In Search of Paradise: The Nordhoff-Hall Story

by Paul L. Briand Jr.

Book by Briand, Paul L.

Genres: Biography

395 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1987

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

We come back to things. We come back to things that enchanted us early in life. And I have done so with the works of Nordhoff and Hall. I first encountered them in my early years, back in the middle 1960s, and the Bounty Trilogy (Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn's Island) made an impact on me that has lasted a lifetime. Call it wanderlust, if you will, I was never satisfied with "home." Seeing new places wasn't enough. I needed to live in them. So, that now as I move into the last years of my life, I'm looking once again at the novels by Nordhoff and Hall that so inspired me. And I'm also, for the first time, looking at the lives of the two authors, Charles B. Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.

Paul L. Briand's biography turned out to be a key to understanding the two writers--World War I airmen who flew for the Lafayette Escadrille and then turned their backs on a modernizing America after the war and moved to Tahiti to write books of adventure, travel, and high drama in the South Seas. Briand follows the narratives of their work. I can see evidence of it from Kitchener's Mob and Faery Lands of the South Seas. But Briand has supplemented those works and others (I presume) with copious records, correspondence, and notes from both Nordhoff and Hall. Briand also has a flare for writing himself. This is one of the smoothest and most enticing biographies ever written.

Briand also notes the ironies of Nordhoff and Hall's career. At first, Nordhoff carried Hall and made his eventual success possible. Then, towards the end of Nordhoff's life, Hall stepped in to support and guide his partner and friend. Briand also tells us the extended story of a character who appeared in Faery Lands of the South Seas. It is a memorable passage of Hall's 1920 encounter with Cridland, a British hermit in search of a lonely islet on which to live out his life. In Faery Lands, we last see Cridland from Hall's perspective aboard a trading schooner, waving in the distance, his fate and life a mystery with an unknown ending. But Briand notes two more encounters that took place. First, some ten years later, when Hall visits the hermit, he finds a Cridland whose mind is disintegrating amidst the vast loneliness of the Pacific and his desert island. Just over ten years after that visit, the dying Cridland summons Hall to his deathbed to reveal the reason for his desertion to the South Seas. Briand describes Hall's reaction: Cridland's was a discarded life and Cridland was a "mistake of nature."

In the midst of this double biography, we also get a look at how Nordhoff and Hall's most famous works came about, The Bounty Trilogy, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, and The High Barbaree. But theirs was a life almost, if not more, exciting than the subjects of their novels.

And now I'm reading them again. It makes you wistful for the past, reading this biography. But you are also cautioned to follow the lesson Hall learned: never return to a place for which you have happy memories; disappointment and frustration will result if you do. Instead, search for paradise. Personally, I always thought the notion of Shangri-la a wonderful dream. But deep down I also knew that I would always prefer The High Barbaree.

[Noreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read my aunts copy of the Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy in the 1960s while recuperating from heart surgery. Didn’t realize Mutiny on the Bounty was a true story until my first visit to Hawaii, when I met Herb Kane, the Hawaiian historical artist in 1985. I picked up several Hawaiian history books including James Halls “The Forgotten Ones” on that trip. I met Deon Kane in Utah this past summer. Deon recommended “In Search of Paradise” the biography of James Hall and Charles Nordhoff. James Hall was from Iowa. Charles Nordhoff grew up on 50,000 acres in Baja California at Rancho Ramajal. At 10 he knew how to shoot a rifle, his father bought him a 25 ft sailboat. His mother grew up in London and Berlin, sent Charles to Pasadena school for Boys, then Stanford and Harvard. Charles and his brother Franklin worked at their fathers clay factory. The San Diego social scene crowded with pretentious mediocrities, loud and uncouth drunks, and twittering, brainless women, could only bore him to death. Making money in trade was somehow vulgar, in 1916 he sailed Europe and became an ambulance driver. (Hemingway?) Nordhoff became a pilot in the French Lafayette Escadrille (pre American air corp). After WWI Nordhoff/Hall are assigned to write an aviation history. Hall comes to So California to visit Nordhoff. Pg 207 Mexicans were a kind and gentle people, Nordhoff observed, whose gift for hospitality and consideration for others was tremendous and for which compensation was out of the question. Pg 206 For the Mexicans who worked for his father, Nordhoff had deep regard and respect and from this he easily generalized this affection to all Mexicans. He readily dismissed the charge of laziness about the Mexican, explaining , “The chief incentive which drives the European races in to struggle and progress is the desire for material gain, but in the life of the Mexican this motive plays only a secondary part. Mexico is a wonderfully fertile land, where crops seem to grow almost without attention. Long ago the country Mexican discovered he could live with a minimum of effort. There is food in the house, the sun is warm overhead, there are amusing neighbors with whom to gossip—-why overdo the business of work? It is a pleasant philosophy for a pleasant land. By 1937 Nordhoff has married 2 native women, has 7 children, Hall has 2 and both have financial security. Nordhoff takes care of his 4 daughters, providing for their education and civilized upbringing. His sons in Tahiti “go bush.” Insights WWI fighter battles before USair corps. Living in Polynesian islands with Chinese, Irish traders. Tropical diseases.

[Barry H. Wiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until I stood in the home of James Norman Hall in Arue, Tahiti, I knew him only as co-author with Charles Nordhoff of Mutiny on the Bounty. The visit was a revelation of a remarkable man. A highly honored fighter pilot in WWI in the Lafayette Escadrille and later the American 94th Squadron with Eddie Rickenbacker as his wing man. Hall spent the last six months of the war as a German POW. A physically and psychologically tough man, yet his personality was gentle, caring and compassionate. As with many of the men who came back from "over there", he couldn't settle back into his old life, and he wanted to write. Nordhoff (Nordy as Hall called him.) was the same. They sold a travel book on Tahiti and the South Seas to a publisher with a generous advance, and headed for Tahiti. The book, Faery Lands of the South Seas, was a success (and is a great read). But more importantly, researching the book confirmed for both authors that they both wanted to live in Tahiti, which Hall did for the next 34 years until his death in 1951. Fortunately, as a member of the Boston Athenaeum, I have access to the first editions of all of Hall's books, and the edition of this book was the 1968 first edition hardback with photographs.
Paul Briand has written a compelling joint bio of Nordhoff and Hall drawing from their books and other writings, but importantly from interviews from those who knew them. Hall was, at his death, one of the most beloved men in French Polynesia.
And when you get there (you must go) enjoy Mama Lala's Tea Shop in the garden in back of the house. Lala was Hall's nickname for Sarah, his wife. The shop uses the kitchen of the house to bake fresh French pastries with great tea. It is a great place to relax, reflect and listen to the surf. It is a 20 minute walk from the Radisson Resort.