Customer Reviews

The Captain

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This book is simply excellent. The protagonist is not some matinee-idol Navy captain, but a chubby Dutch tugboat master who is pressed into service, along with his huge tug and green crew, as a rescue ship in the Atlantic convoy routes. De Hartog's characters are some of the most believeable I have ever encountered, and the emotional impact of the book hits at gut-level. It is a complex but easily readable story. Anyone who loves books about men and the sea will be right at home with this one, and war buffs will be fully satisfied. I've read the book four times, and writing this review makes me want to read it again!

Superficially, The Captain is a very well written novel about life aboard a sea-going tugboat pressed into service as an escort vessel for convoys to Brtitain in the early days of World War II. Read at this level, The Captain is a rousing, highly-readable adventure story with interesting, well-developed characters. But there is much more than rousing adventure to this book which skillfully probes many deeply-fundamental matters, including the horrors of war and the true nature of human courage. In my opinion, this is one of the most greatest novels ever written.

My Dad was a US Merchant Marine skipper in WWll, a veteran of the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk runs. He loved this book so much he read it every year. And he made sure his kids read it, so that we would understand. This book contains a harrowing fictionalized account of the most disasterous, ill-fated North Atlantic convoy, PQ-17. Told from the first-person, the protagonist is the young Dutch Captain of an ocean-going tug, which served as a rescue-vessel in the Allied convoy formation. All of Jan De Hartog's books about the sea are excellent. It's a shame so many are out-of-print. This one is my favorite. If you can find a copy through one of Amazon's affiliates or auctions, or even at the public library, grab it and savor it!

Engrossing story with exceptional emotional detail of the North Atlantic in WWII. A courageous mix of seafaring and philosophy about war. Seems to explain passivism to the warrior and war to the pacifist with equal empathy.

Six weeks ago I came across this quote:

"Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind, you have failed."
-Jan de Hartog, playwright and novelist (1914-2002)

Jan de Hartog was born in Holland. He escaped Nazi occupied Germany, lived in the UK during the war, and then settled in the United States. Because of the quote I decided to read one of his books. I read The Captain.

Jan wrote many books about the Dutch on the sea. Most of this story takes place during World War II. The hero, Martinus Harinxma, is a tugboat captain. We learn how he had gone off to sea at age 18. He worked his way up in the tugboat industry. Then Germany invaded Holland in 1940. All the Dutch ships which could escaped, many off to the United Kingdom. Martinus is part of a group which helps the English on the ocean. Martinus captains a tugboat which is part of a convoy.

The story is rich with background. There is much history, general history about the world, and detailed history about Holland. We learn about various facets of the Dutch shipping world. I hadn't realized that tugboats towed platforms across the ocean.

Jan builds a very rich and detailed world. The characters came alive and the plot was interesting. The reality of war on the high sea was vivid. This book had a similar feel as Tom Clancy novels. The scope was more limited, all of the story is focused around Martinus Harinxma. Jan, the author, is still well known today in Holland. A Dutch friend of mine has read several books by Jan de Hartog.

If you like novels about war, especially navel World War II novels, read The Captain. I'm glad I did, and I'll probably read more by Jan de Hartog.

This is compelling novel reflecting the experience
of being captain of a merchant ship in WW-II convoys.
The main character provides opportunities for the
author to explore the nature of command, and the
author exploits those opportunities well. The
writing itself is strong.

The novel ends with an intrusive antiwar sermon that is
not effectively integrated into the rest of the novel
and which has nothing to do with the overall story.
Good sermon, but not integrated into the story.

This novel crackles with authenticity. It is the story of a Dutch seaman and his career as the captain of seagoing tugboats. These boats were key in wartime convoy operations as only these seagoing tugboats could rescue a damaged ship during the perilous convoy runs across the Atlantic, or to Murmansk, Russia. The author explains that the Dutch were the leaders in operating these seagoing tugs, and the novel treats the reader to fascinating details of what it must have been like to be the captain of one of these interesting vessels.

The story focuses on the protagonist's captaining of a huge ocean-going tug in the deadly Murmansk run. Of all the convoy runs in World War Two, the Murmansk run was probably the most hazardous. So hazardous, in fact, that eventually the Allies had to curb these operations because the losses were simply murderous. The novel carries the reader through a couple of these runs in a startling realistic narrative. I could not put this novel down and I found it to be as gripping and realistic a story as one could ask for.

This is a story of leadership, wartime hazard, and a small nation's attempt to survive World War Two and emerge afterwords intact. The author's prose, told in the first person, is clear and crisp. This one is a page-turner that anyone who likes novels of men at sea will greatly enjoy.

I come back to this book every couple of years. Why? Because it stands the test of time by continuing to measure up to the best nautical stories out there, including those written by Monsarrat, Conrad, and, of course, Melville. Jan deHartog deserves inclusion in this group of writers because like them he walked the walk and not just talked the talk. (Don't forget, even though he wasn't an officer of the deck, Melville shipped out more than once, including an 18 month stint on a whaler.)

There are other to add to this list of excellent writers of maritime fiction and non-fiction (Mowat, Poyer, etc.) but I'll leave those off for another review.

What makes The Captain a classic nautical tale is the way its author encompasses aspects of a seafarer's inner truths. Many writers of nautical fiction (Clancy, for example) can write about the sea and ships in great technical detail. Doesn't mean they know or can get across to the reader the deep, inmost sense of what it's really like to be out there on the edge. In the simplest of terms, it's a balance of fear and reasoning, a wonderful, thrilling, scary, awe-inspiring ride of luck and skill and sometimes terror.

The Captain is rich in character and adventure, and yet nuanced. Satisfaction guaranteed for every nautical enthusiast.

-seabgb

Six weeks ago I came across this quote:

"Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind, you have failed."
-Jan de Hartog, playwright and novelist (1914-2002)

Jan de Hartog was born in Holland. He escaped Nazi occupied Germany, lived in the UK during the war, and then settled in the United States. Because of the quote I decided to read one of his books. I read The Captain.

Jan wrote many books about the Dutch on the sea. Most of this story takes place during World War II. The hero, Martinus Harinxma, is a tugboat captain. We learn how he had gone off to sea at age 18. He worked his way up in the tugboat industry. Then Germany invaded Holland in 1940. All the Dutch ships which could escaped, many off to the United Kingdom. Martinus is part of a group which helps the English on the ocean. Martinus captains a tugboat which is part of a convoy.

The story is rich with background. There is much history, general history about the world, and detailed history about Holland. We learn about various facets of the Dutch shipping world. I hadn't realized that tugboats towed platforms across the ocean.

Jan builds a very rich and detailed world. The characters came alive and the plot was interesting. The reality of war on the high sea was vivid. This book had a similar feel as Tom Clancy novels. The scope was more limited, all of the story is focused around Martinus Harinxma. Jan, the author, is still well known today in Holland. A Dutch friend of mine has read several books by Jan de Hartog.

If you like novels about war, especially navel World War II novels, read The Captain. I'm glad I did, and I'll probably read more by Jan de Hartog.

I found this book on a shelf at a Caribbean resort many years ago. Once I strated reading it, I almost couldnt put it down. This is the story of a dutch tugboat captain who escapes with his ship to England during WW2 and is assigned convoy assist duty in the north atlantic. The characters and situations are some of the truist-written I've ever come across in literature. The minor character of Mashpie is one of the most memorable of all time. Excellent read whether you've been to sea or not.