Sunday, June 19, 2005
Mutiny on the Bounty
I'm still reading Game Theory at Work and still enjoying it.
But I can never read just one book at a time. Call it a weakness, call it ADD, call it whatever. But I have reading due for school (I'm doing an independent reading class in military psychology), I read during work, and I go stir crazy if I'm not reading something for fun.
Non-fiction needs digestion. Plus I read fast - I can easily finish a 200 page novel in a day and start a second before bed. Non-fiction needs more time. I can read it as fast, but if I do, I don't learn as much.
So I've started Mutiny on the Bounty by Nordhoff and Hall, published 1932. Sad as it is, I don't know the story. That's only partly true - I know it's set on the HMS Bounty, and I know there's a mutiny. I haven't read far enough to get to the mutiny. The ship has just landed in Tahiti, and the abuse Captain Bligh forces his crew to suffer is, for the time, on hold. Master's mate Fletcher Christian is intelligent and dashing and probably my new crush (most of my crushes are on dead people...usually sailors). The book's taking me some time, but I always have trouble with historical language. Melville takes me forever, though I love every sentence.
Someday I'll branch out my naval reading to the age of steel, but I haven't been brave enough yet. I like the wooden ships. I'm in love with Stephen Decatur (I played his wife in a Travel Channel TV show while my fiance played the commodore himself). I love John Paul Jones, pirate or no. I love Issac Hull and his dying words, "Don't give up the ship," uttered shortly before his crew...gave up the ship. The bombardment of Fort McHenry, immortalized in out National Anthem, brings tears to my eyes.
Enough rambling. Back to the mutiny.
But I can never read just one book at a time. Call it a weakness, call it ADD, call it whatever. But I have reading due for school (I'm doing an independent reading class in military psychology), I read during work, and I go stir crazy if I'm not reading something for fun.
Non-fiction needs digestion. Plus I read fast - I can easily finish a 200 page novel in a day and start a second before bed. Non-fiction needs more time. I can read it as fast, but if I do, I don't learn as much.
So I've started Mutiny on the Bounty by Nordhoff and Hall, published 1932. Sad as it is, I don't know the story. That's only partly true - I know it's set on the HMS Bounty, and I know there's a mutiny. I haven't read far enough to get to the mutiny. The ship has just landed in Tahiti, and the abuse Captain Bligh forces his crew to suffer is, for the time, on hold. Master's mate Fletcher Christian is intelligent and dashing and probably my new crush (most of my crushes are on dead people...usually sailors). The book's taking me some time, but I always have trouble with historical language. Melville takes me forever, though I love every sentence.
Someday I'll branch out my naval reading to the age of steel, but I haven't been brave enough yet. I like the wooden ships. I'm in love with Stephen Decatur (I played his wife in a Travel Channel TV show while my fiance played the commodore himself). I love John Paul Jones, pirate or no. I love Issac Hull and his dying words, "Don't give up the ship," uttered shortly before his crew...gave up the ship. The bombardment of Fort McHenry, immortalized in out National Anthem, brings tears to my eyes.
Enough rambling. Back to the mutiny.
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