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3.35 AVERAGE
3.35 AVERAGE
Ugh. Unless you like long winded descriptions of the minutiae of sailing, sandbanks and the geographical layout of Friesland, avoid.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ever read a book that seems to get longer the longer you read it? Definitely the last stop on my tour, and by far the most archaic and, from a nautical point of view, comprehensive. Everything I didn’t really want to know about the shifting sandbars of the Nordfriesland coast; it’s all there, in minute, pedantic detail, interspersed with awkward conversation peppered with phrases like “by Jove”, and the stilted internal ruminations of our Man from the Ministry. Did anyone ever actually use “by Jove” in real life, or is it, like “cor blimey Guvnor”, a Hollywood invention? The juice the plot runs on is an unfathomably (un)interesting possible plot that the fiendish but otherwise gentlemanly Hun might be hatching somewhere on this labyrinthine, protean coastline. The descriptions of the methods and perils of sailing around these treacherous waters are enlightening and engaging for a time, but there’s a limit. - or at least there was a limit for me, in 2023. The book was published in 1903, so perhaps calibrated for a pre-Netflix attention span. I’ve tried reading Buchan in these streaming times, and it’s quite a struggle. But compared to this, Buchan fairly skips along. As a historical artefact it is interesting, as the book (amazingly) provoked some popular concern about German activities on the coast and Britain’s preparedness for war, and is said to have influenced Churchill’s view of the threats posed by their neighbor over the North Sea. The Anglo-Irish author seems to have been a serious marital character himself, a soldier, sailor, gun-runner for the IRA and so on, but we are told he came to regret the effect his one book had in the world. The edition I read includes a note by “M.A. Childers” who I think was his wife, Mary Alden. She writes that Erskine later in life became convinced that “preparedness induced war”. Preparedness, he eventually decided, “led to international armament rivalries, and bred in the minds of the nations concerned fears, antagonisms, and ambitions, that were destructive to peace”. Quite a thought to express in April 1931.
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“In plain fact we were merely two young gentlemen in a seven-ton pleasure boat, with a taste for amateur hydrography and police duty combined”
Caruthers, bored out of his mind gets a letter from an old friend to do a bit of yachting with the possibility of duck shooting on the German Coast. What follows isn’t the simple holiday he had imagined.
Good god, I crawled in agony to finish this. It isn’t badly written, it’s just painfully boring. So much detail, but to me most of it didn’t do much to further the plot. That might be just me as I don’t know that much about boating or seafaring and there is a lot of that described in the book.
The actual “action” that took place also left much to be desired. I understand it’s 1903 and spy novels as we know them today were just beginning to take root, and I will give it some respect for that, that’s why I decided to finish the bloody thing, but I felt that there was no danger, the stakes weren’t high enough for me to really get into the story.
Rating: 1 & 1/2 Stars rounded up in respect to the literature’s place in history.
Caruthers, bored out of his mind gets a letter from an old friend to do a bit of yachting with the possibility of duck shooting on the German Coast. What follows isn’t the simple holiday he had imagined.
Good god, I crawled in agony to finish this. It isn’t badly written, it’s just painfully boring. So much detail, but to me most of it didn’t do much to further the plot. That might be just me as I don’t know that much about boating or seafaring and there is a lot of that described in the book.
The actual “action” that took place also left much to be desired. I understand it’s 1903 and spy novels as we know them today were just beginning to take root, and I will give it some respect for that, that’s why I decided to finish the bloody thing, but I felt that there was no danger, the stakes weren’t high enough for me to really get into the story.
Rating: 1 & 1/2 Stars rounded up in respect to the literature’s place in history.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Rather slow moving, yet worthwhile. You can put yourself alongside the two main characters, and pretend that you know something about maneuvering a small yacht in the estuaries of the North Sea.
If listening to the audiobook in your car, be aware that it is somewhat important to keep track of the four or five German adversaries by name.
