Customer Reviews

The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea

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

 

 

This book really wasn't at all what I was expecting, or what the title would lead one to believe. The subtitle, "In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea," makes it sound as if this will be a biographical account of the life of Grace O'Malley, with supplemental information on other historical female seafarers. Not so. The first two chapters are devoted to the famous pirate queen herself, and Sjoholm only provides the skimpiest bits of information. I knew almost nothing about Grace O'Malley going into the book, and I know little more than that now. The other women included are discussed in even sparer detail, and most of them aren't even real historical figures, but legendary story characters and mythological creatures like mermaids. She even talks about Pippi Longstocking! Not what I was expecting at all...

"The Pirate Queen" is actually devoted far more to Sjoholm's travels in search of information on female women of the sea than it is to the information itself. I learned more about Sjoholm and her own life than about the women she supposedly set out to study. She describes the inns she stayed at, the weather, the tourists she met, her own childhood, the abundance of "personal bath mats" in northern European hotels... almost everything but Grace O'Malley and her cohorts. In fact, the primary underlying theme in the book seems to be how the author came to the decision to change her last name from Wilson to Sjoholm; a story which, to be quite honest, I really couldn't care less about. I bought the book hoping to learn about interesting historical figures. It turned out to be a travel memoir, and a comparatively uninteresting one at that.

This is a shame, really. Sjoholm includes just enough information on the various historical women she mentions - Grace O'Malley herself, Bessie Millie, Janet Forsyth, Christian Robertson, Eliza Fraser, Isobel Gunn, Betty Mouat, Freydis Eiriksdottir, Skipper Thuridur, Trouser-Beret, Alfhild, the "herring lassies," and numerous mythological characters - to whet my appetite, but then fails to deliver a full, satisfying portrait of any of them. She raises more questions than she answers, and I'd need to buy numerous additional books to find all the missing information. You may also notice, given the names, that nearly all the women mentioned are northern European in origin. Sjoholm entirely omits women seafarers active in other parts of the world, such as the famous pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read who, though from Europe, sailed the Caribbean.

As for Sjoholm's writing style, the book is an easy read, but not a very enjoyable one. Sjoholm's writing is given to an abundance of nearly nauseating metaphors. For example: "The lava fields looked like vanilla cake batter poured over thick jumbles of dates, walnuts, and chocolate chips. In the sun the moss could also look like lemon yogurt spooned generously over granola" (pg. 222). Flowery, gratuitous, and often ridiculous images like this are to be found in almost every paragraph... peppered throughout the book like poppyseeds in a muffin, you might say... It's not the worst book I've ever read, but I do wish I'd spent my money on something else. It doesn't deliver what it promises, and there are plenty of more interesting and informative books out there to pick up instead.

That should have been the title of the book. I was really disappointed. There was very little about Grace O'Mally, and more about what she did on her vacation.

I really didn't care why she changed her name or where she stayed or that she got sick and couldn't go row-boating. I just wanted to know about women's roles at sea, which she did cover a bit, but she could have done in a 100 page paperback instead.

I am more than a little interested in historical accounts of piracy, especially those dealing Grace O'Malley, and other female mariners. I selected this book hoping for more stories of the same, and was instead bored to tears by the author's accounts of her trip, the countryside, the places she stayed.. On and On. I got no new information about Grace or anyone else. It seemed like the author did not find enough information about these "legendary women" and needed to pad the book with her adventures. I personally would reccomend "She Captians" or Anne Chambers biography of Grace O'Malley over this book.

This book was very disappointing. I read five pages and returned it to the store. The title was very misleading.

I sat down to read about Grainne and her female contemporaries and ended up reading about how the author had dinner and tea with some Americans... so something or other. After I read that far, I put it down and took a nap.

Sjoholm takes us on a journey out to the furthest reaches, geographically and historically, of women's seafaring. Repeatedly met by locals' adamant protests that 'the women never went to sea', Sjoholm employs both humor and wit as she unravels buried or overlooked evidence that women not only went to sea, but they forged identities and livelihoods there, leaving behind heroic legends that have been long absent from accessible recorded history.

What I liked most about this book was the way Sjoholm's journey out was, inevitably, also a journey inward. Her pursuit of forgotten women fathomed submerged aspects of her own identity. In the true essence of travel essay, she reminds us there is a profoundly transformative relationship between the stories, places, and people which travelers (and researchers) discover and the stories of ourselves.

Having traveled some of this route myself, I appreciated Sjoholm's keen eye for the vibrant eccentricities of remote coastal communities and was wistfully reminded of how my own travels shaped my life. The book awakened the traveler in me and I was left hungry for pilgrimage and the reckoning of self that awaits us on stark, outer shores.

I think this is a wonderful book. It is beautifully written, thoroughly researched, well-organized, and very inspiring. I found it to be extraordinary on many levels. Ms. Sjoholm honored her interest in seafaring women by conducting the research, planning her trip, taking her trip, and, in essence, following her dream. To me, her journey itself was as inspiring as the wonderful and courageous women about whom she wrote. This book, in addition to educating me about historical women in the North Atlantic, also showed me what it looks like when a woman--in this case the author herself--pursues a dream.

Sjoholm should have re-titled this book and re-written those first couple of chapters. Packaged as is, they make for a misleading hook, thus all these disappointed, even exasperated, readers. I find myself wondering if the flashy title was her publisher's idea, and she wrote those early Grace O'Malley chapters more with more hope than good judgment. They don't belong in this otherwise fine book--or at least they don't belong in this form, in which Sjoholm promises a much different book than she delivers. What she delivers is excellent, both educational and entertaining. She got me interested in a topic I felt I had very little interest in, no small feat. She's a travel writer, first and foremost, with the travel writer's propensity toward some autobiography. I like that. But the title is a problem--and it's lost her many potential fans, I feel sure.

I wish I had an opinion about the book to share, but I NEVER RECEIVED THE BOOK! I keep telling everyone, but no one is listening!!!

The Pirate Queen contains numerous well-researched stories of the many historical and present-day women whose home is the sea. This is not just a book about Grace O'Malley, though she is amply covered in four chapters, but rather it brings to life the many well and lesser known women whose voices and stories have long been forgotten. Sjoholm obviously took great care to convey the histories in an accurate and interesting way and the depth of her research is admirable. But she wasn't simply writing a history book; this is about her journey too and that's what gives The Pirate Queen its accessibility and warmth. As I read Sjoholm's book, I felt like I traveled and went to many places that I will never see, and also learned about women I never knew existed. The repeated theme of women being forgotten, or their roles diminished, by history books and even contemporary scholars, is a tragedy too often seen in so many professions. I, for one, am glad that Barbara Sjoholm took the time to get these stories on the page.

The Pirate Queen is truly a search, combing the depths and breadth of the North Atlantic, for women's stories all too easily washed away by time and inattention. Sjoholm focuses our attention on characters both real and legendary, on time both past and present, and on the nature of journeys, both historic and personal.

The author is a masterful weaver of the stories she hears and researches including her own. The book satisfies by delivering new and hard-won information about obscure lives and times as well as introducing some quirky present-day folk that make up part of the search she lets us in on. I love learning new things and new ways of seeing, and especially learning how other people, like this author, actually find out what they tell us to be true.