My rating:

add to my books

A High Wind in Jamaica

by Richard Hughes

3.82 · rating details · 1,367 ratings · 276 reviews

New edition of a classic adventure novel and one of the most startling, highly praised stories in English literature--a brilliant chronicle of two sensitive children's violent voyage from innocence to experience.

After a terrible hurricane levels their Jamaican estate, the Bas-Thorntons decide to send their children back to the safety and comfort of England. On ...more

Paperback, 279 pages

Published September 30th 1999 by New York Review Books Classics (first published 1929)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Must Read Classics

293rd out of 503 books — 1,274 voters

Random House 100

41st out of 100 books — 29 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,816)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Jan 09, 2011

Capitu rated it

Shelves: 2010, nyrb

We had a snow storm that lasted 36 hours or so. While the wind howled outside, I sat by the fireplace with this book all day yesterday. I grabbed it again this morning and, funny thing, the storm let down about the time I finished it this afternoon. Now I don’t know if the storm was so bad as I recall it, or it was this disturbing story that made everything look so dark and disquieting for the past 2 days.

First things first, this is not a children’s story. It is not a young-adu...moreWe had a snow storm that lasted 36 hours or so. While the wind howled outside, I sat by the fireplace with this book all day yesterday. I grabbed it again this morning and, funny thing, the storm let down about the time I finished it this afternoon. Now I don’t know if the storm was so bad as I recall it, or it was this disturbing story that made everything look so dark and disquieting for the past 2 days.

First things first, this is not a children’s story. It is not a young-adult story either. It is a very adult and distressing tale, where children happen to be the main protagonists. Hughes genius shows in how well he captures these children’s voices, in special the voice of Emily.

The most delightful passage in this story is when suddenly Emily realizes her own existence. She ponders further that maybe she was herself God. My son, now entering teenage years, also tells about the moment he became aware of his own existence. He was more precocious than Emily, but he does not verbalize the experience as she does either. The point is, we all must at one time come to the same conscious realization, and later forget it. Hughes brings it back in a way that is tender, but also rings with truth.

Most passages though carry a darkness that cannot be erased very easily by Emily’s existential questionings. There is death, murder, rape, lies, jealousy in every page.

The setting also deserves a comment: although I don’t deny that this story may be historically accurate – I would not doubt that newly freed slaves would not kill their previous masters, be it by starvation or more deliberately feeding them ground glass. Piracy was also probably still very common in the middle of the 19th century. Hangings certainly were, and the inefficiency of the judicial system still is. Hughes’ Jamaica and later London are not the Jamaica and London of this realm, but one from a parallel world, barely more colourful than reality, yet different, more comic or caricature.

It just occurred to me that Hughes might have wanted to tell a more real vision of childhood as opposed to Peter Pan – another English story about pirates. I should search this before writing about it, but I won’t. I am ready to let go of this tale, as much as I am ready for the Sun to start shining outside. I am giving it 5 stars because I think it defies genre and time, but I don’t think I will re-read it any time soon. I can only take bleakness on small doses.
(less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Dec 30, 2010

David rated it

I'd started this book ten years ago, and though it was short, I couldn't finish it because I don't normally like the sea (or space) in fiction. More importantly, it was falling apart in my hands. Up to page 80 of my used copy was flaking away like a dry piece of fish (again, not a huge fan of the sea, in pagination). I discarded it.

Unfinished books cause one minute of anxiety for: (every year they're not finished) X (the number of hundreds of pages in the book) X (1 + the percenta...moreI'd started this book ten years ago, and though it was short, I couldn't finish it because I don't normally like the sea (or space) in fiction. More importantly, it was falling apart in my hands. Up to page 80 of my used copy was flaking away like a dry piece of fish (again, not a huge fan of the sea, in pagination). I discarded it.

Unfinished books cause one minute of anxiety for: (every year they're not finished) X (the number of hundreds of pages in the book) X (1 + the percentage of the book finished). A High Wind in Jamaica sat unfinished for 10 years. There are 200 pages. I had finished 10 percent of it.

So, 10 X 2 X 1.10 = 22. The book had caused me 22 minutes of anxiety, spread out in at least 98 different mind-bursts over the last ten years. Nine times a year, for 15 seconds each--and so a life passes--I remembered my small failure. Not much, but worth allaying.

Meanwhile, Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim is the pinnacle of what I'm calling the Anxiety of the Unfinished. Festering for 12 years. 400 pages. And I'd nearly completed it when I was asked to leave my senior year English Class on account of conduct unbecoming a preppy (sorry Ms. Hannay).

Lord Jim. Also about the sea. 12 X 4 X 1.95 = 93.6 minutes of anxiety. And I didn't know what was happening in it anyway. So, I'm unmotivated to go back in, and yet I know I will eventually, maybe after I've spent a full two hours of light anxiety thinking involuntarily about its tiny, annotated arial, its baffling story-within-a-story, and its troubling imperial undertones.

But, Lord Jim aside, A High Wind in Jamaica was the shortest remaining on the Modern Library 100, and I figured I could plow it in a couple hours, so it was low-hanging fruit (frutti di mare). Low expectations aside, I was pleasantly surprised.

It features children and pirates, but not silly caricatures. Hughes writes things like "One couldn't know the mind of a child" too often, but he does seem to understand the zaniness, seriousness, and preoccupation of his British-Jamaican characters as they're stolen away by rather kindly marauders.

I never really knew who the main character was, and the plot sometimes goes adrift, but the book taught me plenty about kid-mind (some sections are very much like Elizabeth Bishop's poem "In the Waiting Room," in fact -- http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMI...). There're also an unbeatable earthquake scene and omnipresent British mannerisms, so on a scale from "Dub" to "Brick," I give it a "Jolly."(less)

like 3 likes

· see review

Nov 11, 2008

Brian rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-2008

“Lame-foot Sam told most stories. He used to sit all day on the stone barbecues where the pimento was dried, digging maggots out of his toes.” When I read this passage on page six I just knew I was holding a champion of a book!

Pirates inadvertently kidnap a bunch of kids that are leaving Jamaica after a hurricane ravished the island. Their parents thought colonial life in Jamaica just too disturbing a place for children to be raised. The pirates soon find the children just too distur...more“Lame-foot Sam told most stories. He used to sit all day on the stone barbecues where the pimento was dried, digging maggots out of his toes.” When I read this passage on page six I just knew I was holding a champion of a book!

Pirates inadvertently kidnap a bunch of kids that are leaving Jamaica after a hurricane ravished the island. Their parents thought colonial life in Jamaica just too disturbing a place for children to be raised. The pirates soon find the children just too disturbing a species to be in the company of even when weighed against their own pirate’s code of conduct.

Heralded by just about every review I came across as a precursor to Golding’s Lord of the Flies, this book is by far the most disturbing and entertaining. Both deal with kids pretty much left to their own devices. But unlike Golding’s kids, these children had no morals to progressively lose, no good to measure the bad, no civilization to judge the savagery. Their behavior had the narrator thinking.

“Possibly a case might be made out that children are not human either: but I should not accept it. Agreed that their minds are not just more ignorant and stupider than ours, but differ in kind of thinking (are mad, in fact)…”

Some of my favorite passages:

… Laura, a queer mite of three with heavy dark eyebrows, and blue eyes, a big head-top and a receding chin - as if the Procreative Spirit was getting a little hysterical by the time it reached her.
-------
Being shot at is so unlike what one expects it to be that one hardly connect the two ideas enough to have the appropriate emotions, the first few times. It is not half so startling as some one jumping out on you with a ‘Boo!’ in the dark, for instance.
-------
One cannot wish for a more comfortable seat than an acquiescent pig.
-------
There is something much more frightening about a man who is tied up than a man who is not tied up - I suppose it is the fear he may get loose.
-------
And my favorite passage:

It was Laura who was cured the quickest. She suddenly discovered what a beautiful deep cave her arm-pit made, and decided to keep fairies in it in future. For some time she could think of nothing else.

And fo’c’sle has become one of my favorite new words. The ‘c’ captivates me.

This was a brutal book, violent at times, but sprinkled liberally with humorous reflections. Hughes was a masterful writer and I highly recommend it. Now I’m off to keep an eye on my daughter…(less)

like 4 likes

· see review

Mar 29, 2008

Joe rated it

Shelves: classics-that-suck, nautical-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like 1 like

· see review

Jul 03, 2008

Chris rated it

I've lucked into a pretty high number of four-star books lately, but none of them have been as memorable as A High Wind in Jamaica. Ian McEwan, Richard Yates and Evelyn Waugh all probably have Richard Hughes beat for craft, but Jamaica is the first book I've read since Howard's End two falls ago in which I felt something at work that can't be described but with that old, obnoxious and rather meaningless word: genius.

It's not a five-star book because the second half is admittedly les...more

like 1 like

· see review

Aug 29, 2008

Travis rated it

I can't really think of a better example of writing that captures the odd thought processes of children. It didn't just make me think that one should always write about children like this, it actually made me remember how it felt to be that age. And the noteworthy part of it is that the book draws a hard line between adults and children, rendering them separate species experiencing the world in a different way, with different value systems, and it is very convincing in doing so. At the same time...more

like 5 likes

· see review

Oct 15, 2007

Sarah rated it

...Full of disquiet, and a violence that is all the more unsettling because it is so off-handed, both in its commission and in its aftermath.

The book (which opens with a scene depicting the end of slavery in Jamaica) subtly explores a world in which violence becomes a commonplace-- unremarkable and unremarked upon... where the children mourn the death of their cat, but take no notice of the destruction of their house, or the death of a black man. The book, exploring the imaginative...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Jun 22, 2007

Sara rated it

Recommends it for: Everyone

This book is #71 on the Modern American Library's list of 100 best novels. My friend Borden gave this book to me because I told him I liked pirates (Johnny Depp). Although the pirates were not anything like Captain Jack Sparrow, this book was captivating. Children are kidnapped by a group of pirates during a time when piracy is a dying business. I have so much to say about this book, but without giving too much away, I just loved how the author distills the romatic notions that western culture...more

like 1 like

· see review

Mar 28, 2009

Allison DeLauer rated it

I really enjoyed Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica. Best pirate book I’ve ever read. I can’t believe I’d never heard of it before. I almost wonder if the pre-teen girl Briony in Atonement is modeled after the child Emily in High Wind. If so, I prefer Emily’s character. Mostly because she isn’t compelled to spend a lifetime undoing her misdeeds – which I don’t believe was likely – to the extreme Briony did. (For the record, I also didn’t believe McEwan’s character would have been that unfor...moreI really enjoyed Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica. Best pirate book I’ve ever read. I can’t believe I’d never heard of it before. I almost wonder if the pre-teen girl Briony in Atonement is modeled after the child Emily in High Wind. If so, I prefer Emily’s character. Mostly because she isn’t compelled to spend a lifetime undoing her misdeeds – which I don’t believe was likely – to the extreme Briony did. (For the record, I also didn’t believe McEwan’s character would have been that unforgivable by her sister.) My favorite moment Atonement is when Briony notices her own hands. I tried to find it, but I couldn’t so I might have made it up entirely. In High Wind, the mental and emotional states that Hughes describes are realistically rendered. “And then an event did occur, to Emily, of considerable importance. She suddenly realized who she was…Once settled on her perch, she began examining the skin of her hands with the utmost care: for it was hers.”

Many similar scenes reminded me vividly of childhood – but he angles the lens weirdly enough– to make the reader recall what was once commonplace - as odd and savage. This savagery and gross misunderstandings about the nature of the world / self are always present in the child mind / reptilian brain before shame, manners, gratitude etc. arrive with time and experience.

And of course, savagery and the arrogance of our own perspectives is something we don’t ever outgrow. (Although, a conscious person does their best to mitigate these aspects of our nature.) There is something soothing to me about a book written this beautifully that details with precision the dark beauty of human behavior. It validates my preference for “and/but” instead of “either/ or”.

I don’t I recall a whole lot about Lord of the Flies – but I think this book kicks its ass. I remember a certain morality implicit it that book – and this book won’t offer that kind of consolation. There’s something in LOTF that implies that if the adults were on the island – none of the disturbing bits would have happened. Maybe not – I’d have to look at it again. What’s really great about Hughes’ story is that while it would seem that the pirates have agency over the children – really – it’s the other way around. The agency – and ultimately the villainy is with the wee ones. Isn’t there something to all baby animals being somewhat cute so we’re hesitant to kill them….?

High Wind satisfies my romantic predilections of a period drama in an exotic location– and yet offers something much more juicy than a sentimental romance: a good yarn, with surprising emotional layers that eerily resonate.

I spent the day thinking was it right, what happened to the pirates in the end, was Emily a “bad person”? And you just can’t go there. It all makes sense – as he’s described it – and the unfortunate repercussions are due to the fact that humans barge about with their own assumptions and tremendous needs blocking the view - and when folks aren’t capable or won’t put that aside, misunderstanding and confusion ensues. How lucky we are to have a narrator detail this particular story for us – or we would never have made out what *really* happened. Makes me wonder if some omniscient narrator would be so kind as to tell us our own stories…

(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Dec 18, 2011

Robert Lomas rated it

Shelves: kindle-stuff

I first heard about this classic book on BBC Radio 4's 'A Good Read' and thought it sounded interesting. I downloaded a taster onto my Kindle but didn't get a chance to look at it. Then I forgot I had the sample until recently when, on a long train journey, I finished the book I was reading. I skimmed through the Kindle list and found the forgotten sample. The opening chapters gripped me immediately.

Richard Hughes brings to life a disturbingly vivid vision of Victorian Jamaica as he ta...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jul 27, 2011

emily rated it

Shelves: book-club

A confession: every now and then, when telling a story that took place some time ago, I find myself thinking "did that actually happen that way, or have I maybe changed it a little bit over time?" I'm not saying I'm a pathological liar, or even that I have an unusually shaky relationship with the truth. But it is (I think) not a unique situation.

