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wildbecs's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
2.25
angewalton's review against another edition
4.0
This was a very daunting book to pick up but after I started it, it was hard to put it down. The story itself is unbelievable and I knew a little about it as a Western Australian but the detail and life Fitzsimmons gives to the real people involved is gripping. So well researched. Highly recommended.
I did not give 5 stars because quite often through the narrative, FitSimmons uses language that detracts from the story. Small comments he makes, that while you are caught in the narrative and the momentum, is so jarring it pulls me out of the journey and I am thinking about Fitzsimons himself. I’ve never read a Peter Fitzsimmons book before but his ego is well known and unfortunately, he couldn’t separate it from the narrative.
I did not give 5 stars because quite often through the narrative, FitSimmons uses language that detracts from the story. Small comments he makes, that while you are caught in the narrative and the momentum, is so jarring it pulls me out of the journey and I am thinking about Fitzsimons himself. I’ve never read a Peter Fitzsimmons book before but his ego is well known and unfortunately, he couldn’t separate it from the narrative.
hugh's review
3.0
Lots of interesting stuff, especially about the Dutch East India Company and the whole era of exploration and colonisation. I did find it a bit weird how gleeful and gratuitious it gets about people getting murdered and abused, the book tends to treat that like it's salacious gossip rather than real people suffering. Makes me wonder if this is how people generally feel about "true crime" stories?
oneoflifeslollopers's review
4.0
Say what you will about Peter FitzSimons as a person, he knows how to tell a good story. It took me a while to really get into the stride of this book, but once I did I was hooked.
FitzSimons expertly retells the story of the Batavia and all who sailed on it with all the theatrics of the narrator of horror stories around the campfire, or the most dedicated of actors upon the stage. Hereinlies the brilliance and the failing of this book. Undertstandably, and as Peter FitzSimons makes every effort to acknowledge before he begins his recount; most of the original documentation of the events of 1629 is no longer available. His narration of the events then, is fictionalised based on the evidence available and the best attempts possible to understand the workings and motives of all the major players.
The result is a very readable account of what happened and how and it is very easy to understand exactly how and why the orginal intended mutiny was developed, and how chaos errupted after the ship hit the coral reefs. By the end of the book I felt that I was inside the heads of all of the people involved, I could have eve BEEN them. I felt the desperation, the fear, the terror and the lust for control and more power experienced by the mutineers.
However it took me a long time to reach this point. For a long time I struggled with the format - the non fiction book written like a Mi=ddle Ages Matthew Reilly best seller. In fact the book still feels that way for me. It took until atleast halfway through the book for me to stop saying "But WHY have you included this detail when you don't know it is true and it doesn't REALLY need to be fictionalised in order to explain the events." Case in point: In Chapter Two: Cry Mutiny! on page 81, FitzSimons describes Jeronimus enters Jacobsz quarters to discover him in bed with his mistress Zwaantje and then leaves. This particular paragraph serves no purpose to the rest of the narration and there is no certainty that the event took place or was documented by any of the three involved.
In the end it was the gripping narration that had me so eagerly turning the pages and for the most part I really enjoyed the read. But until very near the end, I treated all the people as characters - they were not real people for me until justice was at hand. It is mostly the Epilogue that really convinced me that this did actually happen in some way - that Jeronimus did order the murder of most of the survivors of the wreck slowly over a period of nearly three months before rescue was at hand. That the atrocities and bravery exhibited by such a small percentage of the population did happen, and so close to home. That people managed to survive for months off small amounts of water and food, through madness and the knowledge that any chance of survival let alone rescue was slim and whether such feats could still be achieved today.
ETA: Some interesting facts:
The first European structure to be built on the territory of Australia was a set of gallows to hang the mutineers.
Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom, two men Pelsaert decided not to hang, but did not want to bring back to Batavia were given a small supply of food and water and sent on a raft towards the coast of Australia. While there is no documentation to detail what happened to these two men, there is an Indigenous tribe in the northern part of Western Australia with Dutch words in their dialect, European features and the second highest incidence of extra fingers and toes - the highest is the Mennonites who are of Dutch origins.
Despite only being 6 metres below sea level, the wreck of the Batavia was not discovered until 1963.
FitzSimons expertly retells the story of the Batavia and all who sailed on it with all the theatrics of the narrator of horror stories around the campfire, or the most dedicated of actors upon the stage. Hereinlies the brilliance and the failing of this book. Undertstandably, and as Peter FitzSimons makes every effort to acknowledge before he begins his recount; most of the original documentation of the events of 1629 is no longer available. His narration of the events then, is fictionalised based on the evidence available and the best attempts possible to understand the workings and motives of all the major players.
The result is a very readable account of what happened and how and it is very easy to understand exactly how and why the orginal intended mutiny was developed, and how chaos errupted after the ship hit the coral reefs. By the end of the book I felt that I was inside the heads of all of the people involved, I could have eve BEEN them. I felt the desperation, the fear, the terror and the lust for control and more power experienced by the mutineers.
However it took me a long time to reach this point. For a long time I struggled with the format - the non fiction book written like a Mi=ddle Ages Matthew Reilly best seller. In fact the book still feels that way for me. It took until atleast halfway through the book for me to stop saying "But WHY have you included this detail when you don't know it is true and it doesn't REALLY need to be fictionalised in order to explain the events." Case in point: In Chapter Two: Cry Mutiny! on page 81, FitzSimons describes Jeronimus enters Jacobsz quarters to discover him in bed with his mistress Zwaantje and then leaves. This particular paragraph serves no purpose to the rest of the narration and there is no certainty that the event took place or was documented by any of the three involved.
In the end it was the gripping narration that had me so eagerly turning the pages and for the most part I really enjoyed the read. But until very near the end, I treated all the people as characters - they were not real people for me until justice was at hand. It is mostly the Epilogue that really convinced me that this did actually happen in some way - that Jeronimus did order the murder of most of the survivors of the wreck slowly over a period of nearly three months before rescue was at hand. That the atrocities and bravery exhibited by such a small percentage of the population did happen, and so close to home. That people managed to survive for months off small amounts of water and food, through madness and the knowledge that any chance of survival let alone rescue was slim and whether such feats could still be achieved today.
ETA: Some interesting facts:
The first European structure to be built on the territory of Australia was a set of gallows to hang the mutineers.
Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom, two men Pelsaert decided not to hang, but did not want to bring back to Batavia were given a small supply of food and water and sent on a raft towards the coast of Australia. While there is no documentation to detail what happened to these two men, there is an Indigenous tribe in the northern part of Western Australia with Dutch words in their dialect, European features and the second highest incidence of extra fingers and toes - the highest is the Mennonites who are of Dutch origins.
Despite only being 6 metres below sea level, the wreck of the Batavia was not discovered until 1963.
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