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A voyage of Arctic exploration during the American Civil War becomes an epic tale of madness and survival in a stunning first novel animated by the spirits of Poe, Crane, Conrad, and Melville.
Brendan Kane is a dreamy, directionless young man in 1860s New England. Fired by a speech given by a traveling recruiter, he signs up for the Union cause – and experiences the full horrors of the Civil War. He deserts, drifting north to experience the draft riots in New York and, finally, to meet his fate in the form of the Narthex, a strangely shaped vessel anchored in the harbor of a whaling town. Kane signs up as a crew member without any inkling of the voyage’s destination or goals, joining a crew of odd outcasts not unlike that of the Pequod, including one Aziz, the three-handed Muslim engine tender, and Dr. Architeuthis, the ship’s scientist whose mania for data becomes increasingly indistinguishable from madness. While at sea, they come to learn that their goal is a mythic temperate valley, a paradise in the heart of the Arctic?a goal their captain and the Narthex’s owner will stop at nothing to reach.
At once spiritual, adventurous, and bleak, The Rope Eater displays a precise knowledge of the period and the customs of nineteenth century Arctic exploration. In its scope and rich language, it recalls the work of the great novelists of inner and outer voyaging?a tremendous debut novel.
Brendan Kane is a dreamy, directionless young man in 1860s New England. Fired by a speech given by a traveling recruiter, he signs up for the Union cause – and experiences the full horrors of the Civil War. He deserts, drifting north to experience the draft riots in New York and, finally, to meet his fate in the form of the Narthex, a strangely shaped vessel anchored in the harbor of a whaling town. Kane signs up as a crew member without any inkling of the voyage’s destination or goals, joining a crew of odd outcasts not unlike that of the Pequod, including one Aziz, the three-handed Muslim engine tender, and Dr. Architeuthis, the ship’s scientist whose mania for data becomes increasingly indistinguishable from madness. While at sea, they come to learn that their goal is a mythic temperate valley, a paradise in the heart of the Arctic?a goal their captain and the Narthex’s owner will stop at nothing to reach.
At once spiritual, adventurous, and bleak, The Rope Eater displays a precise knowledge of the period and the customs of nineteenth century Arctic exploration. In its scope and rich language, it recalls the work of the great novelists of inner and outer voyaging?a tremendous debut novel.
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Review:
The limits of human endurance, man's instinct for survival and dogged perseverance characterize The Rope Eater, Ben Jones's debut novel. After deserting the Union side in the Civil War, 17-year-old Brendan Kane heads north to New Bedford and signs on with an expedition sailing north to conduct Arctic exploration. A crew of ragtag shipmates is formed. None of them has any survival training, appropriate clothing for the harsh elements, possessions, or close ties--nor do they have a better idea than sailing on the Narthex for a purpose unknown to them. They are all outsiders, misfits, or men with a need to get out of town, for whatever reasons. One of the crew says, "Two years of work, maybe more, low wages, but a shot at some real money if it goes well." This hope for something that could change their lives keeps them going when the odds against them become overwhelming.
From the Back Cover:
After several weeks at sea, the Captain tells them that they are looking for a "temperate archipelago covered by trees of fantastic colors that grew from the heat of the earth rather than the sun--a lush Garden of Eden in the heart of the Arctic." This is not happy news for men who have been fantasizing legendary gold mines. The voyage continues through the most hostile environment imaginable. The men are always cold, wet, hungry, and at the mercy of the capricious movement of icebergs--it is a bleak, horrific life aboard ship, unrelieved throughout the entire book. Jones's writing is starkly beautiful, filled with authentic details about ships, the Arctic reaches, navigation, ship handling, weather and exposure. There are echoes here of Cold Mountain and The Navigator of New York.
The descent into madness of Dr. Architeuthis, an obsessive taker of measurements; Aziz, the three-handed Muslim boiler-tender who tells Brendan the awful story of rope-eaters; the vagaries of the rest of the crew--these all add color and welcome texture to the gray-white sameness of being surrounded by icebergs. Readers who revel in the hardships and exploits of Ernest Shackleton, William Laird McKinlay, or Robert Falcon Scott will enjoy this story of men against nature in its most relentlessly unforgiving aspects. --Valerie Ryan
“With The Rope Eater, Ben Jones has produced not simply a novel but an entire world both fabulous and mythic, a world rendered in prose both stark and lovely as the landscape and characters within. Although set in the not-so-distant past, this account of the dreams and harsh realities of humanity serves as a clearly distinct fable for our times. I cannot recommend The Rope Eater more strongly?Ben Jones enters the ranks as a storyteller of first note.”
?Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall
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- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0385509774
- ISBN 13 9780385509770
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages304
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