Now. A High Wind in Jamaica isn't a story about an unreliable narrator. Actually, we have a merry, almost-childlike narrator who...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Oct 12, 2010

Lostinanovel rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

· see review

May 23, 2010

Judy rated it

Recommends it for: Adults and mature Young Adults

Shelves: classics, 20th-century-fiction, children-s-lit

I had never heard of this book until one of my reading groups picked it. Even more surprising, I found it shelved as Young Adult in the library. I don't know. Seems to me there are mostly adult concepts here but since the story is about children ages 3 to 11, I guess that makes it Young Adult?

The reading group members' opinions ranged from "hated it" to ho hum, except for me. I found it a great read, totally entertaining and full of interesting questions about chil...more
I had never heard of this book until one of my reading groups picked it. Even more surprising, I found it shelved as Young Adult in the library. I don't know. Seems to me there are mostly adult concepts here but since the story is about children ages 3 to 11, I guess that makes it Young Adult?

The reading group members' opinions ranged from "hated it" to ho hum, except for me. I found it a great read, totally entertaining and full of interesting questions about child rearing and the uses of children in the legal system.

An English family lives in a decayed plantation house in late 19th century Jamaica, post emancipation. Their five children are fed, put to bed at night after being read to, but otherwise are left to roam about having adventures in the great outdoors.

"It was a kind of paradise for English children to come to, whatever it might be for their parents: especially at that time, when no one lived in at all a wild way at home. Here one had to be a little ahead of the times or decadent, whichever you like to call it. The difference between boys and girls, for instance, had to be left to look after itself. Long hair would have made the evening search for grass-ticks and nits interminable. Emily and Rachel had their hair cut short and were allowed to do everything the boys did--to climb trees, swim and trap animals and birds; they even had two pockets in their frocks."

Feral children then, who also read books. Cool; reminded me of my hippie days when the kids ran wild. But then, after a ferocious hurricane nearly levels their house, the parents suddenly decide that their children need a proper education. They put them all on a ship bound for England, entrusting these children to the care of the ship's captain. Now we are really far removed from the present day where children (at least the ones above the poverty line) are guarded from kidnappers and worse.

Well, the ship is boarded by pirates before it has even left the Caribbean Sea, the children taken on to the pirate ship and then their adventures truly begin. From horrific to heartwarming, from dangerous to delightful and everything in between, they learn to climb the rigging, sleep in a hold, tame the ship's monkey and relate to the pirates.

The journey to England on the pirate ship takes up most of the book. That is enough of a spoiler right there because, while reading, you wonder if they will make it. Not one child escapes being marked by the experience, some more deeply than others. My dad used to tell me that a person could get used to anything, which I did not believe as a child, but truly children can adapt to their circumstances, make do and figure out how to survive in about the same proportion as adults.

In the end, I found the story frightful on top of entertaining and interesting; as if Patricia Highsmith got to rewrite Harry Potter. I am still not sure I would classify it as Young Adult, though it is some of the best writing about the minds of children I have ever come across.(less)

like 1 like

· see review

Apr 29, 2010

Bob Arbogast rated it

This book was interesting on so many levels, but primarily it was an exploration of the world as seen through a child’s eye. The children’s perspective is so alien to the adults in the story. I particularly enjoyed the sly, snarky narrator, explaining some things and hinting at many more.

I’ve read all the comparisons to “Lord of the Flies” and I think they miss the mark. These children are never savage, they’re simply able adjust to any situation. And the author seems to be saying t...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Jan 29, 2010

Jim rated it

Now here is a book I would have loved to admire. It started on a weird, wonderful high note of a lush tropical jungle, and earthquake, and a hurricane. There were a group of children from two different families who, after the damage from the hurricane, were sent by their parents to England. The ship was captured by pirates -- pirates without guns -- and the children went over to the pirates. The oldest boy, John, dies of an accident on land without anyone noting or caring. The children continue ...more

like 1 like

· see review

Dec 18, 2009

Christiane rated it

Shelves: fiction

Disturbing and impossible to put down. The Henry Darger "girls" on the cover are a perfect warning for what you'll find within. On the surface it's a very basic story: after a hurricane wreaks their home in Jamaica, a group of children are shipped back to England. Their ship is attacked by bumbling, not especially blood-thirsty pirates and they are accidently taken prisoners, much to the pirates’ dismay and (ultimately) destruction. The children (perhaps because of their unusual ...more

· see review

Nov 17, 2009

J. rated it

Shelves: britain, caribbean

A really strange novel. And as strange for what it doesn't say as for what it does say.

Safe to say this, though : Richard Hughes is interested in the development of the human animal, and takes the reader on a wild ride to have a very close look at the relationship between self & other, between civilization and savagery, and all the elaborately threaded connections in between.
This book has the primitive and slightly clunky feel of an unnerving account just being cobble...more

like 1 like

· see review

Sep 17, 2009

Steve rated it

Shelves: fiction

High Wind in Jamaica was first published in 1929 as The Innocent Voyage. It was Hughes’ first novel -- he was 29. As it turned out, Hughes was not a prolific writer and is often used as an example when discussing writer’s block. He would go on to write, prior to World War II, a good Conradian sea novel (In Hazard) and then, in 1960, the much later - and admired - Fox in the Attic. Hughes died in 1975. Fox was part of an intended Tolystoyan-like trilogy dealing with events leading up to World Wa...more

like 7 likes

· see review

Aug 19, 2009

Thurston Hunger rated it

Recommends it for: Art Linkletter

Recommended to Thurston by: Bibliophilistine Claire

1929...so the language has a familiar but foreign feel. Amazingly this was before Hughes had children ;> (I could see this written as a response to the mutiny that parenthood could wreak upon the life of an Artist...as a young dog or otherwise).

Of course 80 years later, and in the US today we get some kind of claptrap like Kindergarten Cop or My Mother the Mafia, wherein the story would be played for cheap laughs and avoid going within 10 nautical miles of a naughty Lolita nation....more

· see review

Jun 26, 2009

Jimmy rated it

Recommended to Jimmy by: sophie

Shelves: nyrb, united-kingdom, male, novel, year-1920s

This is one of the best books I have ever fucking read. Don't even read this review... Just go read the book already! Then you can come back and read the rest of this review.

First of all the subject matter cannot be better: pirates, kids, pigs, monkeys, goats, earthquakes, hurricanes, clue-less adults.

Secondly, it's the language, stupid! The language is so fucking great. Hughes sometimes forms the most un-intelligeable sentences with the weirdest fucking words, but st...more

like 9 likes

· see review

Jan 05, 2012

David rated it

Shelves: nyrb, pants-crapping-awesome

Where has this book been all my life? I've been dreamily gazing out my window all these long hot summers, yearning for just the novel to fulfill my every need—to take me in its sweet-lovin' arms and say without ever quite saying, 'I'm the one. And I've brought the hot oils and penicillin.' It seems a little cruel, or at least irresponsible, for A High Wind in Jamaica to have hidden in the shadows of literary obscurity for so long, forcing me to waste precious hours of my life reading dreck like ...moreWhere has this book been all my life? I've been dreamily gazing out my window all these long hot summers, yearning for just the novel to fulfill my every need—to take me in its sweet-lovin' arms and say without ever quite saying, 'I'm the one. And I've brought the hot oils and penicillin.' It seems a little cruel, or at least irresponsible, for A High Wind in Jamaica to have hidden in the shadows of literary obscurity for so long, forcing me to waste precious hours of my life reading dreck like V.S. Naipaul and Auster's Brooklyn Follies, but why bemoan the past when in fact we're the lucky ones? Some poor saps read all their lives without meeting their literary soulmates and then die with that nagging dissatisfaction pursuing them to the grave. Not me. I've found Salinger, Proust, Bernhard, Krasznahorkai, Richard Hughes, and the rest. (Okay—so I have a lot of soulmates.) This is my orgy of destiny, and the Do Not Disturb sign is on the doorknob.

Just now I said that A High Wind in Jamaica has been hiding 'in the shadows of literary obscurity.' That's not exactly true. It came in at number seventy-one (I believe) on the Modern Library's ridiculous best novels of 20th century list. But still—it doesn't exactly have widespread name recognition like Hemingway, Orwell, or Joyce. It should be just as well-known, of course, but this isn't a fair world. Remember that the Kardashians are celebrities. (That's my current back-to-reality incantation. It quickly counteracts any tendency to expect justice in this world.)

A High Wind in Jamaica is a wickedly unsentimental portrait of childhood and the innocence thereof. It is a needful antidote to the prevailing sense that childhood innocence is the equivalent of moral goodness—because it clearly is not. Young children are largely amoral and, as such, are capable of nearly anything. From the vantage of our adult morality, children can seem callous, cruel, and perhaps even evil. This is a misinterpretation, of course, because they as yet lack the signal posts to act in defiance of a proscribed morality. What they are (to a certain extent) is unmoderated expression. This is a little terrifying to us once we've been fully domesticated by society. And Richard Hughes understands this.

The story is simple enough. In the 1800s, several children are shipped by their parents from their Jamaican plantations back home to London to avoid the environmental and climatic perils of island life. On the way, their ship is hijacked by pirates and they are unintentionally taken prisoner. Thereafter, they become accomplices of the pirates in their continuing adventures. Hughes embellishes the story with an astonishing gift for imagery and turn of phrase and a knack for the blackest kind of humor. I'm well aware that the vague synopsis above is likely to turn away as many readers as it will woo. Just let me assure you that it isn't what you think, and it's probably like nothing you've ever read. It may not be your literary soulmate, but its uniqueness of tone, vision, and temperament deserves to be read.(less)

like 38 likes

· see review

Oct 10, 2009

Cornmaven rated it

Shelves: adult

OK, I am enthralled with this book so far. It is an OLD book, written in 1929. I had heard some sort of pitch for it on NPR, and finally checked it out. I am on page 62. All I can say is, for my edition, when you get to page 61, you can only scream OMG, OMG, OMG.

Set in Jamaica, post-Civil War, post emancipation of people of color. There's the n-word, but used on purpose. The effects and attitudes of British colonialism are apparent and the writing makes a commentary on it. The...moreOK, I am enthralled with this book so far. It is an OLD book, written in 1929. I had heard some sort of pitch for it on NPR, and finally checked it out. I am on page 62. All I can say is, for my edition, when you get to page 61, you can only scream OMG, OMG, OMG.

Set in Jamaica, post-Civil War, post emancipation of people of color. There's the n-word, but used on purpose. The effects and attitudes of British colonialism are apparent and the writing makes a commentary on it. The writing itself is extremely poetic. You cannot but catch your breath after the description of a hurricane and its aftermath.

The introduction to this book says that it is often compared to Lord of the Flies, and I would have to agree. I would also have to agree that this book is much more complex than Lord of the Flies. It would make an interesting choice for upper high school English classes.

What happens on page 61 is not really what happens, but what really happens is even more complicated. As I read, I went back and forth between liking and disliking each character. Most behaved pretty creepily at certain points, and then would behave OK. I noticed a theme of reality vs fantasy running through it, along with reality vs denial. The children in the book were very isolated in Jamaica, and through the course of the story they must face new and rather interesting things, and mostly they do this not so well.

Signs of PTSD are very evident in many of the characters, but in a way (and this is not to make light of PTSD), the book shows that, well, just life itself may cause people to act that way.

The introduction also notes that when an animal appears in the story, get ready for some bad human nature stuff to happen. Of course I would have picked up on this as a college English major, but that flew right by me, and I appreciated it being pointed out to me (I usually read the intros after I read the book so that they don't spoil things for me).

Worth the read. I might actually read it again later in life to get the full effect. It's that complex.(less)

· see review

Feb 09, 2009

Eileen rated it

I'm about to give this five stars, and I'm not quite sure what to say.

The reviews all compare this to Lord of the Flies, but I really don't think that's accurate. I mean, there are kids in it, and a tropical setting, and that's it. The real issue here is breaking the contracts inherent in the civilized, adult world. Children have no contract yet; pirates exist outside the contract. When you take away all contact with society, an incredible, unreal, and suddenly more dangerous ...more

· see review

Jun 15, 2011

Evan rated it

Writers have often lost their way trying to explain how brilliant a jewel the humming-bird is: it cannot be done.

There is nothing so inexorable as a ship, plodding away, plodding away, all over the place, till at last it quite certainly reaches that small speck on the map which all the time it had intended to reach. Philosophically speaking, a ship in its port of departure is just as much in its port of arrival: two point-events differing in time and place, but not in degree of reali...more

· see review

Oct 31, 2011

Veronica rated it

Recommended to Veronica by: Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

Had no idea what to expect with this one and feared a swashbuckler’s tale was upon me. How wrong was I, and happily so. Several realizations came to me, almost simultaneously whilst reading A High Wind in Jamaica; the writing was superb, the story fabulous and the author had a keen insight into the minds of children.

The story begins in Jamaica where the Bas-Thornton family are living with their five children in a somewhat unconventional manner. The children roam freely, keep bats a...moreHad no idea what to expect with this one and feared a swashbuckler’s tale was upon me. How wrong was I, and happily so. Several realizations came to me, almost simultaneously whilst reading A High Wind in Jamaica; the writing was superb, the story fabulous and the author had a keen insight into the minds of children.

The story begins in Jamaica where the Bas-Thornton family are living with their five children in a somewhat unconventional manner. The children roam freely, keep bats and tigers as pets and spend more time outdoors than in.

This idyllic life loses its charm when a minor earthquake occurs, followed by a severe hurricane which destroys the family home and takes the life of the family caretaker. The parents decide it is no longer a place for children and set them off to sail to England on the Clorinda with two other neighbor children.

The children are unwittingly captured by pirates and mistakenly reported as being murdered by Clorinda’s captain. Much confusion and miscommunications occur, yet the children seem unaffected and the pirates are resolved to take on the care of their unintended captors.

What really works best, apart from the wonderful story telling, are the descriptives of the inner thoughts of the various Bas-Thornton children. Rarely are children depicted in their true humanity. Hughes certainly doesn’t go for the sugar-coated version of the ideal child, but instead shows us, or rather reminds us, that children are as human, if not more so, than the adults that misread them.

By the by, there is much pirate like adventure. A drunken monkey breaks its neck, as does a young boy. A Dutch captain is murdered by a youngster and the wrong one is blamed, who subsequently becomes a pariah among the old and young. There is much insinuation of sexual goings-on, but not conveyed explicitly.

Emily, the eldest Bas-Thornton girl enjoyed her life in Jamaica, but adjusts quite easily to life at sea, even after falling in with the pirates. Ignorant at first of her situation, she soon accepts it and adapts her behavior to what she believe the pirate’s life to be. Like many a grownup, she fails to correct misunderstandings that benefit her, yet this seems to make her darker than it would were she older.

The pirate, Captain Jonsen, has his own code of ethics; no guns and no killing, stealing is fine. He was sometimes annoyed and sometimes amused with the children yet comes to realize they do not belong living among pirates. His attempts to leave the children in Santa Lucia with a wealthy woman do not succeed so he continues to find ways to get them back on their journey to England. Unfortunately, his good intentions are not rewarded.

Hughes introduces many interesting characters and is able to reveal their inner lights within a few lines. Even the animals are given near human life; Jacko the monkey and Tabby the tiger.

I’m quite sure I’d enjoy being in the company of Mr. Hughes. Discovering he worked with Robert Graves and had Dylan Thomas as a houseguest, I’m even more enraptured with this man. Where would our dialogue begin? I would surely allow this wonderful storyteller to steer the conversation.

My rating for A High Wind in Jamaica is a 9 out of 10.(less)

like 1 like

· see review

Sep 23, 2010

Misty rated it

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I was into the story enough (finally after 150 pages) to want to finish it. I have plenty of reasons why I didn't like it, but not many as to why I did. In fact, I can't pinpoint exactly why I liked it.
Grammatically, this story was very hard to follow in some places. I couldn't tell where thoughts began or ended and ultimately whose thoughts they were at times. It was all together very scattered for me. I couldn't tell if it was fro...more

like 1 like

· see review

May 12, 2010

Lewis Manalo rated it

Though most people in our book club adored this book, I could only suspend disbelief when I approached the text as a polemic against the Victorian idealized view of childhood, specifically, as an argument against Peter Pan. (Hughes would've grown up in the generation where "Wendy" became the most popular name for girls in Britain.)

Only if we're arguing against an idealized childhood does it make sense to have such cartoonish and harmless pirates, does it make sense to have c...more

like 1 like

· see review

Mar 19, 2010

Sarah rated it

Shelves: classics, historical

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

· see review

Nov 06, 2010

Newengland rated it

Shelves: classics-newly-read, finished-in-2010

It starts with a storm in Jamaica where a British family with many children lives a desultory life. Tellingly, a description of the family pet, a cat, being killed by feral cats who give it chase, creates a powerful reaction among the children -- notably, a greater reaction than they felt over the death of an old Jamaican man that they had witnessed. This foreshadows deaths to come, and author Richard Hughes delivers it all in a seemingly laconic and dispassionate tone. For a 1929 product, A H...moreIt starts with a storm in Jamaica where a British family with many children lives a desultory life. Tellingly, a description of the family pet, a cat, being killed by feral cats who give it chase, creates a powerful reaction among the children -- notably, a greater reaction than they felt over the death of an old Jamaican man that they had witnessed. This foreshadows deaths to come, and author Richard Hughes delivers it all in a seemingly laconic and dispassionate tone. For a 1929 product, A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA is surprisingly modern in that sense, and the message is clear: Children can be scary critters indeed.

I mention the storm at the start, and I might mention the courtroom scene in England at the very end. There's one of many dichotomies for you -- the "wilds" of Jamaica and the "civilization" of London -- but the meat in this stew comes in between, on the high seas, where this brood of children is accidentally kidnapped by the sorriest group of pirates you're likely to come across.

Yes, there's a touch of Stockholm Syndrome at play, only you might well wonder which is the prisoner and which the captor. Violence occurs and you hardly notice the way Hughes writes it. A death, some blood, and my, isn't that drunken monkey on the yardarm amusing! The narrative, like time and life itself, flows on without commentary. That's left for the reader.

Captain Jonsen and his first mate Otto are way over their heads in the psychological deeps presented by Emily, Rachel, Laura, John, Edward, and Harold. The children out of boredom and innate cruelty create their own games. Unfortunately, the adults become players in the game. Though treated well, the children are catalysts that prove all is NOT well, and can never be given the ungodly chemistry between a ship of all men and little ones like this.

