From the Bookshelf of Retro Reads…

Trade Wind

M.M. Kaye

Start date: November 15, 2014

Finish date: December 15, 2014

Discussion leader: Hana

Why we're reading this: Hannah rates it Five Stars and says: "It combines beautiful writing with in-depth factual information abo…more
[close] Hannah rates it Five Stars and says: "It combines beautiful writing with in-depth factual information about the history and island of Zanzibar of the mid-1800's...Kaye's writing is both lyrical and strong; painting word pictures, expressing the emotions of the characters and triggering an emotional response in the reader. The romance is secondary to the story, but wow, what a romance Kaye delivers."

Content warning: Zanzibar has a long, often brutal, colonial history stretching back centuries (including and predating the British). Kaye does not shrink from depicting the dark side of the Island's history, which includes its role as a center for slave trading. Dorcas rates it Five Stars and PG-13 for some violence and language and an off-screen <spoiler>rape</spoiler>.

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Oct 06, 2014 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, historical-fiction, made-me-think, your-mileage-may-vary

The island of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The late 1850s.
description

Hero Hollis, an orphaned young American woman with a large fortune, an overabundance of self-confidence and a determination to rid the world of all its evils, sails to Zanzibar to join her relatives for an extended stay. This is the heyday of the slave trade in Africa, and Zanzibar is at the center of the slave trade. Hero is washed overboard in a storm and, luckily, is picked up by Captain Rory Frost, whose ship smuggles ...more

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Nov 22, 2014 Tweety rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, romance, reviewed, forever-favorites, victorian-era, top-twenty-all-time-favorites, grab-during-fire, america, gritty-pg-13, africa

Every bit as good the second time round! In fact better, because now I was throughly prepared for how things would go and able to love it anyway.

Something I noticed that I hadn't before is that many of the characters that I started out with a dislike for, acquitted themselves by the end. And, while some of them never do or never can (as the case may be), make up for the past for the most part I am happy with how they all "grew", even those who considered themselves well versed in the ways of th Every bit as good the second time round! In fact better, because now I was throughly prepared for how things would go and able to love it anyway.

Something I noticed that I hadn't before is that many of the characters that I started out with a dislike for, acquitted themselves by the end. And, while some of them never do or never can (as the case may be), make up for the past for the most part I am happy with how they all "grew", even those who considered themselves well versed in the ways of the world.

I loved Hero's determination to set things to rights, even if she was naive to think she could really do it. She had fire and as Captain Rory Frost thought,"Hero angry, Hero defiant, Hero asleep... A dozen Heros; but none of them afraid and none of them defeated."And he was right, even when she lands herself in scrapes, Hero is never defeated.

Batty Potter remains one of my favorite characters in this book, sure he was nothing but a common thief for most of his life, but in his old age he mellowed and I cannot but love him. He showed his gentleness best with a little girl named Amrah.

Now, as for the controversial bit in this story; (view spoiler)

Note: I think this book is better than Zemindar, which was also very good, I just happen to like this story better.

PG-13

We have a rape behind closed doors (the controversy), some "mercy" killing and swears ranging from Ds, Hs, to all three Bs. Several characters have mistresses and there is mention of prostitutes. Also, in the Cholera epidemic we have many, many bodies lying around so that can be rather gritty. ...more

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May 10, 2019 Mela rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-period-long-19th-century, historical-fiction, region-british, region-india, greatly-impressing, my-hero, historical-romance, psychological-and-philosophical, historical-fiction-to-learn-history, mystery-adventure

One way or another, all our houses are glass.

M.M. Kaye was a master of intertwining historical facts with her own more or less fictional stories and this way creating a magnificent historical fiction. And I mean not only well written and accurate historical fiction but terrific, stupendous, phenomenal. There were/are few such writers. I am out of real life when I read her book. I even neglect duties.

she did not believe that you could stop loving someone because they hurt or disapp

One way or another, all our houses are glass.

she did not believe that you could stop loving someone because they hurt or disappointed you—however much you might wish to do so

She was also a wizard of inventing and depicting great love stories. Her novels aren't romances taking place amongst historical events. They could have been deprived of a romance and they would have been still fantastic. But I am unbelievably happy that they are there.

The characters - I am repeating myself - were, of course, phenomenal too. Hero..., Rory..., Dan..., Clay..., Thérèse..., Majid..., Batty... How I wish there were many more authors that can create such characters...

Patriotism be damned. That whole concept is merely a combination of self-interest and sentimentality.

Again, reading it you will ask yourself about loyalty and nationality and many other issues that had to be very important to M.M. Kaye because they are in all her books.

A man is not responsible for his ancestors, so why should he accept credit or shoulder blame for anything they did? Or, for that matter, be judged in advance by the fact that he happens to have been born on one side or another of some imaginary line? It’s an archaic and dangerous idea and it’s quite time it became outmoded, since it leads to a deal of trouble. People are people; black, white, yellow or brown. You either like someone or you don’t, and the bit of earth they were born on shouldn’t have anything to do with it or be allowed to influence your judgement in any way.

In this one, the main topic is freedom and slavery - a difficult and complex question in times when human civilization decided to end with it.

It is not our practice to meddle in the conduct or politics of other countries, or to become involved in their domestic disputes. We should strive to remain neutral; if not in thought then at least in deed. And to avoid any appearance of taking sides, because once we start doing that we shall find ourselves committed all over the globe. Committed, as the British are, to interference and responsibility, oppression and suppression—and war. The founders of our country and a great many of its present citizens were and are men who fled from interference and interminable wars. They wanted peace and freedom, and by God, they got it. But the surest way to lose it is by permitting ourselves to get mixed up in the unsavoury squabbles of foreign nations.

