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Fair Wind To Java
Fair Wind To Java
370 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1948
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 20, 2020
Garland Roark's second novel does not achieve the same impact as his first, Wake of the Red Witch. That novel is Roark's masterpiece. It frequently employs Conradian themes and explores the intricate psyches of its main characters. It approaches and frequently achieves the level of literature, rather than mere fiction. And employs elements of modernism in its story.
Fair Wind to Java only sporadically approaches those levels. It is as if Roark's publishers told him to back off and present more of a pure adventure tale for a wider audience (something I intend to explore when I can get at Roark's correspondence with his editors at Doubleday, which are available along with Roark's other collected papers and works). That is not altogether a tragedy, however, because Roark does write a first rate adventure novel, here. It masters the atmosphere of the Far East, the sense of sailing and sailing ships and their crews in the late 19th century, and it works in some acceptable romantic plots--both of the sexual nature and of the sense of exploration and wonder with adventure. It's a very good novel. And Roark is a good writer.
One thing Roark also does is use the plot of the story in a fashion reminiscent of Hitchcock. That is, he seems to employ what Hitchcock would call a "MacGuffin" in the story. For Hitchcock, the MacGuffin was a misdirection, a concern of the characters in the story which ends up having relatively little interest for the viewer. In other words, there is more going on beneath the surface than the surface story presents. So it is in Fair Wind to Java, where Roark has all his characters involved in an elaborate scheme to create and manipulate a false currency for trade. This may provide the motivation for the characters at one level, but the reader quickly finds out that other forces are at work and different motivations drive each character to their fate.
Finally, one area where Roark does a better job than in Wake of the Red Witch is with his ending. His race to a small and obscure island between two ships could have come out of a Conrad story. The resolution of the characters' stories, meanwhile, gave some degree of satisfaction without any saccharine endings. There is just enough melancholy and mystery to keep the door open to imagine other journeys, other adventures, especially for John Boll.
A successful film version of the novel was produced in 1953. But it has little in common with Roark's complex novel other than the name of the characters and the ship are the same. It's nevertheless an excellent film, a true example of the 1950s color adventure epic. But it is at an emotional level several steps below that of the novel.
Fair Wind to Java only sporadically approaches those levels. It is as if Roark's publishers told him to back off and present more of a pure adventure tale for a wider audience (something I intend to explore when I can get at Roark's correspondence with his editors at Doubleday, which are available along with Roark's other collected papers and works). That is not altogether a tragedy, however, because Roark does write a first rate adventure novel, here. It masters the atmosphere of the Far East, the sense of sailing and sailing ships and their crews in the late 19th century, and it works in some acceptable romantic plots--both of the sexual nature and of the sense of exploration and wonder with adventure. It's a very good novel. And Roark is a good writer.
One thing Roark also does is use the plot of the story in a fashion reminiscent of Hitchcock. That is, he seems to employ what Hitchcock would call a "MacGuffin" in the story. For Hitchcock, the MacGuffin was a misdirection, a concern of the characters in the story which ends up having relatively little interest for the viewer. In other words, there is more going on beneath the surface than the surface story presents. So it is in Fair Wind to Java, where Roark has all his characters involved in an elaborate scheme to create and manipulate a false currency for trade. This may provide the motivation for the characters at one level, but the reader quickly finds out that other forces are at work and different motivations drive each character to their fate.
Finally, one area where Roark does a better job than in Wake of the Red Witch is with his ending. His race to a small and obscure island between two ships could have come out of a Conrad story. The resolution of the characters' stories, meanwhile, gave some degree of satisfaction without any saccharine endings. There is just enough melancholy and mystery to keep the door open to imagine other journeys, other adventures, especially for John Boll.
A successful film version of the novel was produced in 1953. But it has little in common with Roark's complex novel other than the name of the characters and the ship are the same. It's nevertheless an excellent film, a true example of the 1950s color adventure epic. But it is at an emotional level several steps below that of the novel.
October 1, 2009
Great older sea story by a master of the genre.
May 31, 2011
An enjoyable swashbuckling tale but the story moved along way too slow for my taste.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews