Customer Reviews

The Custom of the Sea

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Neil Hanson's recreation of the voyage of the Mignonette is for the most part thrilling, horrifying, absorbing. Hanson is at his best when describing the ship at sea and the actual events of the tragedy (although it is distinctly off-putting to notice that on at least two occasions the events he describes are speculative might-have-beens dressed up as fact). His account of the storm that sank the Mignonette is as well-observed and powerfully controlled as any you will read outside of Joseph Conrad. I would have awarded four stars, had Hanson mastered the knack of handling his historical material. Well-researched and unexceptionable, the chapters on, for instance freak shows or prison conditions in Victorian England seem tacked on and are poorly integrated with the narrative. Still, these are quibbles, as were my initial reactions against the use of slightly cliched language: "The small boat was drifting in a vast expanse of ocean" is hardly the freshest way to begin a book about castaways. I do have my doubts about the merits of reconstructing dialogue from letters, and the merits of presenting an historical account dressed up as a fictional narrative (though hoping to keep the authority of history), but regardless, this is a worthy addition to the tradition of sea-tales and shipwreck literature, and indispensable reading for anyone interested in the last taboo, the custom of the sea.

Custom of the Sea does a great job of telling the story of desperate men in desperate circumstances. One can only imagine with horror being placed in the situation where you would have to kill another person to ensure that you and others could survive, if only for a few more days.

Even beyond the story of the struggle at sea, Custom of the Sea raises important questions about our system of criminal law. Can the legal system justify the intentional killing of one person where the failure to take someone's life could mean the death of several men? If not, does the legal system elevate principle over substance? On the other hand, if the law allows a person to decide when another's life should be forfeited for the greater good, doesn't that invite people to determine when their own needs can justify murder, theft and dishonesty.

Finally, Custom of the Sea raises some important questions about the purpose of a penal system. In prosecuting the captain, what does the legal system hope to accomplish? Certainly, he is not a threat to engage in a similar act, so deterrence is probably not the purpose of the prosecution. I would argue that he was sufficiently punished for his actions by his ordeals at sea. This would leave the grounding for the punishment in a theory of retribution and vindication of every victim's moral worth, but does a prosecution here exact too much of a price?

Neil does a nice job of telling the story in a narrative. My only reservations come from the fact that some of the details seem fictional, rather than historical, but this is still a very fine book.

I was so amazed by this story, there's an incredible amount of history here tucked among this richly told tale- that reads so much like fiction, you can't believe it really happened. The horrors that Captain Tom Dudley and his crew had to endure to stay alive after their shipwreck had me turning the pages well into the night. When I finished the book, I immediately gave it to a friend, the legal drama is also fascinating. This book has something for everyone and shouldn't be missed!

A book like this comes around rarely. It reads like a gothic novel but has all the research and facts of a court presentation. it is a true story, but its truth may be instinctively denied by the reader, so terrible is its basis. Despite an absorbing and well-written plot, the reader may at times be tempted to stp reading - if not in revulsion, at lesat in prayerful contemplation - but the urge to turn another page will prove too irresistible. In brief, The Custom of the Sea is a masterpiece of literature, historic jurisprudence, and English maritime history. Above all it is stark testament to Man's will to survive. It is a sailor's book, but the ethical and legal points it raises will be debated with equal passion by lawyers, priests, housewives, CEOs and others who may not know a bowline from a bow line. However large one's personal library may be, there are only a few books therein that have the power to leave a lifelong impression upon the reader. I predict this will be one such book.

Imagine yourself adrift on the open sea in a small boat with three companions. You are 1000 miles from the nearest land, you have had no food or water for days, one of your members is near death,...is there a potential temporary solution to your problem? Reading this on a full stomach, some solutions just might not present themselves. However, in "The Custom of the Sea", the author, Neil Hanson, allows us to see things from the perspective of those involved. The solution that those men took that fateful day is the basis for a most interesting look at a most unusual footnote in history.

Hanson tells the tale primarily through the eyes of the main character but he gives us plenty of background on all of the other characters and events that culminated in a major trial in England in the late 1800's. Along the way, the author gives us historical background as well which I generally found to be helpful. Essentially, half of the 304 pages are focussed on the actual events and the other half are focussed on the resulting trial. That might sound like half is exciting and half is boring (or, at least, less exciting). However, there is a major moral and legal dilemna here and the trial helps to bring out those issues.

All in all, this is a very good book, easily read, and hard to put down. If I am to fault the author for anything, it is his openly biased account of the events. We know right off the bat who the good guys are; we hear only good things about them and we hear only bad things about the "bad guys". For example, we are told of the happily married men (good guys)and then we are told about another who is "rumored" to have abandoned a wife and children. This "rumor" is never proven but it is brought up several times in the story. I mention this because there are serious moral questions involved in these events. As such, the author ought to put forth the facts as impartially as possible so as to let the reader decide their own opinions. We were led in the "right" direction by Neil Hanson's way of telling the story. Still, most of us might have eventually ended up with similar sympathies. Read "The Custom of the Sea" and ask yourself what you would have done in the same situation.

The Custom of the Sea is a rather macabre yet fascinating tale of human survival and legal chicanery. One tends to think of desperate acts of cannibalism as the stuff of horror movies, but enough shipwrecked men resorted to this most desperate of means for it to become an unspoken law of sailors. This is an account of the doomed yacht Mignonette which went down in 1884 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, far from land as well as the trade lanes most other ships pursued. Captain Tom Dudley, by all accounts a kind and good man, and his three hands drifted for weeks inside a leaky, tiny dinghy, surviving on two tins of turnips and a small ration of water. Ravished by weather conditions, fear, starvation, and especially thirst, they persevered as long as they could, but eventually Dudley knew that the lot must be cast and one man die in order that the others might survive a little longer. When the youngest hand succumbed to the temptation of quenching his thirst by drinking sea water and rapidly approached death, the decision was made by Dudley and his first made Stephens to kill him. Blood quenched the terrible thirst of the men, including the third man Brooks who partook of the terrible rations as willingly as his mates, and human meat sustained all three men long enough for a ship to finally rescue them after almost four weeks adrift. The captain who saved the men understood, as most sailing people did, that Dudley had done what had to be done. When the men finally made it back home, they were shocked to find themselves charged with murder. The case was a sensation, and the conviction of Dudley and Stephens for willful murder provoked a myriad of outcries from all over the country while setting a legal precedent of unusual distinction.

The book begins somewhat slowly, at least for me, as the author devotes a significant amount of time to the life and duties of men aboard ship. The story of the destructive storm they encounter and their ordeal at sea is of course quite gripping. The second half of the book basically covers their arrest and trial, and while this part of the story necessarily lacks some of the human drama that has come before it, the miscarriage of justice described by the author increasingly raises one's hackles as the book nears its end. Such an act of desperate cannibalism cannot be condoned, of course, but it is certainly understandable under the desperate conditions these sailors found themselves in. The moral and ethical issues underlying the controversy are debatable, but the story that comes out here is one of judicial abuse. The Home Office, having failed earlier to outlaw "the custom of the sea," basically used this case to obtain its elusive goal, railroading the unfortunate sailors. Their conviction was guaranteed from the start, a fact their own lawyer knew but did not divulge to them at the time. Most remarkably, the presiding judge basically told the jury they must convict the men of murder yet went on to resort to an archaic legal maneuver that took judgment out of the hands of the jury (for fear that local sentiment might result in an acquittal) and made the royal court both judge and jury. I'm not a lawyer, but the legal jurisprudence of this case would seem to be of great significance.

The book does drag in a couple of places. Hanson takes the time to comment on the history of shipwrecks and of cannibalistic survival methods of desperate men. He also goes into great detail as to life on board a ship and the pitiful state of mandated food rations. These facts are all interesting and provide a useful background to the story of the Mignonette, but they do take away from the driving force of the tale. I should say that the story is written in a narrative form, for the most part. While this makes the book more compelling, it does pose a problem in terms of the facts. The author describes the life and times of these men as if he were there recording their thoughts and deeds from the day they sailed to the day their legal ordeal finally ended. That kind of narrative would not make for good history in an academic sense, but it does make for a compelling, eye-opening read.

The cover of this book is done in Victorian style, and the prose is Gothic, formal, and "very British." Although it's probably sailing on the trend of current sea books, like "The Perfect Storm", and the story of the whaling ship Essex, this book is different in tone. I found it enjoyable yet I do have reservations about the "docu-drama" style of imagined conversations, emotions, and memories, which to my mind, trivializes real events. I realize the constraints which the author faced, as all the characters are long dead, not available for interviewing.

