Conservative Book Talk

Plot: Our hero’s story begins several months before the insurrection on the island of Hayti, on a ship anchored in Hayti. Nathaniel, known to all as Nat, because he dislikes his full name, goes ashore to see the town. In the course of the visiting the town, he rides out into the countryside. Several miles from the town, Nat hears a scream and cries for help, jumping from his mount he runs to the voice. Nat sees a large dog mauling a young girl, without a thought, he jumps at it and after a short brawl, kills it with his sailor’s dirk. The girl’s parents take Nat into their home while he recovers from his large injuries.

After a month or so with the small family, Nat returns to his ship.

Aboard with his shipmates once more, Nat sets out on another adventure, this one including pirates. The captain informs Nat that they have orders to sail around the islands, and see if any pirates are about.

Thanks to Nat’s keen eyesight, the ship notices a pirate hold deep within an island. They attack this and capture the entire hold. Unexpectedly, among their plunder, are about two hundred slaves. These they feed and cloth properly; following a sharp fight with the surviving pirates and islanders, the ship sails home with the freed slaves and other cargo.

Relieving themselves of the slaves, and leaving them to others care, Nat’s ship sets out once more to survey the various islands for pirates. Once more, thanks to Nat’s keen eyesight, they discover a small pirate hold hidden well on an island. Finding the opening small and well guarded, the captain sends a small force ashore to take down the guards so the ship could sail through cleanly. Nat goes with the small party, and they take down the pirate guards before they know what hit them. A short, intense fight ensues, killing all the pirates and giving the sailors great plunder from a large warehouse.

The ship returns victorious to their harbor and unloads its precious cargo. The captain rewards Nat’s outstanding bravery from the last battle, with leave for a few days to visit the family whose daughter he had saved. He is there few days before the slaves around the island revolt against the white rule. Providentially, Nat, the girl he saved, and her mother, are warned in time and are able to leave the house before the slaves come to kill them and burn the house. Now, on the run for their lives, Nat must protect the woman and find a way back to the town.

Positive: Our hero, Nat, is full of honor, courage and good brains (excuse the expression) as always. Something that is lacking in many of our hero’s in modern day books, especially the good brains part.

The battles are well written and engaging, a very big plus for me.

Mr. Henty does an excellent job of portraying the events of the black insurrection of Hayti. He draws you into the historical event with the story, with our’s hero help of course.

Negative: I cannot say many negatives about this book, in fact I cannot think of one!

Overall: The books that Mr. Henty writes are what first drew me to history, aside from my natural wish to learn more of it, he made me find it fascinating. Mr. Henty does a wonderful job keeping your nose in the book and interested in our hero’s tale, yet, at the same time, filling the reader’s mind with history.

I highly recommend this book to people of all ages; it is well written and finely told.

Tags: G. A. Henty, Hannassus, Youth Fiction

This is probably the most widely read piece of philosophy to come out of England, and understandably so, because its also a very interesting novel. In the story, More meets a man who just got back from the perfect country (Utopia), and the bulk of the novel revolves around the people and customs of this faraway island. It’s a quick read, though a bit tedious if you’re not a socialist (or communist, both of which could have been copied from parts of this work). Its got lots of sarcastic pot-shots at contemporary Tudor England, and I’m told that the original Latin has even more inside jokes on More’s generation.

