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Come Looking For Me by Cheryl Cooper - Q3
Q3 - Historicity and Authenticity
Was the setting for this historical novel against the backdrop of the War of 1812 convincing? Did the war itself come through? The Americas? Similarly, we met characters from England, Scotland, Quebec, and the USA. How well do you feel that Cooper captured this diversity through her use of character, language, and backstory?
Comments
I know very little about the War of 1812, but everything in the book seemed to agree with what I knew about the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. I imagine that American and Canadian audience would find the setting more compelling than me.
There wasn't any particular national stereotyping that I could see. The characters were people first and representatives of their nation a distant second.
Agree with @NeilNjae here - the 1812 war is in my mind a very minor side-action compared with all the stuff going on with Napoleon in Europe. 1812 included the collapse of Napoleon's attempted invasion of Russia, and some of the initial decisive victories of Wellington over Napoleon's generals in the Iberian Peninsula. So I don't remember learning about the naval events in 1812 until very much later - indeed it was only through Alexander Kent's books I started learning anything about the earlier naval conflict on that side of the Atlantic.
All of which is to say that I didn't have any expectations of how the plot would unfold. I did like the idea that the Royal Navy sent basically their most expendable crews over there to fight it! At the end of the book I don't think I had any better idea of how that particular war was going in an overall sense - my take-away impression was that it was a kind of side-skirmish which didn't much matter to the British government.
Like Neil, I think that individuality was more important to the drawing of the characters than country of origin, and for all I know this was an accurate presentation of a ship's crew of that time,
The historical accuracy of the book's view of the War of 1812 was crap. The American Navy was one on one much better than the British Navy, as reflected in the single ship battles. This was because of better ship design, and better crew. The Americans paid excellent wages, equivalent to be best merchant wages, and attracted the best crews. The British Navy treated their seamen as basically slaves, who were rounded up en mass by press gangs who periodically swept through ports. A seaman who once sailed in the British Navy was ALWAYS liable to be returned to the Navy, no matter what they wanted. Thus the Brits stopping American ships and taking off seamen they referred to as 'deserters' - along with a few born Americans.. ooops! - and Americans though of as new Americans - as they had a different concept of citizenship than the UK. The British frigates were under orders from IIRC 1813 on to avoid taking on any American frigate one-on-one. The Shannon vs the Chesapeake was the only one-on-one frigate battle the Brits won in the war.
In any case, there were far too many American frigates, and no American frigate would take on a 74 gun ship of the line. It never happened, though American armchair historians have always wondered if a frigate like the Constitution could take on a 74 one on one, theoretically. As others have pointed out, the war was basically a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars, and was conducted with a great many British officers refusing assignment to the American war - Wellington, for example, thought the whole thing was stupid.
When it came to Prosper, he sometimes said things in a fern Scottish way, and other times rather English. He claimed to be from Quebec with a marque from the governor, but at this time the province was called Lower Canada. I think people would have thought of ‘Quebec’ as the city. He probably would have just said ‘I’m from the Magdalens’ . I think she only added the Quebec for tge benefit of the reader.
Most of the action takes place at sea on ship. I think the ship setting came through well enough, but there was very little sense of the Americas in here - apart from a few placenames. I was a bit disappointed the rich history of the east coast didn’t come through more, either in the setting or the characters.
But I really did like the below-decks perspective, and the overall concept of the book was quite fun, and some of the lesser characters and their dialogue was great, and also the nod to Jane Austen in the shape of Fly.
That bothered the HELL out of me! I NEVER got used to it!
I noticed that too! I do like he was from the Magdalens, but his dialogue didn't convince me he was... Great character though!
Maybe that's how she ended up with thee?
Yes, it could have been on a ship anywhere. It was a bit warm, and there was the occasional storm. Apart from that, devoid of place.
There was a brief stop at Bermuda, but that was only so that people could go from ship to ship and talk there.