Customer Reviews

Victory

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

 

 

Certain authors publish with an aura of definite mystique. Lloyd Alexander, for one, can still elicit a certain thrill when his books sit on a shelf. Ditto Philip Pullman. But of all these fellows, not a one of them can hold a candle to the majesty and plum good writing of Ms. Susan Cooper. Her "The Dark Is Rising" sequence is still the go to series when it comes to Celtic myth and Arthurian legend. It was with great shock that I discovered a couple years ago that not only had she written comic pieces (as with "The Boggart") and time travel ("King of Shadows") but that she was STILL WRITING. Somehow I'd assumed "The Dark Is Rising" books were written decades ago solely for my own enjoyment and that the author had long since passed on to another world. Hardly. It is fortunate indeed that "Victory" proves how wrong I was. Not quite a time travel book, but not quite realistic fiction either, this latest Cooper saga follows two children, inexplicably tied to one another. And while it's not the author's finest work, there's no denying the fine fabulous writing that has gone into it.

Molly's world has fallen totally and irreparably apart. A logical girl, she understands why she and her family have moved from London, England to Connecticut. She knows that her new stepfather and stepbrother are fine fellows and that her house and room are bigger and more beautiful than anything she's ever had before. She knows this. However, Molly is so homesick for England that she'll hold on to anything that might tie her to it as if it were a lifeline. When a book of the life of Lord Nelson falls into her possession, Molly starts finding herself connected to the life of a boy who lived hundreds of years before her own. Sam Robbins was, during the time of the Napoleonic wars, pressed into serving on Horatio Nelson's ship. Once he is on The Victory, Sam finds himself both horrified and awed by his experience as one of the crew's powder monkeys. Told in alternating chapters, the book charts Molly's journey back to her former home to visit The Victory today, and Sam's journey over the seas on the boat he would soon regard as his own.

Because the book is shifting continually between the present and the past, Cooper sometimes writes herself into an interesting predicament. On the one hand you have Molly, who's misery is palpable. Cleverly, Cooper allows the reader to feel the child's homesickness and sheer unhappiness just as if it were their own. We are utterly sympathetic. At the same time, though, Cooper has coupled this tale alongside Sam's story. There is a moment in the book where Sam has just been forced to wear an iron bar in his mouth for three days as punishment for something he mistakenly did. He cannot eat or drink or sleep and the bar cuts painfully into his skin, drawing blood. The chapter ends after the bolt is removed and suddenly we're back with Molly who's problems, let's face it, shrivel up and dry in the face of Sam's agony. As I read the book I wondered if Cooper was aware that the reader might not sympathize with Molly as keenly once they'd been introduced to Sam's torturous situation. I needn't have feared. I suspect that Cooper knew exactly what she was doing when she paired Sam's tale with that of Molly's because at that moment the reader starts to feel that the Molly dilemma can only be solved if she herself understands how small her problems really are. The climax comes when Molly does realize this in an almost violent but necessary fashion.

A co-worker of mine started reading the book, but stopped when she found it dull. I was fascinated by this reaction, especially since I've been wondering how kids would react to this story. Would they be bored? Thrilled? I think Molly's contemporary tale is definitely necessary. I suppose the first image of the funeral march for Lord Nelson might be a bit slow as beginnings go, but once Molly is thrown head over heels into the ocean as her step-brother and step-father sail, the tale definitely picks up. Of course, it's filled to brimming with ship terms. And there's quite a lot of discussion of how the ship is laid out. Interestingly enough I kept suddenly envisioning the layout of the ships found in "The Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. I suspect that if you wanted to make a reader reluctant to pick up this story, just explain to them that there are ship fights similar to those in the "Pirates" movies. I can't guarantee that that would work, but it's certainly worth a shot.

But you know, it's just all about the writing, isn't it? The little moments that separate the good books from the so-so ones. Cooper has a couple of those up her sleeve. One of the story's more touching details is the fact that Molly adores her new little baby step-brother, Donald. At one point the family is on the Tube in London and Donald is alarmed by the loud noises. Molly plays peek-a-boo with him to cheer him up. "All the surrounding grownups watch, with nostalgia soft in their faces, except one thin man in a tight dark suit, who retreats behind a newspaper with a disdainful sniff". I could never tell you why, but that's one of my favorite moments in the book. Cooper's writing never lightens the story's tough situations, by the way. Sam is pressed into service with the Navy against his will and the ship situation is gritty, gory, and thoroughly unpleasant. Just the same, you get a hint of why Sam felt that it should become his life's work, no matter what.

Boy, I sure hope that a huge swath of kids today are Anglophiles. Between "Endymion Spring" trying to convince them that Oxford is a hip youth hang-out and Ms. Cooper giving us a hearty heaping of Lord Nelson facts, the time has never been better to be enamored of all things English. With it's almost too tasteful cover and whopping great amounts of historical fiction ah-flowing through its gills, "Victory" is probably not going to be the first book the kids pick up when they walk into a library or bookstore. For those with a penchant for both history and realism, however, they may well find much to love here. Enjoyable indeed.

Suffering from severe homesickness for her former civilized life in London, eleven-year-old Molly Jennings is deeply unhappy. She has been transplanted to Connecticut into a new life and family by her mother's marriage. Forced into a sail with her stepfather and stepbrother, Molly is accidently knocked into the sea. Her terror, before she is pulled to safety, is so profound that it seems to set into play strange, psychic connections with a young British sailor from the past, Sam Robbins. Having been kidnapped into service in the Royal Navy, Sam ends up serving loyally on the HMS Victory with Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.

The seemingly unrelated stories of present-day Molly and early nineteenth-century Sam are told in alternating episodes. The connection between the two is masterfully. gradually revealed. The excitng past infringes on Molly's present until it culminates in a frightning denoument aboard HMS

Victory, now a marine museum. The ending, which ties up the complex threads of the story with astute perceptions of history, is totally satisfying. Another victory for its author.

Sam Robbins is an 11-year-old ship's boy, forced from his home in England when he and his uncle are pressed into service in His Majesty's Navy in 1803. Sara Jennings is an 11-year-old girl, forced from her home in England when her mother remarries and moves the family to Connecticut in 2006.

Years and miles apart, the two youngsters share a bond, woven into the cloth of a tiny fragment from the flag that once flew over HMS Victory, the flagship of Admiral Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. The two children's lives couldn't be more different, yet author Susan Cooper weaves them together with the expert touch of a seasoned writer, best known for her landmark "The Dark is Rising" series. Cooper's research is impeccable; although Sara is an entirely fictional creation and Sam was nothing more than a name on a ship's register, Cooper has turned them into real, three-dimensional characters who feel, and consequently make readers feel, too.

Cooper's work is always readable and entertaining. Seasoning her story heavily with history from the exciting days of Nelson's Navy, there's enough detail about life aboard a naval flagship to make readers feel the wood beneath their feet, hear the wind in the rigging and knock their bread against the table, for fear of weevils. The juxtapositioning of Sam's and Sara's narratives -- Sam's in first-person past, Sara's in third-person present -- is completely natural, flowing easily across centuries as their stories unfold.

Written for young-adult readers, adults will find themselves equally captivated by this delightful novel.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor

If you loved the opening battle seqence of Master and Commander or have never missed an episode of Horatio Hornblower, then you will love this book.

Molly Jennings is so homesick for England she can hardly stand it. She is trying to make a the best of her new home in Connecticut and her new stepfamily but she longs for the green parks and red tile roofs of London. She is worried about starting life in a new school where no one will understand about her "sideways" moments. Molly has a mild form of epilepsy.

During a visit to Mystic Seaport she finds an old book on the life of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson in a bookshop. She feels as if the book is calling to her. On the trip home she falls asleep in the car and has her first "dream."

Sam is eleven years old in 1803 when he is captured by a press gang and forced to join the Royal Navy. His new home is HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship. Nelson is hunting the French.

Molly is not aware of her dreams but finds moments from them intruding on her real life. Her book about Nelson yields an amazing discovery, hidden in the binding. The words, "This fragment of the great man's life and death passed on to my by my grandmother at her death in eighteen eighty-nine" written on an old envelope seem tie Molly to the events of October 1805 and Battle of Trafalgar.

Family ties, home and love are at the heart of this story. It was lovely to see step-families presented in such a positive way.

History, mystery, sort of time travel-ly, I loved this book, reading it nonstop, straight through to the end.

Molly is an English girl starting a new life in modern day America. Sam is an 11 year old country boy who is pressed into service upon HMS Victory at the turn of the 19th century. Two threads of a story that drift together when Molly finds a very special book in a second hand bookshop one wet day.

In the course of the book the reader is transported back to the Battle of Trafalgar. An enjoyable read with plenty of good historical detail and a mystery to resolve itself.

I am so glad that Susan Cooper is writing books again. I think I have read everything she has written, and every book is enjoyable and of a high standard. This book is no exception, and this is as ever a good young adult book.

