Thursday, February 24, 2011

Murder! Rebellion! Ruffled Sleeves! All hands on deck for CAPTAIN BLOOD by Rafael Sabatini

Where: Q-train
Who was reading: A woman with a lightly spiked pixie cut and wire-rimmed glasses in traffic-cone orange. At one point she rested her hands on the open book and indulged both thumbs in a tightly wound twiddle. Perhaps she imagined herself turning the wheel of a very tiny wooden ship.
Charged with treason... Dr. Peter Blood is shipped to the colonies as a slave. But chains can’t bind his mutinous heart, and before long he escapes with a rag-tag band of convict-slaves and fashions himself one of the most hated and feared buccaneers in the Caribbean.
Based on 5 or 6 true stories lumped into one. Most notably, that of a physician named Henry Pitman who was swept up in the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 and sentenced to Transportation. Similar to Blood, Pitman escaped enslavement in Barbados by sailing off on a pirate ship. Only difference was he never actually became a pirate.
Now a Major Motion Picture! And by “now” I mean “as of 1935.” Sorry to say Errol Flynn was a bit of a milquetoast in the role. I think it’s high time they did a re-make with Van Damme in the captain’s chair.

13 comments:

  1. Honestly, don't you just love pirate books? Pirates are almost as awesome as cowboys!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ALMOST as awesome? Excuse me, but have you read the True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle?

    ReplyDelete
  3. yes, and it was *pretty* good. Not as good as some cowboy books I could mention however.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Name one—ONE! And if you cite Larry McMurtry I will scoff (out of ignorance, since I haven't read him).

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Crossing: best cowboy book ever.

    But I do admire an author who can make those scurvy-ridden, monkey-postured seaman crawling in vermin look glamorous.

    That takes skill!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah, but to feel the salty sea air blowin' off the starboard side, to taste the crunchy weevils in yer hardtack bread... it makes the sting 'o' scurvy disappear like a bottle 'o' rum shared amongst 12 thirsty sea-dogs.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I bet if cowboys and pirates ever met up (at Ye Olde-Timey Vanished Wayes of Lyfe Pub), they'd get along famously.

    "So the desert, there's no water ANYWHERE?"

    "Yeah, yeah. But tell me more about YOUR thing -- you can just go to sleep and wake up miles from where you started?"

    BookSpy, you should read McMurty's "Lonesome Dove" at least. It gets inside you and makes a home.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I so want a pirate meets cowboy novel ... does one exist ? Can anyone write one ?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Would mermaid cowboys riding seahorses fit the bill? Not that that exists, but it might be neat.

    AJE: "it gets inside you and makes a home"...like a parasite?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Damn, BookSpy, why u gotta b like that

    ReplyDelete
  11. I never meant to hurt you, AJE. Some parasites are good for you, like, they make you thin and stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well, "Lonesome Dove" might make you thin because it's SO GOOD that you just read it all day and all night and forget to eat meals.

    I almost typed "Lonesome Dave" just now, which sounds like it would be a very different, and far inferior, book.

    ReplyDelete
  13. @AJE Cowboys are alive and well. I just saw someone riding a mule down the service road of I-35 in Austin, Texas. I'll readily admit, though, that's not something we see every day!

    ReplyDelete