What do you think?
Rate this book
Anthony Adverse #2
Anthony Adverse, Part 2: The Other Bronze Boy
"What a project, and what a book! A work that took four years to write and yet bears the stamp of gusto from the first page to last. A full-bodied tale of birth and death, of love and hate, of fighting, mating, scheming, drifting-of overbearing lords and ancient gentlemen, simpering dames, passionate women of several colors, murder, rapine, revenge, long voyages, desperate encounters. . . . A full adventurous romance, rich in action, heightened by poetic glamor." - Harry Hansen in The New York World-Telegram. The tale moves swiftly through the latter years of the Eighteenth and the early decades of the Nineteenth Centuries to delve deep amid the roots of the modern era. Anthony Adverse - begotten in France, born in the Alps, raised in Italy and flung by fortune to the West Indies, Africa, and finally to America-unlocks with the key of action the diverting experiences of his journey in body and thought from one hemisphere to another. Filled with memorable events, with affairs of the heart, the purse, and the mind in many lands and famous cities, this huge novel with hundreds of colorful people is interesting every step of the way. It has gusto, wise humor, beauty, and pathos. "Anthony Adverse will lay hold upon a vast multitude of readers and grip them fast by its fascinations. For it is a living book; if vibrates; it sings itself into the very marrow of the bones."- Paul Jordan Smith in The Los Angeles Times.
526 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1978
13 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Hervey Allen
98 books14 followersBorn William Hervey Allen. 1915 University of Pittsburgh graduate. In WWI served as a Lieutenant in the 28th (keystone) Division, US Army and fought in the Aisne-Marne offensive July-August, 1918. He wrote "Toward the Flame" (1926), a nonfictional account of his experiences in the war.
Allen is best known for his work Anthony Adverse, a 1933 bestseller. He also planned a series of novels about colonial America called The Disinherited, of which he completed three works: The Forest and the Fort (1943), Bedford Village (1944), and Toward the Morning (1948). The novels tell the story of Salathiel Albine, a frontiersman kidnapped as a boy by Shawnee Indians in the 1750s. All three works were collected and published as the City in the Dawn. Allen also wrote Israfel (1926), a biography of American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
Allen is best known for his work Anthony Adverse, a 1933 bestseller. He also planned a series of novels about colonial America called The Disinherited, of which he completed three works: The Forest and the Fort (1943), Bedford Village (1944), and Toward the Morning (1948). The novels tell the story of Salathiel Albine, a frontiersman kidnapped as a boy by Shawnee Indians in the 1750s. All three works were collected and published as the City in the Dawn. Allen also wrote Israfel (1926), a biography of American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 11, 2022
In Volume One, Anthony was born and dumped in a convent, there he grew into a curious and intelligent boy who unknowingly became the ward of his grandfather, a rich merchant. He had sexual encounters, for better or worse and he had a constant struggle between his inner and outer selves. At the end, Anthony is about to set off on his first voyage, a trip to Cuba to settle a debt with a slaving company.
Volume Two: The Other Bronze Boy
Like the first, the second volume is episodic but the episodes are tighter, faster-paced and more action packed. Part of this is because Anthony is now an adult but also because he is put in situations where he has to act independently and really test his character.
Unable to sail in an official capacity, Anthony must become the first mate on a commercial ship. The most convenient is the Wampanoag, captained by Elisha Jorham and his wife. At first it seems like she’s going to be the obstruction, she’s strictly religious and stands on her dignity as ‘a Putnam’ but it’s Elisha who’s the liability.
Years before, their three year old daughter wandered off and slipped into some mill machinery and was ground up. Since then, the couple have been wracked by guilt which Elisha drowns in drink. He’s particularly fond of ‘dog’s nose’, a mixture of wine, porter and port (which is nowadays more often a mix of stout and gin). This means Anthony has to step up a little, as the captain is frequently too drunk to navigate and Genoa to Cuba is quite a distance. There’s also the crew’s belief that the baby comes onto the ship as a ghost.
As a result, this section reads as an almost self-contained ghost story, and to make it creepier, it’s aboard a ship that may or may not be going in the right direction. Allen again uses his skill for the eye-catching and strange, having part of the cargo of the ship being saints strapped into spare bunks.
When the Wampanoag finally reaches Cuba, Anthony meets up with Carlo Cibo, he’s a semi-retired agent of Bonnyfeather’s and lives a well-fed, well-rested generally luxurious life surrounded by his many naked children. (It’s odd, how often naked children are mentioned in these books, I think they represent innocence but not all are handled innocently - Cibo’s are though). The biggest problem he has in life is chafing, which he solves with a smooth, silk sash which ‘let’s one fat chop pass another’.
This section slows to the more leisurely pace of parts of the first book. Anthony must make a good impression on the right people and put together a team which will allow him to claim back the money owed to Bonnyfeather. To that end, he falls in love (yet again), gains a servant and buys a new suit, which ushers in his new self and the new nineteenth century - no more breeches. For the most part, this part of the book is enjoyable for the likeable character of Carlo, who’s ‘mammalian philosophy’ of physical indulgence is paired with his opposite, Father François who is a purely spiritual figure.
For complicated reasons, Anthony has to board the slave ship Ariostatica, legally claim it as his for the length of a voyage and use it to ship slaves and use those profits to pay the debt the slaving company owes to his. Complications on this voyage include a captain who resents him, a crew who distrust him and Father François, who is being exiled from Cuba and has yellow fever. They are also being followed by a hammerhead shark who’s after at least one of them.
The scenes in Father François’s sickbed are interesting enough, describing the progress of the disease and, in his fever, telling parts of his life. He was a nobleman who became a parish priest, he gave last confessions on the guillotine and also saw some of the events before Anthony’s birth. There’s also a strangely poetic paragraph about the sick man’s ‘fundament gusts’.
More interesting is the story of the captain of the ship, Don Ramon, and his lover El Pollo. The reader is first introduced to them rapidly dressing when Anthony boards the ship. El Pollo is described as being a typical prostitute, showing the captain’s laxity and louche nature, one fully backed up by his spinelessness and apparent deviousness. As if to back up the captain’s deviousness, it is then revealed that El Pollo is a young man, making the ‘disgusting’ captain gay. Then the book tries to humanise the captain, saying that El Pollo is not really his slave or lover, but obsession and that El Pollo really owns him. Then the crew decide the young man is the reason for hitting a calm and sacrifice El Pollo to the hammerhead shark. The Captain, for all his obsession, is not the least bit bothered and what’s more, the sacrifice works and the ship keeps moving. It was interesting to have a book from the 1930s represent a gay relationship but it was also interesting to see how they followed similar ‘Hay’s Code’-esque conventions, with queer coding as a short hand for weakly, connivingly, evil and to kill off the gay, a trope we’re only growing out of now.
When they reach Africa, Anthony discovers the company’s head has died and there’s a tense gunfight on the ship as it’s being piloted up the river to the company headquarters. There’s death, destruction, another dog murder and the use of random items of grapeshot decades before it was used in Pirates of the Caribbean.
When the smoke clears, it’s three years later and we are introduced to a new Anthony, he’s now the other bronze boy, sun-tanned but also stiff and unsmiling. He’s a huge success, having claimed the debt and launched on his own successful career as a slaver. He’s callous, referring to people as ‘product’ and encouraging good food and treatment to them because it drives up the price at the other end. He’s built his own dream home and is trying to build a paradise on the backs of others. To those around him, he’s the ‘Master of Gallegos’, a firm and unreadable man who conducts business fairly but strictly. Father François has tried to serve as his conscious, but is ignored by Anthony who wants to be a man of doing and a man of body - in the symbols set up in the first book, a bronze statue and not the reflection in the water.