But, in fact, when reading into this period of history, I would rater Powder Monkey by Paul Dowswell a little more highly. There is even more historical detail in that book, and the story was every bit as good. If you want to read just one book about life aboard a ship in Nelson's day, read "Powder Monkey". But if you want to read a very good story, this one is worth it too.

In am not British, but I am very fond of England and their history. That's why I found (with Google search engine) this book, looking for references to HMS Victory, Nelson and Portsmouth that I intended to visit this summer (what I actually did). So, my perspective could be pretty biased, however I'm trying to bring out facts as objectively as I can. I read the book fast, like I eat a good cake, being sorry when it came to an end. I was not disappointed. The story, as "fairy-tale" as it seems, of the encounter of the two children parted by two centuries is made believable by the author. The episodes are skillfully assembled so the rendez-vous of Molly and Sam is in the climax, when tension grows to a maximum, on both sides: Sam is about to enter with his "mother-ship" into action at Trafalgar, Molly, trapped by an irresistible call from faraway, steps on Victory. That is the place where the "door to the past" opens widely.

It was very interesting for me the historic part, for example the rope-making trade and life onboard. The detailed description of the ship nowadays made me recollect and put in order my own recent memories of Victory.

As for battle itself, I had read a lot before and I think I know everything about all its stages or about the damages suffered and inflicted by Victory, therefore I read the pages describing the battle with a "hawk-eye" - I would have been very disappointed if the author's description were not accurate. But it is (though I'm not sure about the wounded undergoing amputations being given to drink to alleviate pain - alcohol thins the blood and makes it spill faster).

I enjoyed (and laughed at) some domestic life scenes like the one about "cook" Carl standing beside the grill with the fork in one hand and the mobile phone in the other, maybe the author put a bit of her own experience in this fictional Yank-Brit family (she's also married in America). I didn't know, however, they are so many cultural and life-stile differences between those peoples. I also liked some inspired figure of speech like the "unexploded bomb" of the adoption request, standing between Molly and her grandfather when heading to Portsmouth, or the poetical depiction of Victory cutting trough the waves.

And I like Molly's character. She's not a tomboy kicking and throwing punches at those who bullied her, she barely throws a book at Jack the persecutor ... who is rather an immature and willing to be considered spiritual young man, than a real jerk. She has a good heart, loves her baby-brother (like Sam used to love and protect his little sisters) and does not kill even the caterpillar that annoys her. She is sensitive and vulnerable and the sole victory she gets in the end is growing-up and realizing that she has to stick with her new family, as her "twin" Sam succeeded in making his life as a sailor, most of the time apart from his loved-ones. So happens in real life, we eventually accept what we cannot change and this is the real victory (but I must confess, the epilogue disclosing of the parentage of the Jennings seemed to me a bit too "hollywoodian").

As an overall impression, reading is enjoyable. The author doesn't play the justice-maker, not even with the vicious characters, like the father of Sam, whom she makes not to die, but to become less bitter due to the accident he suffers. That's a nice attitude for an author.

Victory by Susan Cooper is a tale of time. When two people are join together from different times. United by one person and a cloth both people come together. Both feel the same way as each other. Sam Robbins is a boy who's family was poor. He joins his uncle but is then press into the navy. Molly Jennings a girl who

This book was a very good one using details that were great. The story goes between two charactors, one from the 1800's and one from modern times. The story opens with a girl named Molly who has just moved from London to Connecticut because her Mother re-married. She is terribly homesick and does not fit in. Meanwhile a boy named Sam in the 1800's has just agreed to go with his Uncle to the city. In Connecticut, Molly has agreed to go to Mystic with her stepdad. They go into a bookstore and Molly finds a book that she likes. The book is dated sometime in the 1800's. Meanwhile Sam and his Uncle have been pressed into the Navy and forced to live on a stinky smelly boat. Will Molly find that she has a connection to this sailor who is more than a century older than her? I gave this book 4 stars because it was a little slow going when reading about Sam.

In 1805 a young boy Sam and his uncle are pressed into the British navy. Meanwhile A girl named Molly moved to America from England because her father died and her mom fell in love with an American. One day Molly goes into a bookshop and buys a book with a piece of Sam's ship called HMS Victory and signed by is granddaughter. Sam's life is described very well and is very detailed and you always know what is going on. Molly's life is very dramatic and really draws the reader in. Toward the end Sam's story gets gory and if you don't like that kind of stuff you won't like that part. This book was so good I couldn't stop reading it.

This book was the perfect mix of history and modern day mysteriousness.

Jordan.