That's why Capt. Jonsen decides to make a move, the most daring of his career. It will have its consequences and there will be a lot of irony blown about by the high winds, but readers will be rewarded if they stick with it -- especially if they are interested in childhood psychology and the protean nature of evil. It comes in many flavors, turns out. That includes "cute."(less)

like 3 likes

· see review

Jun 18, 2010

Alex rated it

The novel is well-plotted and the events portrayed are intrinsically interesting. Check it: pirates, tame pigs, ship-board monkeys, 19th century Cuban girl-boys, kidnapping, childhood adventures, changing times, deaths, decadent colonial/post-colonial infrastructure, etc... one could have written a good book about this even without being a talented stylist. Moreover, the writing is beautiful. Hughes did a good job expressing a child-like perspective in his narration.

It also has a ...moreThe novel is well-plotted and the events portrayed are intrinsically interesting. Check it: pirates, tame pigs, ship-board monkeys, 19th century Cuban girl-boys, kidnapping, childhood adventures, changing times, deaths, decadent colonial/post-colonial infrastructure, etc... one could have written a good book about this even without being a talented stylist. Moreover, the writing is beautiful. Hughes did a good job expressing a child-like perspective in his narration.

It also has a very interesting passage about the feeling one got as a child of the contingency of one's own self-identity.

I am not sure where the book took me, though. The book had some focus on transitions between infancy, childhood, and adulthood. For example, the book seemed to be in the business of saying something -- or asking us to think about -- the place of sexuality in a child's mind. Perhaps because the narration is (apparently) intended to convey a childlike perspective on the events of the novel, the stuff about sexuality appears as a kind of absence. It seems clear, for example, that one of the older girls becomes a kind of mistress of one of the pirates. At this point in the narrative she either disappears from the depicted action, or when her actions are portrayed, they are portrayed as utterly mysterious. Similarly, pre-pubescent Emily, who is the central focus of narration, has recently become aware that there is a kind of risk of some sort to her bodily integrity (a risk posed by men), but she seems to have no idea what the risk consists in. And the narration does not say -- though the adult reader has some idea, of course. Anyway: I am not sure that reading the novel taught me anything about this theme.

Disappearance is playing some kind of role... what role it is hard to say. Characters disappear -- the "seduced" older girl, the dead brother, the boat, life on the boat, life in Jamaica... The children -- and so the narrative -- retains little memory of events, settings, or characters once they have passed off-screen. I guess this is part of the child-like character of the novel... but again: I am not sure what's up with it.

So I am a bit puzzled about the book... but in a good way. I would certainly recommend it. It is an interesting, entertaining read.(less)

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 93 94 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Escapists: A ...: January 2012	11	13	Feb 04, 2012 08:06am

combine
Other Editions (25)

More editions...

Genres

Classics

36 users

Novels

12 users

Adventure

11 users

Adventure > Pirates

8 users

Book Club

8 users

Literature

8 users

Historical Fiction

6 users

Childrens

4 users

European Literature > British Literature

3 users

Adult Fiction

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy
by James T. Farrell
Parade's End
by Ford Madox Ford
Zuleika Dobson
by Max Beerbohm
The Old Wives' Tale
by Arnold Bennett
Loving
by Henry Green

About Richard Hughes

Richard Arthur Warren Hughes OBE was a British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays.

More about Richard Hughes...

Books by Richard Hughes

The Fox in the Attic (New York Review Books Classics)

The Wooden Shepherdess (New York Review Books Classics)

The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals

The Spider's Palace and Other Stories (Looking Glass Library)

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About A High Wind in Ja...

1 trivia question

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from A High Wind in Jamaica

“Mathias shrugged. After all, a criminal lawyer is not concerned with facts. He is concerned with probabilities. It is the novelist who is concerned with facts, whose job it is to say what a particular man did do on a particular occasion: the lawyer does not, cannot be expected to go further than show what the ordinary man would be most likely to do under presumed circumstances.” — 1 person liked it

More quotes…

Groups That Shelved A High Wind in Ja...

Around the World in 80 Books

330 members

last activity 31 minutes ago

shelf: read

The Escapists: A Book Club

137 members

last activity Feb 04, 2012 08:06am

shelf: read

Modern Library 100 Best N...

4 members

last activity Jan 17, 2012 07:19am

shelf: to-read

title link	preview: A High Wind in Jamaica
avg rating	preview: A High Wind in Jamaica Goodreads rating: 3.82 (1367 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188458.A_High_Wind_in_Jamaica?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172545599m/188458.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188458.A_High_Wind_in_Jamaica?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes[/url]

A High Wind in Jamaica

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website