The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder in Reading with Style

Jul 25, 2024 Wendy added it

Shelves: nautical, 2024, non-fiction, survival

As a massive fan of the nautical/survival genre, I was underwhelmed by this one. Here we have an interesting true story about a wreck/mutiny and a tangle of the survivors' clashing accounts, grist for a good yarn. However, if you, like me, have read your fair share of shipwreck stories, this one plays to the most standard of tropes: a controlling captain, obligatory details of scurvy and typhus, a basic rundown of nautical terms, and some power dynamics within the ranks that failed to get me exc As a massive fan of the nautical/survival genre, I was underwhelmed by this one. Here we have an interesting true story about a wreck/mutiny and a tangle of the survivors' clashing accounts, grist for a good yarn. However, if you, like me, have read your fair share of shipwreck stories, this one plays to the most standard of tropes: a controlling captain, obligatory details of scurvy and typhus, a basic rundown of nautical terms, and some power dynamics within the ranks that failed to get me excited because the author kept me at arms length emotionally from the central players -- perhaps deliberately as, the author repeatedly notes, these British seamen are the cogs powering evil imperialism. Despite many of them being press-ganged into the service, they really should have known better (right?).

One of the principal characters is 16 year old John Byron, yes, grandfather of *that* Lord Byron and who supposedly inspired parts of his famous poem Don Juan -- a fascinating connection that I had to delve into on wikipedia because the book barely mentions this in passing. No tangents into Romantic poetry here. The Wager is nautical tropes 101, and shall not deviate. I personally much preferred In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, which isn't afraid to delve into its source material's inspiration of Melville (and others), as well as some weird and interesting anecdotes about how one guy burned down a Galapagos island by accident, or the intimate secrets of lonely Quaker whaling wives, while still delivering a rip-roaring tale.

I can see this being an interesting enough story if this is your first encounter with the nautical/survival genre, but it doesn't bring much new to a crowded field and leans on too-easy critiques of almost 300 year old cultural attitudes as its main point. Apparently, there's a lesser known Patrick O'Brian novel about The Wager called The Unknown Shore which brings a bigger emotional core to this tale, and there are many other excellent survival books I'd recommend over this one:
- Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
- The Terror by Dan Simmons (fiction but thoroughly researched)
- Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Bernard Nordhoff
- South Sea Tales by Jack London
- Anything by Herman Melville ...more

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Dec 16, 2023 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, rws-2023-4-winter

A fascinating story, well-told! One ship, the Wager, from a British fleet sent out to harass the Spanish and capture their treasure ship ends up wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of what is now Chile. What follows is a tale of adventure, survival, and betrayal. Grann uses the tale as a condemnation of imperialism, and colonialism.

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