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A review by dunnettreader
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
5.0
"A High Wind in Jamaica" is a slyly disturbing novel that won't be to everyone's taste. It can be read as an adventure story and as a psychological analysis of the minds of children. It is by turns dreamlike and nightmarish. But it is also lyrical and funny. A little bit of the self-sufficient adventures found in Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" is mixed with the horror found in "The Turn of the Screw".
The novel has a straightforward plot about children who are sent to England after a hurricane destroys their home in Jamaica. Mr. and Mrs. Bas-Thornton are worried that their children need a safer, more structured environment. After a few days aboard the Clorinda, the most unlikely pirates overtake the sailing vessel and the children are transferred to the pirates' ship. They are not sure why this has happened and it takes a while before they realize that the men sailing the ship are pirates. By this time the children are used to them and have even bonded with their captors. But not all goes smoothly and terrible things happen. The fact that the children seem to barely notice is perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the story.
But one does not read this book for the plot. What becomes mesmerizing is the psychological aspect of the story. Are the children conscious, aware human beings or are they unformed and malleable? One child, Emily, becomes the center of the story. How Emily becomes more aware of herself and her surroundings, and her conscious decisions to hide the truth from the adults around her are the crux of the psychological tension.
The novel has a straightforward plot about children who are sent to England after a hurricane destroys their home in Jamaica. Mr. and Mrs. Bas-Thornton are worried that their children need a safer, more structured environment. After a few days aboard the Clorinda, the most unlikely pirates overtake the sailing vessel and the children are transferred to the pirates' ship. They are not sure why this has happened and it takes a while before they realize that the men sailing the ship are pirates. By this time the children are used to them and have even bonded with their captors. But not all goes smoothly and terrible things happen. The fact that the children seem to barely notice is perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the story.
But one does not read this book for the plot. What becomes mesmerizing is the psychological aspect of the story. Are the children conscious, aware human beings or are they unformed and malleable? One child, Emily, becomes the center of the story. How Emily becomes more aware of herself and her surroundings, and her conscious decisions to hide the truth from the adults around her are the crux of the psychological tension.