Homeward Bound Or, the Chase

An accurate title of this review could be: AN EXCITING VERY EARLY SEA ADVENTURE NOVEL. *** After years spent traveling in Europe, 50-year old widower Edward Effingham and his 20-year old daughter Eve are returning by sea from London to their ancestral home in central New York. In his PREFACE, author James Fenimore Cooper explains what he had in mind when he began to write two novels published in 1838 : "it was commenced (to form one book) with a sole view to exhibit the present state of society in the United States, through the agency, in part, of a set of characters with different peculiarities, who had freshly arrived from Europe." There was to be a very brief introduction on life aboard the returning ship. But as Cooper wrote, a voice kept demanding "more ship" -- until his first volume became "all ship." HOMEWARD BOUND, or, THE CHASE. A TALE became volume one in a two-volume set concluded high and dry in New York State by HOME AS FOUND. ***HOMEWARD BOUND is worth several readings. A first reading may focus on the adventure dimensions, and they are striking and exciting. For reasons misunderstood by the Americans until the end, the luxurious 700-ton American passenger sailing vessel or "packet," the Montauk, is pursued by a faster British corvette, the HMS Foam. Even more exciting is what happens to the Montauk after a huge storm separates pursuer and pursued off the coast of Northwest Africa. The Montauk is dismasted, takes refuge in protected shallow coastal water and laboriously retrieves shorter masts than are ideal from a Danish merchantman driven on land a few miles north during the same storm, and then looted by savage natives. *** Captain, crew and passengers succeed in cannabalizing the Danish vessel in competition with local Arabs who manage, briefly, to capture the miles away Montauk. Battle scenes worthy of Cooper's LAST OF THE MOHICANS put the Americans back in command of their passenger vessel. Captain, crew and some passengers then play crucial, breath stopping roles in using tide and trade winds to move the refitted but clumsy Montauk out of shallow water past reefs and out into the wide Atlantic in the teeth of ferocious Arab opposition. ***Three weeks later, within American waters, the Montauk is overtaken by the Foam and the mystery of the latter's pursuit of the former is cleared up. Some false identities of passengers are also unmasked and two young lovers are parted when the man is taken back to England, ostensibly in some disgrace. We are left in suspense panting for the follow-on HOME AS FOUND.The book is an early example of the sea adventure tale: a genre of novel created fifteen years earlier by Cooper in THE PILOT (1823). HOMEWARD BOUND is also the first instance of another new genre created by Cooper: characters traveling together in a passenger ship representing a microcosm of their time and nations. Read HOMEWARD BOUND the first time for its adventure. Then look into it again for its contrasting views and slants of England and America -- warts and all. Also for some memorable characters and caricatures. Cooper believed that America had started off extraordinarily well, when geniuses conceived its Constitution. Then it became a nation of levelers and money grubbers and he wanted to explore whence and how the falling off. -OOO-