It’s interesting, because the strain of being a slaver and a man of action and physicality is obviously wearing him down. Although there is more action in this book, a number of gunfights, storms, almost-mutiny, Anthony has the supreme luck of finding exactly the objects and people he needs to withstand any external conflict. It’s the internal conflicts that really injure him and we see Anthony as low as he has been, despite being more successful than ever. It’s a bad dose of malaria that brings him back to himself, by stripping off the stiff-bronze self and restoring his more fluid and feeling self. It’s not too late to save Father François though, who has been crucified by a witch doctor who saw him as a rival. It’s a chastened but energised Anthony who boards the Unicorn, captained by Bittern (who has fond memories of Faith’s sexy chair trick) and back to a Genoa which no longer has Bonnyfeather in it, as he died when Anthony was away.
Volume two is a far more exciting book than volume one but there is still the elements of philosophy with the divide in Anthony between his physical and spiritual selves. The descriptions of the slave trade are frank, delivered in outdated language and reflecting debunked opinions. It’s interesting that Allen only uses the N word in dialogue but never as narrator, maybe it’s becoming a line to not cross even then. Ultimately, Anthony does learn that slavery is bad and rejects it, but he does so as part of his rejection of purely bodily living and he gives the slave business to someone else, so it carries on. More insidious is the character of Ferdinand, the mixed-race chief factor, who seems a decent person at first but is actually a cruel monster - and the explicit explanation that his seeming decency is his white side and his actual cruelty his black blood. However, it is possible to disagree with a book and enjoy much of it and this section of Anthony’s story was more gripping than the first, though less charming.
Volume Two: The Other Bronze Boy
Like the first, the second volume is episodic but the episodes are tighter, faster-paced and more action packed. Part of this is because Anthony is now an adult but also because he is put in situations where he has to act independently and really test his character.
Unable to sail in an official capacity, Anthony must become the first mate on a commercial ship. The most convenient is the Wampanoag, captained by Elisha Jorham and his wife. At first it seems like she’s going to be the obstruction, she’s strictly religious and stands on her dignity as ‘a Putnam’ but it’s Elisha who’s the liability.
Years before, their three year old daughter wandered off and slipped into some mill machinery and was ground up. Since then, the couple have been wracked by guilt which Elisha drowns in drink. He’s particularly fond of ‘dog’s nose’, a mixture of wine, porter and port (which is nowadays more often a mix of stout and gin). This means Anthony has to step up a little, as the captain is frequently too drunk to navigate and Genoa to Cuba is quite a distance. There’s also the crew’s belief that the baby comes onto the ship as a ghost.
As a result, this section reads as an almost self-contained ghost story, and to make it creepier, it’s aboard a ship that may or may not be going in the right direction. Allen again uses his skill for the eye-catching and strange, having part of the cargo of the ship being saints strapped into spare bunks.
When the Wampanoag finally reaches Cuba, Anthony meets up with Carlo Cibo, he’s a semi-retired agent of Bonnyfeather’s and lives a well-fed, well-rested generally luxurious life surrounded by his many naked children. (It’s odd, how often naked children are mentioned in these books, I think they represent innocence but not all are handled innocently - Cibo’s are though). The biggest problem he has in life is chafing, which he solves with a smooth, silk sash which ‘let’s one fat chop pass another’.
This section slows to the more leisurely pace of parts of the first book. Anthony must make a good impression on the right people and put together a team which will allow him to claim back the money owed to Bonnyfeather. To that end, he falls in love (yet again), gains a servant and buys a new suit, which ushers in his new self and the new nineteenth century - no more breeches. For the most part, this part of the book is enjoyable for the likeable character of Carlo, who’s ‘mammalian philosophy’ of physical indulgence is paired with his opposite, Father François who is a purely spiritual figure.
For complicated reasons, Anthony has to board the slave ship Ariostatica, legally claim it as his for the length of a voyage and use it to ship slaves and use those profits to pay the debt the slaving company owes to his. Complications on this voyage include a captain who resents him, a crew who distrust him and Father François, who is being exiled from Cuba and has yellow fever. They are also being followed by a hammerhead shark who’s after at least one of them.
The scenes in Father François’s sickbed are interesting enough, describing the progress of the disease and, in his fever, telling parts of his life. He was a nobleman who became a parish priest, he gave last confessions on the guillotine and also saw some of the events before Anthony’s birth. There’s also a strangely poetic paragraph about the sick man’s ‘fundament gusts’.
