-up examination of one of the most dramatic, romantic and still enigmatic episodes in British naval history. It would seem to be impossible to write a dull book about the Mutiny, and Caroline Alexander has written one of the best considerations of this endlessly fascinating event.

A book worthy of study by students of history. I say that as a history teacher because it combines metriculous research with a compelling narrative. In addition, it is contextualised within the French Revolution and slavery and Romanticism among other significant events. It reveals the importance of who you know to how YOUR history is going to be manufactured, eg Midshipman Peter Heywood of THE BOUNTY, convicted mutineer, but pardoned by the KIng as the consequence of family connections. Or the diligence of Edward Christian (d.1823) sometime professor of law at Cambridge, who helped to inflate the case for Fletcher Christian, indeed could be considered michievous in honouring him(p324) and diminish the character of Lieutenant Bligh. Fascinating examination of men in confined cirumstances overcoming astonishing difficulties and surviving. Lieutenant Bligh must be remembered as one of the greatest sailors in history having sailed the Bounty's 23 foot long two foot deep launch from Tofua in middle of the Pacific to Coupang in Timor over 3000 miles after having been set adrift by the mutineers and as one who suffered a "bad press". On the evidence, there was very little romantic about Fletcher Christian and his fateful decision may have been a matter of hurt pride and a hangover - far less noble impulses than the allure of a possibled heaven
on a tropical island freed from a tyrranical "captain".

I've read everything I can find about the Mutiny on the Bounty and Alexander's book has to be the definitive telling of the story. A small ship, only about 85 long and 25 feet wide, with 60 or 70 men aboard ranging in age from 12 to 42, every man a volunteer. Sent out on what should've been an obscure and forgotten botanical mission, instead it sails into history and becomes perhaps the most epic story in the history of the sea.

A meeting of utterly contrasting civilizations, the English and the Tahitian. A struggle of social class between the officers and men and between the officers themselves. A betrayal of friendship between Christian and Bligh. An impulsive decision by Christian to seize the ship but why? Depression? Heartbreak of leaving a woman and child behind on Tahiti? Mistreatment by Bligh? Bligh and the loyalists, condemned to death in an open boat sailing over 3,000 miles to safety with Bligh navigating only by memory and losing only one man along the way---without question the greatest feat of sailing in world history. The hunt for the mutineers. Perhaps the most famous court trial of its time with the upperclass families of Christian and Heywood doing all they can to spin the story and exonerate their loved ones. Christian and his loyalists disappearing only to be found years later after having tried to establish a utopia on a deserted island only to have it descend into murder and disaster and saved only by religious awakening.

No novelist could've credibly conceived of such a story and yet it really happened.

Like many today, the only knowledge I had of the mutiny on the Bounty had come in bits and pieces from popular culture. I was well aware of the portrait of Bligh as a tyrannical madman forcing his subordinates to his will. However, is that characterization correct? If not, then why would his men mutiny? These and many other questions are answered in great detail in Caroline Alexander's book. I began reading with the expectation that the mutiny would take place with some swashbuckling battle for control of the ship, ultimately deposing Bligh and his allies. The mutiny actually took place fairly peacefully and is really a strange spectacle. The bulk of the book is not concerned directly with the mutiny itself but in the courts-martial drama that follows. The events that took place on the Bounty are told from multiple, often contradictory standpoints. It is hard to tell exactly who is innocent and who guilty. It amazes me that the mutiny seems to have been put together at the last minute. Christian Fletcher's motives remain shrouded in some mystery. Alexander asserts, with good evidence, that it was the lure of Tahiti that ultimately lit the fuse. This seems a partial explanation in my mind however, because Fletcher's reaction seems so abrupt and drastic. Perhaps this can be attributed to the excess of alcohol.

I enjoyed being taken back to Tahiti, having read several books of Cook's voyages, and enjoyed reading of the mutiny, the sailors involved, and what eventually happened to the mutineers. I was, however, disappointed that I found myself in a book that reads more as a courtroom drama than adventure on the high seas. I wish Alexander had spent more time and detail on the open boat voyage and the mysterious malaise that eventually struck several who survived it. The scenes on the Pandora were interesting but I think I would have gotten more out of them if they had been placed after the mutiny and I knew the characters better. All in all the book is well researched, detailed, and does a good job of showing what eventually became of the major characters. The narrative does drag at times but there is always something interesting right around the next few pages. I really did like the suspense that was built up by not settling the fate of Fletcher until well into the book.

