Did Michael Crichton even read Pirate Latitudes, at least in the form we have it today? I wonder. He died more than a year before the book saw publication, and it reads like an outline for a novel rather than a fleshed-out example of one.The storycraft is patchy, the typical Crichton invention uneven. Perhaps he worked on this as an exercise between more serious efforts, thinking he'd have time to give it the fresher perspective it needed.
Alas, death has a habit of catching one unawares.
That's even more true for pirates, although calling the protagonist of Pirate Latitudes an actual pirate would get your face stuffed in a plate of your own dinner. At least that's what happens to someone who makes that mistake in an introductory scene. Captain Charles Hunter prefers the term "privateer," since he has permission from the English crown to attack ships deemed inimical to her interests. You say "to-MAY-to," he says "to-MA-to," he still goes around shooting holes through harmless merchantmen and stealing their cargo. But he doesn't wear a beard covered with burning fuses or make people walk the plank, so maybe he has a point.
"I am charged with protecting this Colony," explains the governor of British Jamaica, Sir James Almont, at the novel's outset. "How am I to do that? Clearly, I must acquire fighting men. The adventurers and privateers are the only source available to me, and I am careful to provide them a welcome home here. You may find these elements distasteful but Jamaica would be naked and vulnerable without them."
One reason Crichton liked to indulge himself in historical fiction now and again is it allowed him to celebrate more openly the sort of rogue polite society would shun today. See for example his The Great Train Robbery, about throat-cutting burglars stealing soldiers' wages during the early 19th century. As this novel is set in 1665, morality is even less absolute. Betrayal, murder, torture, even raping an underage girl is the sort of thing that goes with the territory. Pirate Latitudes provides us plenty of this sort of activity, and dares us to be squeamish.
A problem with Pirate Latitudes is such squeamishness comes easily because the story is rather weak. Captain Hunter is soon sent on a mission, to waylay a Spanish treasure galleon, or nao, which is waiting out hurricane season by anchoring beneath the fortress guns of Matanceros, a Spanish-held island whose commander, Cazalla, not only executed Hunter's brother but forced upon him a particularly grisly last meal. Hunter wants revenge, but more important, he wants what's on that nao. He sets off to take the fortress with a small band of tough-nosed confederates.
Calling Pirate Latitudes a flintlock-and-cutlass version of The Guns Of Navarone gives it too much credit. The strategy this time is much too simplified, the characters too unsympathetic. Like Navarone, there is a major cliff-climbing sequence in Pirate Latitudes, but it involves much less suspense. Other tricky situations Hunter and his crew must overcome include imprisonment, hurricanes, shoals, cannibals, even a deadly kraken, which since Crichton seems to be playing this one out as realistic fiction, must have been just a giant squid with a really bad temper.
Right about here I began to wonder whether this novel was really Crichton's own, found as is in his hard drive and dusted off to fill a void, as the dust jacket claims. I mean, it's not unlike Crichton to goose up his narrative by introducing a giant scary monster, but usually he made it seem less random. Say what you will of amber-preserved mosquito-sucked DNA, at least it's a reason. The kraken thing is just too goofy, especially when Hunter takes it on a la Conan with an ax.
"You know, when we return to [Port] Royal, no one will believe this," one of Hunter's crewmen says with a laugh. I know the feeling.
Dialogue too often clanks like a poorly-reefed yardarm. "We will see blood in Port Royal before dawn, mark my words!" "Stand by, mates. We're going to eat Donnish shot today." "Better a voyage begin in blood than end in blood."
Every now and then, Crichton gives you an odd historical nugget or off-beat detail that catches your interest. There are a couple of high-action moments where the exposition is not too leaden or ludicrous. But the hook a good pulp-fiction story needs, and which Crichton usually was wildly proficient at supplying, is missing here. So too is the polish that might make this debased bunch of characters easier to enjoy, perhaps even relate to.
Sometimes, works of art have been great enough to overcome even the deaths of their creators. Giacomo Puccini's "Turandot" is one of his most famous operas, but he didn't even get a chance to finish it before he died. Someone else did, and the result was a glorious capstone to his legacy.
Here, the story seems to have been the same, but the result much different. Pirate Latitudes became a best-seller, yes, and added significantly to the Crichton literary estate, but it did his reputation no service.
That's even more true for pirates, although calling the protagonist of Pirate Latitudes an actual pirate would get your face stuffed in a plate of your own dinner. At least that's what happens to someone who makes that mistake in an introductory scene. Captain Charles Hunter prefers the term "privateer," since he has permission from the English crown to attack ships deemed inimical to her interests. You say "to-MAY-to," he says "to-MA-to," he still goes around shooting holes through harmless merchantmen and stealing their cargo. But he doesn't wear a beard covered with burning fuses or make people walk the plank, so maybe he has a point.
"I am charged with protecting this Colony," explains the governor of British Jamaica, Sir James Almont, at the novel's outset. "How am I to do that? Clearly, I must acquire fighting men. The adventurers and privateers are the only source available to me, and I am careful to provide them a welcome home here. You may find these elements distasteful but Jamaica would be naked and vulnerable without them."
One reason Crichton liked to indulge himself in historical fiction now and again is it allowed him to celebrate more openly the sort of rogue polite society would shun today. See for example his The Great Train Robbery, about throat-cutting burglars stealing soldiers' wages during the early 19th century. As this novel is set in 1665, morality is even less absolute. Betrayal, murder, torture, even raping an underage girl is the sort of thing that goes with the territory. Pirate Latitudes provides us plenty of this sort of activity, and dares us to be squeamish.
A problem with Pirate Latitudes is such squeamishness comes easily because the story is rather weak. Captain Hunter is soon sent on a mission, to waylay a Spanish treasure galleon, or nao, which is waiting out hurricane season by anchoring beneath the fortress guns of Matanceros, a Spanish-held island whose commander, Cazalla, not only executed Hunter's brother but forced upon him a particularly grisly last meal. Hunter wants revenge, but more important, he wants what's on that nao. He sets off to take the fortress with a small band of tough-nosed confederates.
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| Michael Crichton hailed from the same alma mater (Harvard University) as Captain Charles Hunter in Pirate Latitudes. Probably not a coincidence. [Photo from nytimes.com] |
Calling Pirate Latitudes a flintlock-and-cutlass version of The Guns Of Navarone gives it too much credit. The strategy this time is much too simplified, the characters too unsympathetic. Like Navarone, there is a major cliff-climbing sequence in Pirate Latitudes, but it involves much less suspense. Other tricky situations Hunter and his crew must overcome include imprisonment, hurricanes, shoals, cannibals, even a deadly kraken, which since Crichton seems to be playing this one out as realistic fiction, must have been just a giant squid with a really bad temper.
Right about here I began to wonder whether this novel was really Crichton's own, found as is in his hard drive and dusted off to fill a void, as the dust jacket claims. I mean, it's not unlike Crichton to goose up his narrative by introducing a giant scary monster, but usually he made it seem less random. Say what you will of amber-preserved mosquito-sucked DNA, at least it's a reason. The kraken thing is just too goofy, especially when Hunter takes it on a la Conan with an ax.
"You know, when we return to [Port] Royal, no one will believe this," one of Hunter's crewmen says with a laugh. I know the feeling.
Dialogue too often clanks like a poorly-reefed yardarm. "We will see blood in Port Royal before dawn, mark my words!" "Stand by, mates. We're going to eat Donnish shot today." "Better a voyage begin in blood than end in blood."
Every now and then, Crichton gives you an odd historical nugget or off-beat detail that catches your interest. There are a couple of high-action moments where the exposition is not too leaden or ludicrous. But the hook a good pulp-fiction story needs, and which Crichton usually was wildly proficient at supplying, is missing here. So too is the polish that might make this debased bunch of characters easier to enjoy, perhaps even relate to.
Sometimes, works of art have been great enough to overcome even the deaths of their creators. Giacomo Puccini's "Turandot" is one of his most famous operas, but he didn't even get a chance to finish it before he died. Someone else did, and the result was a glorious capstone to his legacy.
Here, the story seems to have been the same, but the result much different. Pirate Latitudes became a best-seller, yes, and added significantly to the Crichton literary estate, but it did his reputation no service.
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