It is a gripping, elemental story of a situation few of us like to think about. One fact is particularly haunting: Sometimes men on leanly-provisioned ships would "not see" a small boat of desperate people, fearing that if they rescued them, there would not be enough food for all. Leaders of shipwrecked survivors would have to instruct some of them to hide in the bottom of the boat so that a ship would approach. So much for brave captains and the noble code of the sea!

This is a troubling story about a group of men that have to deceide what their morals are really made of. Four men start out from England on an expidition to deliver a yacht to its new owner in Australia. Though the trip is dangerous all the men aboard have their reasons to take the chance. Whether it is for the money or a chance at a new life these men set out on a journey that will bring them to the edge of death when the ship goes down in a storm. The men cast off in a life boat with very little food and drinking water. As their physical condition deteriorates they are faced with a major decision...to follow the custom of the sea to save themselves or to follow their morality and most surely die. The last portion of the book deals with the legal problems associated with their decision and their lives after the sinking. This book is a great story that will evoke many emotions in the reader. The book is easy to read, and the story will grip you so you can't put it down. I highly recomend it.

Neil Hanson does a good job describing the village life of the sailors on THE MIGNONETTE, the doomed sailing yacht. The men were desperately poor and if it wasnt for bad luck this crew would have had no luck at all. They were family men just trying to feed their wives and children. The soon to be "main dish" was just an orphan lad trying for a new life down under. Well, the owner of the yacht was a stingy, greedy, boorish Australian business titan. He was so cheap that he couldnt pass up a good deal on an aged racing yacht that was long past its prime-- even though the hull had leaky timbers. Tom Dudley is our resolute and steely eyed captain. He stood 5'3" in his stocking feet, but he was broad and strong and possessed an aura of quiet calm; and was schooled in basic butchering. NH trots out statistics showing that sailing was a high risk profession and the laws were stacked against the sailors in favor of the owners. This ill fated crew sets off from England for Australia to deliver the racing yacht to the cheap, greedy, capitalist. Sure enough when they cross the equator in their leaky tub they encounter 60 foot waves. This captain and crew had never seen such seas; and, this yacht was not intended for a transocean l voyage like this. After a couple of days in this fierce storm a wave strips the timbers right off the boat and the hull leaks. The four man crew barely make it into a 13 foot long, 4 foot wide, 20 inch deep dinghy with quarter inch planks and a hole in its bottom as The Mignonette sinks like a stone headed for Davey Jones' locker. They have no water and only 2 tins of turnips. The urine drinking commences almost immediately. Captain Tom beats off a giant shark with an oar-- this is pretty exciting. But despite constant admonition from Captain Tom, Richard the lad commences to drink sea water. Science backs up that drinking sea water quickly leads to madness because your brain dehydrates. As the lad lay delirious his buddies decided to murder him and serve him as the main course. By page 122 the murder and butchering are done and nothing is left of poor Richard but his bones. This book then becomes a rumination of survival cannibalism and the trivia of ritual cannibalism. It is important as a meditation on this little known subject. For those interested in further exploring this taboo I refer readers to the fine work by Philbrick IN THE HEART OF THE SEA. That work is the real story behind Moby Dick and it is fascinating and well written. Well Part 2 of The Custom Of The Sea begins; so get ready for some English Perry Mason. Captains Tom's tribulations were just beginning. First a crew member turned rat fink traitor. The case of REGINA VS. DUDLEY proceeded as a Victorian mockery of justice. There were snobby, pompous, social climbing judges. Poor Tom was sold out by his own lawyer for eight pieces of silver. The crew of the yacht Mignonette were made an example of. England was out to prove the custom of the sea was just folklore and not the law of the land. This book explores fascinating questions about survival cannibalism. Do you kill the weakest so the rest may survive; or all die together ? Can drawing lots stamp a societal imprimatur on murder? Read the book before you provide your answer.

I loved the book and read it from cover to cover in just 2 days. I thought the depiction of the characters were great and the real dilema challenging. The end was a bit long as it never seemed to end. But, all in all, a great book that I would highly recommend.