It was very interesting to read about times when the USA wasn't trying to meddle everywhere around the world. Personally, I think that crossing that line was a bad thing for the USA and American. As well as it was bad for the UK (British Empire felt apart eventually because of it).

The sun hasn’t reached its zenith yet, and it won’t sink until every Western nation in turn has done its best to foist its own particular Message onto the older civilizations of the East. And by that time, the lesson will have been learned too well and there will be nowhere left in all the world where a man can escape from Progress and do what he damn’ well pleases—or find room to breathe in!

Obviously, M.M. Kaye showed a deep, wise look at human nature too.

people do things, or don’t do them, because there is something in them that pushes them that way and that they are not always strong enough to fight against…something that perhaps they cannot help; heredity, or the wrong sort of teaching. Or strong appetites that need to be satisfied, and which I—I never really understood anything about…before

She had reached, without knowing it, a crossroads that was to decide not only her whole life, but the kind of woman she would become

There was also that longing for the world that changed irreversibly/died. So characteristic in Kaye's books.

It would not be long before there were twice as many people in the world as there had been when he, Emory Frost, had been born in that quiet old manor house in Kent. And after that three times as many; and then four—and five… There would be more Restrictions, more Discipline, more Laws. And more Tyranny!…all the things he had rebelled against. There would be no escaping them, and he wondered if the world of the next century would be the better for them or the worse, and why he should never have realized before that what he had taken to be misfortune had, in reality, been luck in disguise. Incredible luck!

Like M.M. Kaye I tell you, no matter where you live, who you are and how the world is changing:

You’re the one you’ve got to live with.

...more

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Nov 27, 2016 Theresa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

Hero Hollis is adamantly opposed to slavery. Falling overboard and finding herself rescued by a sea captain who himself participates in the slave trade, she finds that all of her zeal and attempts to reform the society of the island of Zanzibar will not only be greatly challenged but largely unsuccessful. The author presents the slavery dilemma realistically and looks at all sides of the question, examining it from the standpoint of both the slaves that are well cared for and provided for, and t
Hero Hollis is adamantly opposed to slavery. Falling overboard and finding herself rescued by a sea captain who himself participates in the slave trade, she finds that all of her zeal and attempts to reform the society of the island of Zanzibar will not only be greatly challenged but largely unsuccessful. The author presents the slavery dilemma realistically and looks at all sides of the question, examining it from the standpoint of both the slaves that are well cared for and provided for, and those that are treated so unjustly and inhumanely as to defy belief in human nature itself.

Slavery though is only one of the themes that this author addresses in this epic novel of a turbulent time period.

“It had never before seemed possible to Hero that there could be any comparison between life in the East and the west that was not greatly to the West’s advantage, but now she found herself thinking about it from the standpoint of a girl who had been born in Zanzibar and known no other country, and who would soon be exchanging her bright silks and exotic jewelry for sober dresses of heavy, dark-colored woolen cloth, and landing at the teeming, industrial port of Hamburg, where the docks would be full of merchant ships and the sky heavy with smoke from factory chimneys, and where there would be poverty, drunkenness and crime as well as gas-lamps and opera-houses and the opulent mansions of the rich.”

Although not greatly admiring the name of the heroine (Hero Athena? I wish the author had chosen something else...), on the whole I was pulling for her throughout the book. As her naiveté and generously pure motives were balanced by unforeseen circumstances and complications, Hero painfully matures and finds herself questioning even her own beliefs in the nobility of human nature (something that eventually happens to just about everyone, as we face the many challenges life has to offer!) Hero comes to the place where she can look back realistically and objectively, and the reader cannot but sympathise with her plight. Although vastly different in both plot and characterization, Hero's 'coming-of-age' story reminded me somewhat of the character of Austen’s “Emma", when the 'light-bulb' comes on.

M.M. Kaye is a talented writer, able to put flesh and blood into her characters. Although somewhat predictable, her writing reflects the popular romantic style for that time period. The insipid Victorian-ish reactions of Hero's Aunt Abby and her daughter, Cressy, to various situations in the novel are sometimes a bit overdone, but not a surprise to any reader of Regency-era novels. However the lush descriptions of Zanzibar and the historical aspect of the novel made this for an enthralling read and I simply could not pick up anything else until I came to the ending.

The author does disclose which events are true and which are fictional at the end of the book, which helps to place the events of the story and make it real for and the reader.

Rory Frost, Hero's rescuer, remains (at least in my mind), an enigma. I never did come to a full appreciation of this complex character. The author does a good job of explaining his background and subsequent motivations, but for me, the explanation failed to justify his actions.

“Against the background of the dark a score of disconnected incidents from his past life rose up before him, and it was as though, standing on the crest of a ridge, he turned to look back at a road he had traveled along. A long road that dipped into dark valleys and climbed out again on plateaus and hill crests, but that seen from this vantage point gave the appearance of being a joyous and unbroken line.

He knew that the continuity of that line was an illusion, and that the valleys were there, for he had plodded through them. But now they lay below the level of his vision and were unimportant, and it was only the mountain tops that he saw, joined together by distance and bathed in retrospective sunlight. Life might have dealt him an indifferent hand but he had played it recklessly and to his own advantage...”

If you are looking for an escapist read, it’s all here. Hidden treasure. Plots and counter-plots. Danger, romance, the English gentlemen soldier contrasted with the dastardly desperado, piracy, rescues, twists and turns, surprises, revelations, and intrigues. I was not at all familiar with the island of Zanzibar and the author cleverly brings this mysterious island and culture to life for the reader. An unforgettable story, this is a book I will not soon forget. Having read "The Far Pavilions" years ago, I knew M.M. Kaye had the ability to spin a long, involved historical epic that would hold my interest, and I was not disappointed. ...more

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