From Wikipedia… this 1903 novel, about German preparations for a sea-borne invasion of England, was once considered the third best spy novel of all time. In real life, the author Childers worked towards the independence of Ireland and was put on trial and executed in 1922 for his role as "an active propagandist" for the Irish revolution.
If listening to the audiobook in your car, be aware that it is somewhat important to keep track of the four or five German adversaries by name.
From Wikipedia… this 1903 novel, about German preparations for a sea-borne invasion of England, was once considered the third best spy novel of all time. In real life, the author Childers worked towards the independence of Ireland and was put on trial and executed in 1922 for his role as "an active propagandist" for the Irish revolution.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Meticulous. Intricate. Charming. These are the words I’d use.
Billed as the first modern spy novel, published in 1903, Childers has achieved a really interesting effect with this book. At first it just seems to be a classic travel adventure, but soon you are piecing together the clues of a larger scheme.
I think what I really enjoyed about this was the relationship between Davies and Carruthers. It is so brilliantly rendered in the early scenes. The differences between the two men are comical and almost lead you into believing that it will be a comedy rather than a thriller.
I know very little about sailing. I’ve been on boats. Small vessels and such. Whilst I lived elsewhere in the country my father owned one for a number of years, but I think I only sailed on her twice. Anyway, the technical aspects are beyond me. What is obvious from casting off is that Childers knew what he was talking about. And that level of expertise is a little infectious, at least to me. You find yourself really interested in it because that passion really fizzes. And it is also really precise in its direction. There isn’t a footstep that isn’t accounted for, where it is relevant (naturally).
I think that I’m not a great audience for the book. The wind just isn’t in the sails here and it is all down to taste. I’m just not a huge spy thriller sort of guy. Thrillers, yes. Mystery, yes. But a spy? I just find it all a little half-baked a lot of the time. And perhaps this loaf is better made than most, but I think beyond an indulgence in the crust, the inner structure just didn’t fill me up.
I think I will read this again though. Either if I develop an interest in sailing for myself (which I have been close to). Or if I suddenly start enjoying spy stories (which most men do after 50).
Pick this up if you’re a sailing fan. But now I’m off to learn more about the author, because his life and his death are really fascinating!
Billed as the first modern spy novel, published in 1903, Childers has achieved a really interesting effect with this book. At first it just seems to be a classic travel adventure, but soon you are piecing together the clues of a larger scheme.
I think what I really enjoyed about this was the relationship between Davies and Carruthers. It is so brilliantly rendered in the early scenes. The differences between the two men are comical and almost lead you into believing that it will be a comedy rather than a thriller.
I know very little about sailing. I’ve been on boats. Small vessels and such. Whilst I lived elsewhere in the country my father owned one for a number of years, but I think I only sailed on her twice. Anyway, the technical aspects are beyond me. What is obvious from casting off is that Childers knew what he was talking about. And that level of expertise is a little infectious, at least to me. You find yourself really interested in it because that passion really fizzes. And it is also really precise in its direction. There isn’t a footstep that isn’t accounted for, where it is relevant (naturally).
I think that I’m not a great audience for the book. The wind just isn’t in the sails here and it is all down to taste. I’m just not a huge spy thriller sort of guy. Thrillers, yes. Mystery, yes. But a spy? I just find it all a little half-baked a lot of the time. And perhaps this loaf is better made than most, but I think beyond an indulgence in the crust, the inner structure just didn’t fill me up.
I think I will read this again though. Either if I develop an interest in sailing for myself (which I have been close to). Or if I suddenly start enjoying spy stories (which most men do after 50).
Pick this up if you’re a sailing fan. But now I’m off to learn more about the author, because his life and his death are really fascinating!
A clinical tale of intrigue and boats set just before the 1st World War; I enjoyed sections and I love these sorts of every-man spy stories but at times I felt like I was wading through a sea of nautical terms before the plot appeared on the horizon.
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated