Overview
Somewhere in the Caribbean Sea the French ship Entremetteuse lies stranded without a breeze, its crew racked by starvation and disease, its wood rotting, and its masts limp. An island and the dim outline of the fabled traveler's tree appear on the horizon. Although only a gunshot away, the island's sheer cliffs and coral reefs make it cruelly unreachable. The heat grows unbearable, the ship's stores are nearly depleted, and the rats eagerly await the remains. As listless as the ship and increasingly feeble with scurvy, the embattled crew dispatches one longboat after another against raging waves, barrier reefs, and poisonous fish in order to reach the island, but to no avail. As mutiny, rebellion, and utter starvation loom, they pin their last hopes on a direct charge of the ship across the reefs, in one last valiant effort to reach the traveler's tree...This latest volume in The New Press International Fiction series introduces an important author to the English-speaking world. Bontempelli tells the tale of a French ship stranded without a breeze, its crew wracked by starvation. Suddenly the fabled traveler's tree appears--but reefs make it cruelly unreachable. The crew makes one last, valiant effort to save itself.
Synopsis
Somewhere in the Caribbean Sea the French ship Entremetteuse lies stranded without a breeze, its crew racked by starvation and disease, its wood rotting, and its masts limp. An island and the dim outline of the fabled traveler's tree appear on the horizon. Although only a gunshot away, the island's sheer cliffs and coral reefs make it cruelly unreachable. The heat grows unbearable, the ship's stores are nearly depleted, and the rats eagerly await the remains. As listless as the ship and increasingly feeble with scurvy, the embattled crew dispatches one longboat after another against raging waves, barrier reefs, and poisonous fish in order to reach the island, but to no avail. As mutiny, rebellion, and utter starvation loom, they pin their last hopes on a direct charge of the ship across the reefs, in one last valiant effort to reach the traveler's tree...
Publishers Weekly
French writer Bontempelli's clever and gripping 18th-century tale-his first novel to be translated into English-begins with a deceptively simple premise: the crewmen of the French exploring vessel Entremetteuse are attempting to land on a lush Caribbean island. The situation, however, is grim: supplies are low and pest-ridden, scurvy is felling the crew at an ever-increasing pace and an unearthly calm has stranded the ship. The island, it is obvious, represents salvation, but treacherous coral reefs and rough seas render it unapproachable. Following the efforts of the ship's surgeon, Saint-Foin, and the expedition's sponsor, a noble named Du Mouchet, readers can glimpse the original purpose of the Entremetteuse's voyage-to find a lost continent-and its adventures on other islands. When the captain, Bloche, sinks deeper into lassitude, Du Mouchet relieves him of duty and thereafter must rely on the conniving Malestro, whose only real interest is finding the hidden treasure he believes to be on the isle. The story's allegorical tendency never overwhelms the narrative, allowing the large, skillfully depicted cast to take center stage. Though Bontempelli is occasionally preoccupied with the grotesqueries of illness, the precision of his prose, the unobtrusive accuracy of historical detail and the liveliness of the narrative mark him as a writer to watch. (Nov.)