About this title: The tale of an Irish boy raised as an Indian in imperial India. It is the story of his coming of age in a world of high adventure, mystic quests, and the "great game" between the British and the Russians for control of Central Asia.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Lancer Books
Date Published: 1967
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Nice soft cover, read once, light shelf wear to cover, light price sticker residue on front, light aging. 253 p. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Classics
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780451523815ISBN:0451523814
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 192 p. Signet Classics (Paperback). Audience: Children/juvenile. Revised-updated bibliography, afterword C.A. Bodelsen. No marks that I noticed. Noticeable bend corners, crease and wear along the spine. Some wear on the edge. Still a good copy for reading/school. read more
"Well written with some fine passages, but very little real drama or suspense for an adventure story. Too much use of nautical terms and questionable colloquialisms which makes for some tedious reading. The transformation of the protagonist from spoiled little rich kid to hard working, honest ship boy was improbably abrupt. Overall it was disappointing and unsatisfying."
"Kipling was a master storyteller and this is a great story. Immortal characters, great scenes, to put it bluntly the first time I read it I wanted to join a fishing crew. A book for the ages, by an author for all time."
"Captains Courageous is one of my favorite movies with Freddie Bartholomew and Spencer Tracy. When I came upon this book I thought why not. I really enjoyed the story and the movie stuck to the premise of the book quite well. The movie is like plain cake, but the book is like cake with icing. Lots of extra details that really add to the story if it's one you already like."
Not nearly as much fun as Kipling's other books (or at least the ones I've read). In fact, the books seems just fundamentally flawed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the joy of a fish-out-of-water story comes from watching the fish flop around in unfamiliar territory for a while before finally figuring out how to get by. Kipling's hero, however, adapts quite quickly, shedding his spoiled exterior within a few chapters.
Maybe I'm misreading this, however, and it's not actually a fish-out-of-water story. Maybe Captains Courageous is actually intended as a proscriptive book, urging parents to embrace the value of hard work for children, but coming from an era that primarily makes me think of child labor laws, I'm not sure I'm willing to buy that.
As a lifelong landlubber, and someone who's never really gone in for the romanticism of the sea, this probably isn't the book for me. Like Moby Dick, it spends a lo of time (far too much in my opinion) examining in excruciating detail the life of sailors aboard a ship. I guess I just wanted more attention to character development and less to ropes and fish.
Although now that I've said that, I remember being fairly moved by the scene where the sailor who developed amnesia after the death of his wife and child regained his memory. The truth of the matter is that I finished this a while ago, and I don't really remember it that well."
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