There isn’t really a plot, and most people have heard of these ideas already (no locks on the doors, eating together, no private property, can’t leave the city without a license, etc) either in school or in a movie. So, instead of recapping the whole litany of ideas from More’s book, I thought I’d share my college paper on the subject. Our teacher had us create our own perfect world (with the assumption that we’d all be good and create nice worlds where there are no guns or religion or environmental abuse). Naturally, in More’s sarcastic tradition, I thought I’d put my favorite fantasies of how-to-get-rid-of-the-environmentalists in the structure. A disclaimer: I am strongly in favor of stewardship of the environment, but such stewardship should benefit humanity, not the other way around. With that, here is my version of “A Green Utopia:”
• Location: A floating island in the sky, powered by green energy, functioning entirely off the clouds and generating only steam exhaust. Utopia looks something like a series of blimps, topped by a platform covered in giant blue-tinted bubbles. The aeronautic plastic bubbles are actually individual platforms that are interconnected for wind and weather adjustments (a hurricane, for example, would contort the platforms but not destabilize them due to the flexibility of the cable connections). Protected by an invisibility shield, radar, and at last resort non nuclear non-chemical anti aircraft and anti missile bombs (preferably deployed over the enemy’s country, or, if said enemy’s country lacks a desert or tundra or grassy plain where the bombs won’t impact the local ecology as badly, over the Sahara). At first it will be one island, but as the project grows there will be families, children, and new potential citizens who see the value of this way of living and want to become part of the ideal society. Every 20 years, therefore, new islands will be built per the number of successful people who complete the citizenship process.
• Mechanisms for social control: Each floating island can hold only so many people, thus each person must be useful. Therefore, as the children grow up and desire to start families and islands of their own, and as more people wish to come live on the island, new islands must be created. Before starting their own island, the desirous group of people will be dropped in the middle of a tropical African war zone and work together to bring peace and harmony to between the locals and the ecology. This will give each new island citizens who confidence that their passion and hard work will bring success, and unscrupulous lazy persons won’t survive to pollute my Utopia. Once the people entering the society have proven their worth, there is no need for social controls beyond the usual respect people have for people who fulfill their ideals and the lack of respect that comes when others fall short.
• Crime and Punishment: the citizens of Utopia have but two remedial methods for criminals. For lesser crimes or for repentant criminals who broke the rules by accident, temporary banishment is in order. The offending party is returned to the earth’s crust and given a non-political, non-monetary, environmentally friendly goal (such as saving a particular tree from destruction while teaching the locals about living in harmony with the ecology. In this example, when they have convinced the locals to spare the tree, they are fully restored to citizenship). The most severe offenses are punished with banishment.

Anyway, it was really amusing exercise, especially since the professor gave me an A and loved the whole floating island and (especially) initiation ideas. My sister loves it to: we’ve always wanted to see the people calling for protection of white mosquitoes and gun control would react to an African war zone. Assuming they survived long enough to get back here.

OVERALL: More is a very interesting author, and while I didn’t like most of his points, its worth reading. The idea of what the perfect society looks like is intriguing, and now I ought to go write my REAL Utopia (no environmentalists allowed).

Tags: Environmentalists, Sincerelyornot, Thomas Moore, Utopia

Plot: Our hero is an ever-good lad, trying to reach knighthood, and his constant companion is a monk who cannot abide his chosen style of life. Together they live in the fifteenth century, during a war between Wales, Scotland and England. The two do not meet until Oswald, our hero, is accepted in the service of Sir Henry, also known as Hotspur. Oswald meets Roger, our dear bad monk, when he wishes to take some reading and writing lessons, which are taught to him by Roger.

Oswald is recruited as an esquire; his main duty is to run messages to other people for Hotspur. One of his first missions includes taking a secret message to a lord in Scotland, with Roger by his side. Though quite dangerous, Oswald performs it well and escapes when nearly caught. It is soon after this daring mission, that Hotspur obtains leave of monk hood for Roger and sends him to a neighboring lord as a man-at-arms .

Several months later our daring hero is sent to Hotspurs brother-in-law, Mortimer, for short period, in which he may, with the help of twenty men-at-arms and his uncle and Roger, assist Mortimer against Glendower. The Welsh have started an uprising to support Glendowers claim for the Welsh throne; Glendower does have royal blood after all. Only a few weeks after arriving, Mortimer captures Glendowers castle; he soon finds that Glendower escaped upon seeing their approach. Much to his disappointment Mortimer cannot find any of Glendowers daughters; after posting guards around the grounds, Mortimer goes to his home to await the news of whether or not Glendower will try and recapture his castle. Oswald and Roger are on duty together, when they see two figures rise from some bushes and run toward the forest. Catching them quickly Oswald demands they surrender, only to find they are women, daughters of Glendower; they offer the men jewels in return for their freedom. Oswald declines their offer, declaring such a thing would not be honorable; after several moments of discussion with Roger, he decides to let the girls go free. His only reward being a small charm which he could show to any Welshman, should he find himself in need, and they would take him to the girls. Oswald and Roger return to their posts, no one being the wiser for their doings, since he did not want the girls to go to an English prison for many years.

Oswald performs his battles well during the Welsh uprising and highly praised by Mortimer when sent back to Hotspur.

Positive: When one reads a G.A. Henty, it is sometimes difficult to get into the story, not so with this one. In the first chapter he draws you and keeps your nose in until the end. Mr. Henty gives a lot of information about the time period, and does an excellent job in describing the battles and scuffles our good people get into.

Negative: I can’t say much of anything negative about it, no bloody descriptions, no swearing. So this paragraph is rather small, but that’s good!

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed this Henty book, it kept my nose in the pages after the first paragraph. The history is fun to learn, and completely worth the time spent reading it. I highly recommend it to all ages.

Other Henty reviews.

Tags: G. A. Henty, Hannasus, Historical Fiction, Over the Border, youth