In historic narrative, and especially in the movies, we all know about one particular naval mutiny, that of the _Bounty_ in 1789. The movies do their job of simplifying and giving form to a history that actually was extremely complicated and lacking in some basic documentable facts. This realization runs throughout _The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty_ (Viking) by Caroline Alexander. Even in her detailed recreation of the court-martial of the mutineers, for instance, she cannot reproduce the testimony of Captain Bligh, for he was off at sea and did not participate, nor, of course, can she tell us what the chief mutineer, Fletcher Christian, had to say. Not only was he never brought to trial, but he never wrote down his story, and we don't even know for sure how he eventually died. Nonetheless, Alexander has taken what we can know, informed us what we never will be able to know, and has produced a vigorous history that, even with its inevitable voids, makes compelling the crime and its outcome on the participants.

Bligh was the protégé of Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist, who had sailed with Captain Cook in the Pacific and who took up the pet project of importing breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies to be a staple for the slaves there. Bligh's model for captainship was Captain Cook with whom he sailed, and whose example of humane treatment he meant to emulate. He fed his men well, was careful not to let them get scurvy, and he tried to avoid flogging any of them. He did wind up flogging them, but far less than their previous commanders did. Alexander shows how Bligh's insistence on minute detail and his harsh tongue may have been part of the explanation for the mutiny, but it would be odd if sailors were so oversensitive to being closely overseen or to strong language. Absurdly, the mutiny was sparked by a theft from a shipboard supply of coconuts. Bligh accused Christian of being a thief and scoundrel, and this was too much for a man of honor, or so Christian's supporters tried to make out. When Bligh arrived in England, having made the amazing 48-day, 3,600 mile trip to Timor via the overloaded open boat in which he and 18 loyal crew members had been set adrift by the mutineers, he was a hero. He went on to further nautical successes, but families of the mutineers started a series of attacks against him. In the end, what sealed the reputation of Bligh was "a force more formidable and unassailable than any enemy he would meet at sea - the power of a good story." It is a tale of the young hero triumphing over his master into an island paradise. What is more, it is the brooding romantic breaking chains from the stern rationalist. It was at the dawn of the Romantic age, and Alexander shows how writers like Wordsworth and Coleridge took up Christian as a romantic hero.

Alexander's book is far more than a fair reevaluation of the reputation of Captain Bligh. She has given details about sea-going, class struggle, and especially the complicated legal wranglings by the accused mutineers, including the ones who successfully used what we would now call spin against their former captain. The _Bounty_'s story here is exciting, but Alexander's fascinating narrative of the repercussions shows how history is made, or in some cases, made up.

Alexander's greatest achievement is the addition of a third protagonist to the Bounty's story, Peter Heywood, who made a bad choice before he was eighteen and spent a lifetime trying to excuse it or atone for it. In doing so she spends much more time on the court-martial than some might think necessary, but it's clear that she's done a great deal of research. It's also clear that Heywood spent a long life living in the shadow of his youthful crime.
In focusing so, Alexander has neglected parts of the story already well covered by previous authors, particularly Gavin Kennedy, whose work is in fact the last word on Bligh and Christian. She mentions Bligh's later career in passing; it was rare for a captain to fight in one of the great fleet actions of that age, much less distinguish himself in two. She dismisses Bligh's Australian career in terms of yet another mutiny, but his opposition to the Rum Corps and violent deposition by them has made him a hero in Australian history.
(A previous reviewer complained about the pernicious effect of Hollywood, but one of the most effective and insightful re-tellings of the story is Robert Bolt's screenplay for "The Bounty". He gets a few facts wrong and compresses characters, but gets the dynamic between Bligh and Christian exactly right, and synthesizes the reasons for Christian's mutiny; something that Alexander seems unwilling to attempt, other than to say that he was drunk.)

After three movies, several poems, and numerous vignettes, most of us probably think we know the story of that ill-fated ship the Bounty. Many will remember Charles Laughton's unforgettable portrayal of the cruel, tyrannical Captain Bligh. Forget everything you've seen and read because most of it is completely untrue, as is revealed in this landmark history of one of the world's most famous mutinies.

Stellar British actor Michael York, acclaimed for his stage and screen roles, offers an impeccable reading of The Bounty in the abridged versions. The unabridged version is in the capable hands of veteran vocal performer Simon Prebble who also gives a top-notch delivery.

Surprised listeners will learn, perhaps for the first time, that rather than being an oppressive taskmaster, Captain Bligh was in actuality a fine leader who went to great lengths to avoid using physical punishment. He was, in effect, tossed overboard, sent to sea in a small boat with meager rations, and a few who remained loyal to him. Despite the odds he was able to save all of their lives and take them to land.

Perhaps the most spellbinding segment of Ms. Alexander's story is the court martial of the mutineers who were found in Tahiti and returned to England. Remembering the day in 1789 when Fletcher Christian led the insurrection listeners are able to relive that fateful time as they hear it related in the voices of the participants.

The author has accomplished an amazing work of scholarship, and the readers give it remarkable voice.

- Gail Cooke