REVIEW: On the Track
Dec. 17th, 2013 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllOh dear, over a month since I posted last! I haven't read that many books and I didn't feel that it was worth posting merely to say that I dipped in and out of the Statoil Masters Championship on the Saturday. None of the matches fully grabbed my attention, not even the last doubles (Macenroe and Barani vs Wilander and Macnamara), but it was perfect background TV.
On the Track: Bessie Marchant. Sampson Low
I bought this with a vague idea that it was about trains. It’s not, the track is something to do with mining for silver. The subtitle is ‘Among the Torches of the Andres’.
I believe it’s the first Bessie Marchant book that I’ve read without a significant female character, although it’s very much her type of adventure story, with the hero going through several incredible events.
It’s bookended by young Richard Austen, who is amusingly drawn in the first chapter as being too sure of himself – see his overreaching in word choice – and his Grandfather Austen likes to take him down a peg or two. At the age of fifteen, Richard talks to his grandfather a little about the great adventures of his youth, which are the stuff of family legend, but then his grandfather dies, and there will be no more stories, until Richard is eighteen and clearing his grandfather’s papers. He comes across a written account of Dick Austen’s time in the newly independent nation of Peru, high in the Andes, where he made his fortune. This document is the bulk of the story.
I haven’t read many of the boys’ own adventure stories, I don’t think I even managed to get the whole way through ‘Treasure Island’, so I don’t know how this compares. Dick admits to a lot of physical weakness, but given what he goes through – terrible sea voyages, being attacked and robbed, an earthquake or two, volcanoes, a condor attacking him and a life-threatening illness – he is, comparatively, showing a stiff upper lip. He has come abroad to make his fortune, being the youngest son of a miller who fell in love with the local squire’s daughter. Said squire threatened to lock his daughter up if Dick didn’t leave the country.
Having landed in South America He meets Pedro Ispania, a more volatile creature – Spanish born, grew to manhood in France, now in Peru to make his fortune; Father Paul, a kind monk with healing skills, which will come in handy; and American miner Bob, whom Dick and Pedro save after a volcano devastates a mine. For Pedro and Dick have a little gold fever, although they’re not picky, they’ll mine for silver too.
What was really striking (more so than in any of Marchant’s books, as I recall) is that this adventure story is cast as an epic good versus evil tale, although it isn’t a moral tale, really. Dick is confirmed in his Englishness and returns home having proved himself to win his bride and share his money, while Pedro, who has a tragic family story, and Bob, who is the closest to having a conversion, both die horribly off the page, as it were. I didn’t feel that good won the day, exactly, although Dick is shown to have learnt the importance of fraternity, for Pedro and the priest’s kindness saved his life and his and Pedro’s kindness to Bob repaid itself, and the unimportance of money beside that (although it’s useful for Englishmen like Dick to have). Dick spends most of his fortune on helping his family and tramps, which leaves his grandson somewhat embarrassed when he learns that a descendant of Pedro’s still lives – Dick wasn’t too thorough in checking up after Pedro’s runaway brother and therefore doubled his share of their fortune after Pedro died. Fortunately, Dolores Ispania is a charming young lady who just happened to come and be a (randomly Spanish) governess for a friend of the family’s and they ‘compromise’ by marrying.
It’s not about Dick’s character development or the state of his soul, really, or not in any great depth. Marchant is more interested in effect and thrills. But there’s a lot of talk of hell and demons, with thieves they cross paths with compared to them, and excitable Pedro seeing a vision of the pit that troubles him and really does portend his doom. It jumped out at me.
I suppose she did her research as much as she could about the extreme weather and conditions, and I don’t know about the mining. It’s interesteng that she sometimes jumps quite a while – the first sea voyage is covered in a few paragraphs – and we always know how the story will end after all these episodes, namely that Pedro dies and Dick lives to a fine old age, having made his fortune and won his Mary. The thrill is in the journey, with lassoing and making your shelter in caves...
On the Track: Bessie Marchant. Sampson Low
I bought this with a vague idea that it was about trains. It’s not, the track is something to do with mining for silver. The subtitle is ‘Among the Torches of the Andres’.
I believe it’s the first Bessie Marchant book that I’ve read without a significant female character, although it’s very much her type of adventure story, with the hero going through several incredible events.
It’s bookended by young Richard Austen, who is amusingly drawn in the first chapter as being too sure of himself – see his overreaching in word choice – and his Grandfather Austen likes to take him down a peg or two. At the age of fifteen, Richard talks to his grandfather a little about the great adventures of his youth, which are the stuff of family legend, but then his grandfather dies, and there will be no more stories, until Richard is eighteen and clearing his grandfather’s papers. He comes across a written account of Dick Austen’s time in the newly independent nation of Peru, high in the Andes, where he made his fortune. This document is the bulk of the story.
I haven’t read many of the boys’ own adventure stories, I don’t think I even managed to get the whole way through ‘Treasure Island’, so I don’t know how this compares. Dick admits to a lot of physical weakness, but given what he goes through – terrible sea voyages, being attacked and robbed, an earthquake or two, volcanoes, a condor attacking him and a life-threatening illness – he is, comparatively, showing a stiff upper lip. He has come abroad to make his fortune, being the youngest son of a miller who fell in love with the local squire’s daughter. Said squire threatened to lock his daughter up if Dick didn’t leave the country.
Having landed in South America He meets Pedro Ispania, a more volatile creature – Spanish born, grew to manhood in France, now in Peru to make his fortune; Father Paul, a kind monk with healing skills, which will come in handy; and American miner Bob, whom Dick and Pedro save after a volcano devastates a mine. For Pedro and Dick have a little gold fever, although they’re not picky, they’ll mine for silver too.
What was really striking (more so than in any of Marchant’s books, as I recall) is that this adventure story is cast as an epic good versus evil tale, although it isn’t a moral tale, really. Dick is confirmed in his Englishness and returns home having proved himself to win his bride and share his money, while Pedro, who has a tragic family story, and Bob, who is the closest to having a conversion, both die horribly off the page, as it were. I didn’t feel that good won the day, exactly, although Dick is shown to have learnt the importance of fraternity, for Pedro and the priest’s kindness saved his life and his and Pedro’s kindness to Bob repaid itself, and the unimportance of money beside that (although it’s useful for Englishmen like Dick to have). Dick spends most of his fortune on helping his family and tramps, which leaves his grandson somewhat embarrassed when he learns that a descendant of Pedro’s still lives – Dick wasn’t too thorough in checking up after Pedro’s runaway brother and therefore doubled his share of their fortune after Pedro died. Fortunately, Dolores Ispania is a charming young lady who just happened to come and be a (randomly Spanish) governess for a friend of the family’s and they ‘compromise’ by marrying.
It’s not about Dick’s character development or the state of his soul, really, or not in any great depth. Marchant is more interested in effect and thrills. But there’s a lot of talk of hell and demons, with thieves they cross paths with compared to them, and excitable Pedro seeing a vision of the pit that troubles him and really does portend his doom. It jumped out at me.
I suppose she did her research as much as she could about the extreme weather and conditions, and I don’t know about the mining. It’s interesteng that she sometimes jumps quite a while – the first sea voyage is covered in a few paragraphs – and we always know how the story will end after all these episodes, namely that Pedro dies and Dick lives to a fine old age, having made his fortune and won his Mary. The thrill is in the journey, with lassoing and making your shelter in caves...
