Customer Reviews

Wayward Sailor: In Search of the Real Tristan Jones

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

 

 

I've only read four of Tristan Jone's books, with the first being The Incredible Voyage. I wasn't far into the book before it became obvious that there was a lot of fabrication and embellishment going on there. ICE! was even more far-fetched. And as Dalton pointed out in Wayward Sailor, the book ICE! was entirely fiction.

Dalton's book serves to confirm what many of us already knew: Tristan Jones was less than truthful. What I was surprised to hear, though, is that Jones wasn't a very nice person in real life, either. He had far more enemies than friends and spent much of his time as an obnoxious drunk. He was not a trustwothy person; for example, he took "Outward Leg", a boat belonging to its manufacturer, and left it abandoned and trashed before completing the agreed route.

But, nevertherless, I will still buy Tristan's books and plan to read them all. Tristan's writing skills are a bit rough around the edges, but he does tell a great story. The important thing is that the books are entertaining and everything in them must be taken with a grain of salt. I would recommend the books to everyone.

While Tristan Jones greatly exagerated his "record voyages" and did not sail anywhere near the miles he claimed, he was still a great seamen and writer.

I have been in contact with Anthony Dalton over the last couple of years while he was writing this biography of Tristan Jones...Some believe every word he writes in his books, some who knew him doubt many of the stories he wrote. Finally, Tony Dalton has traveled all over the world collecting the facts. He has documented the cold truth in this extraordinary researched biography. I must admit that his conclusions are not the ones I wished for, but the truth is very often hard to accept. I have corresponded with many people who knew Tristan personally, and many have told me that what Tony recorded in his new book is true. Regardless, if you want to read some wonderful stories, read some of Tristan Jones books. Fact or fiction, I loved every one.

This is a fascinating biography of an infuriating poseur. Tristan Jones, Royal Navy, had great skill as a teller of autobiographical tales of danger at sea and adventures ashore. Unfortunately, as Anthony Dalton demonstrates in a book that started out as an attempt to spread Jones's fame, it turns out that most (and possibly all) of his spellbinding tales are untrue. He made them up. They didn't happen.

Old salts are expected to tell "sea stories." Memoirists, however, are not. It will come as a real disappointment to anyone who, like me, enjoyed the hell out of Jones's books, to discover that such wonderful reads like Ice! and The Incredible Voyage are effectively no more than tall tales. They remain great tall tales, I admit (so great you just want to keep on believing them), but fiction should be labeled as such.

Public records revealed to Anthony Dalton that the old sea dog, who died in 1995, simply was not where he claimed to be when he claimed to be there. Dalton himself was reluctant to accept the evidence until it became overwhelming.

Example: Jones wrote a compelling "memoir" entitled Heart of Oak about serving in the Royal Navy in World War II. It's so good that even the prominent, crotchety critic Paul Fussell mentioned its virtues. Turns out Navy records show that Tristan Jones didn't even join the RN till World War II was over. And so it goes.

I used to be a big fan of his, too.

All biography is fiction. This work is no exception. Its focus is both the demonstrated and imagined deceptions and personal failings of another author/adventurer. I say imagined since Mr. Dalton isn't Tristan Jones, apparently never met Mr. Jones, and wasn't present for any of the events he describes in that life. In this book he nevertheless defends a set of openly expressed condemnations based only on his reading of log entries, interviews, and some published reminiscences by others.

A reader of this book will hear almost nothing of Tristan Jones' actual voice. Only Dalton's representation of it at its most abusive. We see little warmth in this portrait of a short-statured rum-drunk sailor, and none of the humor. We're shown scraps of generosity only if explained by self-serving motives. The bulk of this book is devoted to enumerating every mean turn of character, deceit, irresponsibility, act of brutish behavior, and personal failure that could be collected and apparently independently verified.

Unfortunately, many of the supposed facts recorded here are obviously opinion, and estimation, not hard history. The book is peppered with Tristan "would haves," "must haves," and "certainlys." Jones' log books are referred to but not presented.

In one example of biographical estimation, the author describes a world chart tossed overboard by Jones when cleaning ship that is covered with lines indicating, not voyages, according to Dalton, but faked voyages.

Yet, a less judgmental reader might think they were contemplated routes. Dalton never saw the chart he imagines as proof of fraud (nor do we). And if it was some kind of fabricated evidence for fake journeys, why didn't Jones keep it instead of discarding it overboard in order to make room on Sea Dart for supplies for the voyage to Lake Titicaca, and across South America? Was he attempting to fool a flounder?

Lest we suspect this exposé's underlying motivation was in part authorial jealousy, we are thrown some occasional bones to punctuate the gloom. Jones' actual verifiable sailing feats were in fact admirable, according to Dalton, . . . if only he hadn't .....(fill in the blank). It is apparently necessary that readers also know, according to Dalton, that Jones dressed poorly, was born out of wedlock, was homosexual, an alcoholic, and smelled bad. Apparently, no reading of Jones' The Incredible Voyage would be complete without this important information.

