Harry Thompson “This Thing of Darkness”
Another book I have had on my shelves for more than a year. At 750 pages it seemed a bit daunting. Add to that the fact that it is a historical novel, based on facts, which can turn out pretty boring if not handled right. So it’s no wonder I passed it over again and again, I’m more surprised that I did finally get around to tackle it. And it “only” took me almost 2 weeks to read it…
Then again, the fact that I didn’t give up on it, but kept picking it up again and again, tells you that it can not be all that boring in the end.
The first thing about this book that caught my eye in the bookstore was the beautiful cover (as usual), the second one was the back blurb:
1828
Brilliant young naval officer Robert FitzRoy is given the captaincy of the HMS Beagle, surveying the wilds of Tierra del Fuego, aged just twenty-three. He takes a passenger: a young trainee cleric and amateur geologist named Charles Darwin. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men, and the twin obsessions that tore it apart, leading one to triumph and the other to disaster…
To be honest, they had me at the mention of Charles Darwin. Having studied biology, it is probably not a big surprise that Darwin is something of a hero to me. His books and his theories about natural selection and the origin of species have done more to enlighten the world than any other person’s achievements ever. So, to read a gripping novel about the man can only be interesting, right?
Well, yes and no. Firstly, I was a bit dismayed to realize that this book is not so much about Darwin (he is mentioned for the first time around page 220 or so) as about Captain FitzRoy. Secondly, the Darwin in the book turned out to be a very much different person from the one I thought to know from reading his own books. Frankly, the Charles Darwin in this book is not very likeable and, especially in the beginning, comes across as a bit of a tosser, who just got lucky.
But the story in this book revolves mainly around the person of Captain Robert FitzRoy, who, I have to admit, seems to have been quite a remarkable man himself. It is unfair that he is totally forgotten today, whereas every child knows Darwin’s name. But such are the vagaries of history. Personally, I would have gotten along better with Darwin, since FitzRoy’s staunch belief in God and the Bible would have driven me up the wall – as they did Darwin, which is the reason for the end of their friendship and their later hostility towards each other. But nevertheless I can’t help but being impressed with FitzRoy’s contributions to science either: Besides inventing the weather forecast, his navigational charts of Patagonia, Chile, the Falklands and Tierra del Fuego were so exhaustingly precise that they continued to be in use until recently. His inventions saved hundreds, if not thousands of sailors’ lives. Sadly, he died utterly bankrupt and ridiculed and his writings were soon all but forgotten.
One thing I love very much about historical novels is the author’s notes at the end of the book, because I am always curious as to how much of the narrative is actually supported by recorded facts. In the case of this book these notes were quite detailed and just as interesting as the novel itself.
I still think the book could have been a good 200 pages shorter. There were many scenes that didn’t really add to the narrative and could have just mentioned briefly in passing (the whole New Zealand episode being one of them). But on the whole this turned out to be an entertaining read. I loved the fact that it gave me a new perspective on a man I thought I knew and that it taught me about another one, who is unfairly forgotten. What more can you expect from a book?
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