Customer Reviews

A Furnace Afloat: The Wreck of the Hornet and the Harrowing 4,300-mile Voyage of Its Survivors

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This is not just another "men in a lifeboat" book. Joe Jackson tells that part of the story well - the thirst, the hunger, battling the fierce sun and raging storms (and a "demonic" waterspout which seems to chase the lifeboats!), etc. - but the author has bigger fish to fry. Since this was a well-publicized story, he has journals and newspaper reports to draw upon and he can actually, with accuracy, get into the dynamics of what occurred on the lifeboats as time went by and the men started to become desperate: the search for scapegoats, the distrust of foreigners, the division between rich and poor, etc. Although, to my mind, Mr. Jackson pushes the "class warfare" aspects a bit beyond credibility (trying to show that the lifeboats were a sort of social laboratory and were indicators of what was to come in society in the not-too-distant future), it is clear that as the men cracked under pressure there was at least some resentment of "gentlemen" and of those who were perceived as "different." What also makes this book stand apart is Mr. Jackson's clinical attention to detail: what happens (physically and chemically) to the human body when a person goes 6 weeks with insufficient food and water. He also describes, based on memoirs and journals, what happens to the human mind and spirit. Finally, we also learn of Mark Twain's involvement in the tale...he was in Hawaii and he jumped at the chance to cover the story. He was still young and generally unknown at the time, and the stories he wrote and sent back to San Francisco helped to launch his career. The men on the boats are not ciphers. We get to know 5 or 6 of them intimately, which adds to the poignancy of the story. This is an excellent addition to the "shipwreck" genre, and I recommend it highly.

I've been addicted to the adventure/disaster genre, but this is one of the best I've read. Like the Perfect Storm, the author delves into all the details of starving to death, drowning and thirst that make such thrilling reading. Though I was getting a bit light-headed when they started eating leather, I made it through without even eating a snack. The details are what make this book so gripping -- you'll feel like you know them all and that you're in the boat with them. And when they miss islands that looked like they existed but didn't, your heart will break alongside the men's. It's interesting to note that most of the men really couldn't go on to live normal lives after this mishap, but after you're done reading, it won't be hard to see why!

"A Furnace Afloat" written by five-time pulitzer prize nominee Joe Jackson details the "harrowing 4,300-mile voyage of its survivors." Skillfully and intelligently woven into the fabric of Jackson's writing are anecdotes of modern science, physiology and psychology, tying threads between the tragic and testing events of the survivors of the "Hornet" and events of today. For this reason, I recommend "A Furnace Afloat" to all college and university students as mandatory reading, given credit as humanities and social science. This is one of the best writing styles I've ever seen. I dare not spoil the voyage for you; start at the beginning and read this work, don't just skim over it.

Once you are reeled in, the frightening encounters with starvation, madness and the surreal begin to grip your imagination, and you have to remind yourself that this fateful voyage really happened. Makes me glad for what little I have. Now I don't feel so bad for what I don't. These men had life far tougher than any of us will ever have to endure. Forty-three days at sea after the fire, woefully undernourished and short of supplies, the Hornet's survivors as detaild by Mr. Jackson allows us to tap into the unique experiences of the crew and apply that knowledge to our own lives. As Mr. Jackson put it, "...in life, we are all at sea."

This book by Joe Jackson is one of those kinds of works difficult to put down as the reader is caught up in the pain of an awful moment. I don't feel it necessary in a review to rehearse the entire episode but to simply say that what the men trying to survive from the burning and sinking of the Hornet had to do should never be anyone's lot in life. I've read other survival literature and Jackson's account is equal to any I've come across in the past few years. It is hard to imagine the thoughts going through the minds of these men as they struggled with the day to day struggles of staying alive in a boat, lost for so long on the Pacific ocean. Perhaps, if anything, a book like this helps to bring us back to reality and consider how fortunate we all are with the good things of life, things so handy as the nearest store or flick of a switch. We take such things for granted but maybe we should remind ourselves from time to time how close we each might be to the very brink of survival like the men from the Hornet. Of special interest was the connection between this incident and the fact that Mark Twain "just happened" to be around in time to write about it.
A good book, worthy of any collection.

If you are considering reading a shipwreck story from the sailing era, I would not pick this up until you have read Shackleton's "South", Philbrick's "In the Heart of the Sea", and Taylor's "Caliban's Shore". If, after that, you are still hooked on shipwreck stories, consider this one about a Clipper ship which is lost to an accidental fire in the Pacific far off South America. The other books are all better written, provide more historical context (except for "South"), and are at least as compelling a story as this. That's not to say it is a poor work, but it does read like an academic paper drawn out into book length by spiking the fascinating underlying storyline with speculation about class warfare and other tangents, flashbacks, and asides. All these additions are too clumsily inserted and start to get in the way of the main storyline of leadership and survival which is the primary reason to read, and keep reading, this book.

If you like true stories of survival at sea this book is for you. The story of the Hornet and her survivors is one you will not be able to put down.

Pulizer-Prize-winning author Joe Jackson has written a truly compelling account of the wreck of The Hornet and the incredible aftermath voyage of the survivors. This is not the book to start if you have an early morning appointment the next day, as it's almost impossible to put this book down once begun!

It is truly a remarkable literary achievement to write an historical account such as this as if it were happening today. Recommended highly for all those who, like me, are enthusiastic readers of tales of the sea.