Customer Reviews

Voyage: A Novel of 1896

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A story of 1896 written in 1976 by a man with an old soul. I envisioned a gray haired patriarch narrating this tale of a time when a four-masted barque would sail under the horn. The style is rough and heavy handed but you can taste the salt and feel the cold when he speaks of the sea. This is a hard read of a harsh time but well worth the voyage.

I'm sorry Sterling Hayden only wrote two books because I think he could have been one of the greats. But as with his acting career, he dropped out early, (although I must say I think he was a much better author than an actor). I read Voyage many years ago and went on to read "The Wanderer" his autobiographical work. Voyage is about a sailor and the hardships of the sea in the late 1800s. It also deals with the labor union movements of that era. A victim of McCarthyism which ended his acting career, Sterling Hayden's political agenda, in my opinion, was evident in this book. As a sailor I enjoyed it for its realism of the sea and would compare it to Richard Henry Dana's classic "Two Years Before the Mast".

While reading this huge book, it is easy to imagine Sterling doing the research. First, he would select the year for his opus. 1896 would seem like a good choice, because it was at the end of the tall ships when steam was supplanting sail, and Hayden was a lover of the ships (see his only other book, his autobiography: Wanderer). After he selected the year, he would go to a really good library and start reading the daily newspapers for 1896, jotting down events, dates, names and places. Then having compiled all his data, he would begin to compose this bestselling novel. The main focus of the book is the maiden voyage of "Neptune's Car" from Maine around the Horn to San Francisco. He has peopled the crew with very interesting and compelling characters, from the hard-driving, yet fair-minded Captain Irons Saul Pendelton, to the brutish first mate Otto Lassiter, to shipmates Harwar the Wrecker, Carmack the Anarch, a cast-a-way plucked from a deserted isle, and the ship's lone passenger MacLeod. Hayden takes the time to develop each of these characters and many others, providing them with a past, and a present, and no hope for the future. As the trip progresses, we get to know each of them personally as we learn of the extraordinarily hard life of the seaman and the futile and dangerous attempts to unionize and improve their lot. Meanwhile, we also follow another excursion: The Neptune Car's owner, Banning Butler Blanchard, sends his daughter and her ne'er-do-well husband with other socialites of the era on a pleasure cruise to Japan to witness a total solar eclipse. The juxtaposition of these two journeys gives an indepth look at the strong class distinctions of the day: the poor working stiff and the idle rich. Meanwhile, Blanchard himself is involved in that year's heated Presidential conflict. He goes to the Democratic Presidential convention in Chicago where the battle rages over whether America should use the gold or silver standard. Again, Hayden makes sure we understand all of the factors that lead to rioting in the streets and over-the-top rallies. And there are interesting sub-plots galore, each character driven, each fitting into the tapestry of the novel like tightly-fitting puzzle pieces. Hayden's strong descriptive abilities make us feel part of every scene, whether it be in the forecastle, on a Hawaiian beach, or a crowded convention hall floor. This is a two-fisted, hard drinking, passion-filled novel and makes me wish that Hayden had written other books. Why only four stars? The book leads us to an anticipated violent climax that just fizzles away on the very last pages. But until then, I could not have asked for more.

I read it in the mid-70s, at about the same time as "Ragtime" was published and felt that it was in the same class. Sterling Hayden did amazing things with words in this book and managed to knit together a wide variety of the subcultures which existed in that era. Make the effort to find a copy of this book; you will not be disappointed.

I like epic novels. This one looked big enough to be written by Michener or Tolstoy. However, it lacked the character definition and storyline of a good novel and was not a satisfying read.

Voyage was disappointing in three regards. First, while many of the characters had the potential to be well-developed protagonists, the reader is left with only a superficial understanding of Pendleton, MacLeod, Harwar, and Blanchard. Their motivations remain only shallowly understood, even after nearly 700 pages. Second is the philosophy of the book -- the idealists dream of Marxist Utopia while the capitalists clutch their wealth and status... a simplistic theme, and yet with such poorly drawn characters, the reader is certainly _not_ swept up in the struggle. Third was the plot itself. The reader waiting for developments is finally rewarded on page 400 with a promising plot twist, bringing the action to a boil, but the excitement is left to fade back into a tepid simmer. While this was not the worst book I have read this year, I would not recommend it, even to someone who loved tales of the high seas.

I'm glad to see that other reviewers thought as much of this book as I do. As the title states, this book is a novel of 1896. The year 1896 is pivotal (as is every other year, every other day, every other moment)in this country's history. Hayden creates a tableau of this pivotal time which surrounds and captures and includes the reader. He highlights the vast differences between the rich and the poor. He paints the east coast and the west coast; the nascent labor movement and the robber barons; American pride and American comtempt for fellow Americans. This book is a wonderful historical novel and certainly ranks in stature with historical novels by Dos Passos and Vidal.

As the title also states, this book is about a voyage; rather, many voyages. The book focuses on the voyage of the 'Neptune's Car', a large barque on a voyage from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. The barque's voyage is contrasted with the comfortably posh voyage of the Cuttings of New York by private train car and crewed yacht to observe the eclipse of the sun in the northwestern Pacific. The characters are vivid and visceral. Like cross waves in a big swell the voyages of the individuals are traced and examined. Their actions are believable and their interactions sometimes explode like the storms around Cape Horn.

This book is nothing short of wonderful. It is a sea story, an American story, a compelling historical novel, and a timeless story of human voyages and ships that pass in the night.

Sterling Hayden is an excellent writer - especially when he is writing about subjects with which he has a lot of familiarity. His descriptions of both sailing and heavy drinking are memorable. This is one novel which will be hard to forget.

Maverick actor Sterling Hayden's first book was "Wanderer", the tale of how he took his children and escaped to sea. His lifelong love of sailing and his great knowledge of the sea fill the pages of "Voyage". But "Voyage" is not so much a sea story as a snapshot of America at an important, even a major turning point: the election of 1896. In that year, the Democratic party was captured by the Populist left, led by William Jennings Bryan, and was defeated in the general election by McKinley and the Republicans, thereby setting American politics on a conservative course which has lasted to our own day.

But "Voyage" doesn't talk much about the politics of the times so much as the people who lived in those times. Above all, they were hard people.

On the one hand are the working stiffs. Shanghaied into the crew of the great four-masted barques, poor brutal men who have no control over their lives, well aware how badly they are used, capable of huge tenderness and sensitivity, and immensely skilled at fighting their ships through the world's worst weather around Cape Horn. On the other hand are the great capitalists who build the ships and the railways and the banking empires, and the tough-minded captains and mates who do their work for them.

All of them are strong in their way, with a kind of iron toughness that has pretty well vanished nowadays, and they fight out their story across 704 pages of great adventure and conflict.

Hayden surprised people with this book. He took a stab at a huge important story filled with colorful, exciting characters in all their strengths and weaknesses. "Voyage" is important, and exciting, and is as close to the mythical "Great American Novel" as anything ever attempted.

I first read this book when it was published in 1977.I have read it at least three times since. It is always new and exciting. If you can find it, read it, you won't be sorry

I picked this book up at my library's book sale a few years ago for $1.00 and got so engrossed in it that I'd stay awake reading until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when I finally told myself "you've got to go to work tomorrow"! I'm from Massachusetts and sail in Maine where some of the early action takes place. In a way the book still haunts me as scenes keep comming back. I'm writing this only because I happened to be in Seattle this past weekend and saw a beautiful sailboat named "Neptune's Car" and just had to ask someone connected with it why it had that name. It was due to this book and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since! I can't say more than has already been written but it is a great book with characters I'm not able to forget!