More interesting is the story of the captain of the ship, Don Ramon, and his lover El Pollo. The reader is first introduced to them rapidly dressing when Anthony boards the ship. El Pollo is described as being a typical prostitute, showing the captain’s laxity and louche nature, one fully backed up by his spinelessness and apparent deviousness. As if to back up the captain’s deviousness, it is then revealed that El Pollo is a young man, making the ‘disgusting’ captain gay. Then the book tries to humanise the captain, saying that El Pollo is not really his slave or lover, but obsession and that El Pollo really owns him. Then the crew decide the young man is the reason for hitting a calm and sacrifice El Pollo to the hammerhead shark. The Captain, for all his obsession, is not the least bit bothered and what’s more, the sacrifice works and the ship keeps moving. It was interesting to have a book from the 1930s represent a gay relationship but it was also interesting to see how they followed similar ‘Hay’s Code’-esque conventions, with queer coding as a short hand for weakly, connivingly, evil and to kill off the gay, a trope we’re only growing out of now.
When they reach Africa, Anthony discovers the company’s head has died and there’s a tense gunfight on the ship as it’s being piloted up the river to the company headquarters. There’s death, destruction, another dog murder and the use of random items of grapeshot decades before it was used in Pirates of the Caribbean.
When the smoke clears, it’s three years later and we are introduced to a new Anthony, he’s now the other bronze boy, sun-tanned but also stiff and unsmiling. He’s a huge success, having claimed the debt and launched on his own successful career as a slaver. He’s callous, referring to people as ‘product’ and encouraging good food and treatment to them because it drives up the price at the other end. He’s built his own dream home and is trying to build a paradise on the backs of others. To those around him, he’s the ‘Master of Gallegos’, a firm and unreadable man who conducts business fairly but strictly. Father François has tried to serve as his conscious, but is ignored by Anthony who wants to be a man of doing and a man of body - in the symbols set up in the first book, a bronze statue and not the reflection in the water.
It’s interesting, because the strain of being a slaver and a man of action and physicality is obviously wearing him down. Although there is more action in this book, a number of gunfights, storms, almost-mutiny, Anthony has the supreme luck of finding exactly the objects and people he needs to withstand any external conflict. It’s the internal conflicts that really injure him and we see Anthony as low as he has been, despite being more successful than ever. It’s a bad dose of malaria that brings him back to himself, by stripping off the stiff-bronze self and restoring his more fluid and feeling self. It’s not too late to save Father François though, who has been crucified by a witch doctor who saw him as a rival. It’s a chastened but energised Anthony who boards the Unicorn, captained by Bittern (who has fond memories of Faith’s sexy chair trick) and back to a Genoa which no longer has Bonnyfeather in it, as he died when Anthony was away.
Volume two is a far more exciting book than volume one but there is still the elements of philosophy with the divide in Anthony between his physical and spiritual selves. The descriptions of the slave trade are frank, delivered in outdated language and reflecting debunked opinions. It’s interesting that Allen only uses the N word in dialogue but never as narrator, maybe it’s becoming a line to not cross even then. Ultimately, Anthony does learn that slavery is bad and rejects it, but he does so as part of his rejection of purely bodily living and he gives the slave business to someone else, so it carries on. More insidious is the character of Ferdinand, the mixed-race chief factor, who seems a decent person at first but is actually a cruel monster - and the explicit explanation that his seeming decency is his white side and his actual cruelty his black blood. However, it is possible to disagree with a book and enjoy much of it and this section of Anthony’s story was more gripping than the first, though less charming.
November 24, 2020
Reading this as part2 of a trilogy. It was very difficult to read about the slave trade in the west coast of Africa. From what I understand it’s quite accurate. Thank goodness Anthony realizes his failure in engaging in this awful activity. Now he’s off to a new life back in Europe in the year 1801.
Read
April 29, 2021this very nice book
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 10, 2020
Amazing Anthony Adverse
This is amazing. You will be spellbound. The writing and the depth of knowledge is astounding ..get it and read it.
This is amazing. You will be spellbound. The writing and the depth of knowledge is astounding ..get it and read it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews