A High Wind in Jamaica (Vintage Hughes)

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I first saw "A High Wind in Jamaica" in the late sixties one evening on late night TV. It's a compelling, realistic, well-filmed action movie with outstanding performances by Anthony Quinn and James Coburn and a fast-paced, exciting storyline. It even features a brief appearance by Gert Frobe, of "Goldfinger" fame. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes is like those books you used to read under the covers with a flashlight, only infinitely more delicious and macabre.

The book opens on the island of Jamaica, in the early to mid-1800s, introducing readers to the Bas-Thornton children - in particular John and Emily. The setting is Edenic, with the children often going about naked -- being quite comfortable in having gone “native.” They spend their days swimming, climbing trees, and capturing animals. At one point -- morally telling -- the children muse over the fact that “jiggers” (maggots) are “not absolutely unpleasant” and there is now a “sort of thrill” rubbing the skin (like the natives) where their eggs are laid.The novel presents these idiosyncratic and imaginative children first in the lush and exotic tropics, shaken by earthquakes, threatened by a hurricane, surrounded by servants and serpents and clueless English adults. They operate almost as a cult with its own system of taboos and holies, and the genius loci is a fierce cat named Tabby, assailed by wilder beings during a lightning fusillade, and who screeches about “with a tone of voice the children had never heard before and which made their blood run cold.” This is where Hughes goes over the top, as he often does, with language which still never quite loses its voltage and prevents the reader from believing this is an adventure story of the usual sort: “He seemed like one inspired in the presence of Death, he had gone utterly Delphic: and without in the passage Hell’s pandemonium ruled terrifically.” Not easy going, this syntax, but it serves as a reminder that the children have something of the demonic about them. The braid of innocence and wiliness have much to do with the flavor of this novel in which the pirate crew and the gaggle (or perhaps “pride”) of children alternate between peaceful playfulness and terrorizing one another. The current revival of A High Wind in Jamaica encourages me to believe that we haven’t devolved to a state in which all novels about young people have to be market-driven absurdities in which every character (usually with some werewolf, Pekinese or waffle iron lurking inside) acts and thinks like a pre-teen in a cell phone commercial or a day-trading infant. I would like to discuss all the queasy moral stuff in detail but that would be Spoiler City so I cannot, my lips are sealed. But such examinations of character are not just limited to Emily, as Hughes explores Jonson, along with some of the smaller children, and the increasingly catatonic Margaret - who by novel’s end is being treated cruelly by the children. Jonson has his own dark side and so escapes being a lovable cutout, but succeeds in being very human. At one point we are told he can only draw things related to the ship -- and naked women from every angle. Thus, the reader is rightly troubled by Jonson’s attentions toward Emily. As departure for the children looms, Jonson asks Emily if she loves him. It isn’t an innocent question - though Jonson himself seems uncertain of his impulses toward prepubescent girls.

Contado así puede parecer un simple libro juvenil de aventuras, pero la novela por suerte no se queda en la superficie. Richard Hughes se dedicará durante diez capítulos a diseccionar y bucear en la mente de esos niños hasta dejarnos boquiabiertos. Su actitud, su comportamiento, el más pequeño de sus pensamientos, la frialdad con la que reaccionarán ante determinados hechos...nada escapa a la pluma de Hughes mientras nos cuenta la fascinante relación amor-odio-miedo que es establece entre los piratas y los niños. The story begins in Jamaica sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century. Slavery having been outlawed in 1838 (the Emancipation), the sugar plantations have crumbled into disuse, and more and more of the buildings associated with them have fallen into ruins. One of the former estates, Ferndale, is now occupied by a British family, the Bas-Thorntons, who have come out from England a few years previously. As a novelist, Hughes is a peculiar mixture of craftsman, savant and amateur. He is capable of marvelous, hypnotic prose, but can also write a sentence like this: “But it was not her, it was the meal which raped Jose’s attention.” Even Homer nodded, but details also get tangled, as “the ship’s monkey” becomes the novel’s focus briefly and meets a startling end. Not long afterward another monkey appears, with no introduction or explanation. Most frustrating of all is the inconsistency or narrative voice. Throughout most of the tale, the narrator is allowed access to the minds of the characters, but at some junctures, he (or “it”) confesses in a manner reminiscent of Fielding that a particular motive or outcome is beyond his knowledge or understanding. And yet, the raw power and contained hysteria of the story make these errors forgivable.

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I had watched this eons ago on Italian TV but had long forgotten it - the film does come across as somewhat unmemorable at the end of the day, but this offbeat pirate-adventure-with-child-interest has a beguiling charm all its own. That said, the film's very low-key nature might not win it much approval among action-film fans... What possible meaning could Emily find in such an eye? Yet she lay there, and stared and stared: and the alligator stared too. If there had been an observer it might have given him a shiver to see them so - well, eye to eye like that. Published in 1928, the book received strong reactions due to its subject and characters. Nowadays, I am sure sensitive parents will react the same (that is, if they find the time to read). That’s why this is such a good book. It was fascinating to read how easily children adapt to something or the environment, the right and wrong concepts. Moreover, it was absurdly enlightening for me to see how “bad” a child could be in its most natural form. It has a significant impact on my decision not to have any children, and I love it a lot.

Kim demişti ya da nereden okudum hatırlayamıyorum, bu kitabın Peter Pan ile Sineklerin Tanrısının bir karışımı olarak kabul edilebileceğini. Evet, kitap bir yanıyla Peter Pan kadar büyülü ve çocuksuyken bir yanıyla Sineklerin Tanrısı kadar vahşi ve acımasız. Kitabı bu tuhaf karışımdan fazlası yapan ise Richard Hughes'un okuru hem alabildiğine çocukluğun bilinmeyen derinliklerine daldıran hem de belli mesafede tutan muhteşem tekniği. Bir çocuğun iç çalkantılarını, düşünce şeklini, bilişsel çarpıtmalarını, benmerkezciliğini, yeni yeni keşfettiği vicdanıyla hesaplaşmasını, savunma mekanizmalarını tüm açıklığıyla anlıyor, sınırlı bakış açımızlaysa sezdirilenleri keşfetmeye çalışıyoruz. Arka planda ise sömürgecilik ve Doris Lessing kitaplarından aşina olduğumuz sömürgelerdeki İngilizlerin muhtaçlığı ve sefaleti var. Çok başarılı bir roman. Bu zamana kadar okumadığıma üzüldüm açıkçası. Bunda denizde geçen, denizcilik terimleri içeren kitaplardan kaçmamın da payı var elbet. Neyse ki Jaguar sayesinde bu gözden kaçmış şaheseri okuyabildim. Teşekkürler Jaguar! 5/5 Not a breath of breeze even yet ruffled the water: yet momentarily it trembled of its own accord, shattering the reflections: then was glassy again. On that the children held their breath, waiting for it to happen.

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So this was an alligator! She was actually going to sleep with an alligator! She had thought that to anyone who had once been in an earthquake nothing really exciting could happen again: but then, she had not thought of this. A hurricane hits Jamaica in 1870. The Thorntons ( Nigel Davenport and Isabel Dean), parents of five children, feel it is time to send them to England for a more civilised upbringing and education. New edition of a classic adventure novel and one of the most startling, highly praised stories in English literature--a brilliant chronicle of two sensitive children's violent voyage from innocence to experience. This book resists to the very end in giving you the sentimentalism you want, in giving in to your pre-conceived ideas of how things should be. And for that it is pure genius.