There are many things to read cautiously in this exposé. At a tragic personal moment, Jones' long time sailing companion is found dead in a Thai parking lot of a heroin overdose. The book's conclusion, based on absolutely no evidence presented in its pages, is that his friend according to Dalton, was murdered by a drug lord of "The Golden Triangle." Jones is labeled a coward by the author on the basis that he didn't come to the same conclusion and publicize it to the world.

Likewise the fact that Jones referred to the cause of death as heart failure, rather than immediately announcing his friend's heroin overdose might have other explanations than fear. What about denial, grief, sensitivity for his friend's memory, depression, shame or even a complexity of emotion? Was the man that shallow or is the biographer? The plain fact is, neither we, nor this book's author knows what Tristan Jones felt or thought at any time about anything. And that most certainly cannot and should not be reduced by some simplistic third hand estimation to a fiction itself.

But what about Jones' literary fabrications? Should we put up with them? Well, if you feel that the centuries-old tradition of telling tales of the sea in an overblown fashion must finally come to an end in the cynically rationalist and supposedly truth-seeking millennium we now face, then this exposé is the book for you. Tristan Jones is hereby de-bunked. Better take these pages at face value then as well.

For me, delusional by preference, the value of this spoonful of soured medicine was hard to figure. Does it help? I don't know. Jones' Incredible Voyage, it must be said, made the world a bigger place than it really was. While Dalton's work has made it much smaller than it is. Thus, to be even handed, I've been forced to award only four stars to the former, taking away one for the untruths it contained. . . and hand it over to the latter for its veracity, humor, and humanity.

...that de-bunks the Tristian Jones self created "persona". It is clear that the end of the book was hard to write and researching the latter parts of TJ's life was made harder by his isolation abroad coupled with TJ's recognition that he was in the process of getting "caught out" and so made his life hard to research. This makes the end of the book rather flat - but it is worth it in its own right for the first two thirds.

Having read all of Trisan Jones' books and recommended him over the years, I found this book a necessary final read. It rejuvenated my respect for Tristan, but in a different way. He was a great story teller and his creator gave him a writing gift. He chose to fabricate in support of the greater cause....the story. Not the choices I would have made, but I'm not Tristan. I've seen big egos do worse but only a few have the gift to write the stories for our pleasure, and his income. Tristan would not be the first person I know who lives by the creed, "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story". Was I angry to learn I'd been duped? Yes. Was I even more amazed at a man who created himself? To witness that is worth the time to read this book. I wouldn't be interested in this book if I hadn't been well read in Tristan's books. For those of you have want a good read, read Heart of Oak by Tristan, then read Anthony Dalton's book. The combo will blow you away.

Tristan Jones has published some two dozen books that detail his adventures while sailing all over the world on any number of worthy and/or hare-brained schemes. The pace of the action and his routine faux pas to worsen a bad situation does sometime cause you to wonder whether your leg is being pulled, but the rich detail that in many cases conforms to my personal experience of some of the places, people and things causes one to accept that some people just bring challenges with them.

Accordingly, I was shocked - shocked! - to learn of "Wayward Sailor". In this book, Dalton started out as a fan's documentary of Jones' life and voyages, but along the way he concluded that not only were a number of occurrences impossible to document (fair enough while alone at sea) but also many others could in fact be documented as impossible to have occured. And, now informed, I did find that a re-reading of his work often reveals passages in which he foreshadows by saying that after all, what is important is the feeling of the story and not the events themselves.

This heresy set off loud screams for Jones' many fans, but Dalton refers constantly to the fundamental reality, which is that even with the impossible or unlikely information removed, the feats that Jones is documented to have accomplished are truly remarkable nonetheless.

Dalton's book is by no means an adventure story; it is not particularly exciting reading (although it could serve as a model to day's database-centered "academics" as to how real research is done). But the many people who simply like the great sea stories that Tristan Jones wrote would (possibly after getting over their initial shock and dismay) enjoy having a biographic compendium to go along with the stories.

The other reviews say alot so I will only add that Jones was prominent enough to be on Larry King's talk show and feature in the IMAX film Race the Wind. Jones was not a very likeable character but he had a diffucult life with no family, education or money and few friends and he did what he could to survive. He had the makings of a very good writer and produced 16 books and many articles. He concealed the fact that he was gay until the very end of his life, at which time he had lost both his legs to diabetes and was destitute. He accomplished a lot with very little and if you accept his stories as fiction they are good reading. Only those who are really interested in Jones or sailing will enjoy the book as most of it is otherwise very boring.

I'm just wondering why Mr Dalton chose to trash Tristan Jones; why not JFK, or MLK, Gandhi, or Mother Theresa? To have spent untold hours and dollars in this pursuit is a bit ridiculous; perhaps he should have invested the same in his own autobiography (probably boring in the extreme and a bit fanciful itself).

This kind of "trasher" is in the company of Kitty Kelly, a sour destroyer of those people who rise above the crowd to represent the best of mankind. Wannabes, all.

Long Live Tristan Jones, a truely great sailor and writer! Just enjoy his books as he intended. Buy them all from Amazon!

I'd just like to point out to folks, whether this account is true or not, its quite easy to condemn a man thats not alive to defend himself.

True or not, no-one has the right to make that judgment.

GB.