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In the beginning of A Land So Strange Andrés Reséndez provides some context to the story he’s about to tell by spending the first chapter of the book summarizing the early history of Spanish colonization in the new world. In what I can only assume is an attempt to one up himself Reséndez begins Conquering the Pacific with a context providing summary of the entire history of the Pacific Ocean. When I say “the entire history” I do not mean the history of humanity in the pacific. I mean the entire history of the ocean. He starts with Pangea, tells us about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, spends some time speculating on common mammalian ancestors of rodents and primates, and gradually works his way up the timeline to Christopher Columbus’s mother in law before finally ending up at Magellan’s globe spanning voyage.
Is all this necessary? Not really. Is reading this like the literary equivalent of that Charlie Day meme with the red lines connecting a bunch of papers on the wall? Absolutely. But it is interesting, and I love the audacity of trying to summarize all this info within a single book preface. Also it’s very funny to me to imagine Reséndez insisting to his editor that the only way anyone can understand how hard it was for medieval sailors to figure out longitude is if they know how and why the velociraptor went extinct.
A rule of thumb I have for history books is that the more the author rambles, the wider ranging the rambling is, and the earlier in the book that the rambling begins, the more likely it is that the author didn’t have enough information in their sources to actually fill an entire book. Despite this being a very short book the rambling begins immediately and it ranges about as far off as it’s possible to go. Make of this what you will.
Conquering the Pacific bills itself as the story of Lope Martín, the pilot of a ship that sailed from Mexico to cross the pacific and then was the first to accomplish the vuelta, the term for turning around and recrossing the pacific back to the new world. Calling this book the story of Martín is stretching the truth a little bit. The first two thirds of the book only mention Martín a handful of times, and some of those references don’t run much deeper than “oh yeah also Lope was probably there too.” These sections of the book are mostly concerned with preparations for the journey, and then an account of the outward leg of the trip.
I’m going to be honest, most of this stuff is pretty dull. A lot of time is spent on logistics and procedure, and on data points that Reséndez uses later to establish the veracity of Martín’s claims. I get what the author is going for here, and it’s certainly informative, but the writing just isn’t up to the task of making this stuff interesting to read about.
The last third of the book focuses in on the vuelta and the fallout from the expedition once Martín makes it back to Mexico. This is where the book really starts to sing. I had a blast with Reséndez’s A Land So Strange because it was at heart a very entertaining, very weird, story about four guys in an impossible situation. The parts of Conquering the Pacific that shine a similar light on Martín’s individual story are equally fascinating. Martín accomplished something extraordinary, and then went to equally extraordinary lengths to keep his head attached to his shoulders once he made it back home. It’s fun stuff, and worth reading even if Reséndez really takes his time in setting the table before he gets around to the main course.
Two stars for the first two thirds of the book, four stars for the last third, as well as for that absolutely bananas preface. To my mind that works out to three stars total.
Is all this necessary? Not really. Is reading this like the literary equivalent of that Charlie Day meme with the red lines connecting a bunch of papers on the wall? Absolutely. But it is interesting, and I love the audacity of trying to summarize all this info within a single book preface. Also it’s very funny to me to imagine Reséndez insisting to his editor that the only way anyone can understand how hard it was for medieval sailors to figure out longitude is if they know how and why the velociraptor went extinct.
A rule of thumb I have for history books is that the more the author rambles, the wider ranging the rambling is, and the earlier in the book that the rambling begins, the more likely it is that the author didn’t have enough information in their sources to actually fill an entire book. Despite this being a very short book the rambling begins immediately and it ranges about as far off as it’s possible to go. Make of this what you will.
Conquering the Pacific bills itself as the story of Lope Martín, the pilot of a ship that sailed from Mexico to cross the pacific and then was the first to accomplish the vuelta, the term for turning around and recrossing the pacific back to the new world. Calling this book the story of Martín is stretching the truth a little bit. The first two thirds of the book only mention Martín a handful of times, and some of those references don’t run much deeper than “oh yeah also Lope was probably there too.” These sections of the book are mostly concerned with preparations for the journey, and then an account of the outward leg of the trip.
I’m going to be honest, most of this stuff is pretty dull. A lot of time is spent on logistics and procedure, and on data points that Reséndez uses later to establish the veracity of Martín’s claims. I get what the author is going for here, and it’s certainly informative, but the writing just isn’t up to the task of making this stuff interesting to read about.
The last third of the book focuses in on the vuelta and the fallout from the expedition once Martín makes it back to Mexico. This is where the book really starts to sing. I had a blast with Reséndez’s A Land So Strange because it was at heart a very entertaining, very weird, story about four guys in an impossible situation. The parts of Conquering the Pacific that shine a similar light on Martín’s individual story are equally fascinating. Martín accomplished something extraordinary, and then went to equally extraordinary lengths to keep his head attached to his shoulders once he made it back home. It’s fun stuff, and worth reading even if Reséndez really takes his time in setting the table before he gets around to the main course.
Two stars for the first two thirds of the book, four stars for the last third, as well as for that absolutely bananas preface. To my mind that works out to three stars total.