The Survivors of the Chancellor (Jules Verne)

The Survivors of the Chancellor: Diary of J. R. Kazallon, Passenger
Jules Verne
Tantor Audio
Fiction, Adventure/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: In late September of 1869, Mr. Kazallon sought passage from South Carolina across the Atlantic to Liverpool - and, on a whim, decided to forego the newer steam liners in favor of an older sailing ship. He had a favorable impression of the vessel Chancellor in the harbor, and though Captain Huntly might not have been the most inspiring leader, First Mate Curtis seemed more than capable. Thus, on the 27th, Kazallon and seven other passengers, as well as a crew of twenty, set forth to cross the ocean.
They would not see land again for over seventy days... and some would never see land at all.
From the start, a dark star seems to hang over the voyage when Huntly inexplicably steers the Chancellor south, toward the Caribbean, rather than northeast toward England. From there, troubles compound through fire, storm, mutiny, and worse, until Kazallon's whim in the harbor seems more like a curse, or even a death wish.

REVIEW: It's been a bit since I tried a classic, and I do try to vary my reading diet (audiobooks count as reading), so I figured I'd try this title. Jules Verne is known more for his classic titles that are considered foundational science fiction, but this has little of the fantastical about it, being a straight-up, if harrowing, tale of a disaster at sea.
It starts a trifle slow (not unusual for its era) as the narrator Kazallon describes the ship and names his fellow passengers and some of the more notable crewmen. From the start, it forebodes trouble with his less than favorable impression of Captain Huntly, a man who seems listless or perhaps on the verge of some mental collapse; his decision to sail a ship bound for England south from South Carolina is but the first in a string of questionable decisions, though First Mate Curtis refuses to step in unless the vessel is actually endangered by the captain. At first, it seems like Huntly's unusual navigational choices aren't enough to do lasting harm, or might actually be part of some real agenda by the man; they're almost to a port in the Caribbean when the first disaster - a fire in the cotton bales that form the bulk of the cargo - flares up, quickly followed by a storm, and things only get worse from there. Throughout the disasters, Kazallon records the events and how the various people - crew and passenger alike - either rise to the occasion or sink into their own despair. The pacing is, as mentioned, of its era, and between bursts of high drama and action things slow down somewhat as everyone is forced to deal with the aftermath and brace for whatever is to come next... and there is indeed always something else coming next, either from the world at large or from fractures forming among themselves.
For all that things move reasonably well, Verne's prose bringing to life in fine detail the terror and the misery of the ill-fated voyage, it can't help being of its era. There are a total of two women on board, a wealthy oil magnate's wife and a young attendant, who embody the too-common ways women in older fiction are so often reduced to caricatures or icons - the petty, spoiled and shrewish "demon" versus the young and comely and endlessly faithful and patient "angel" - rather than actual people, to the point where I wonder if Verne or other authors actually conversed much with those beyond their own gender or saw them as some vaguely related other species whose ways and minds were unknowable. A few other unfortunate stereotypes permeate the cast, too. Toward the end, Verne seems to be mostly twisting the knife as the situation becomes more and more dire among the dwindling number of survivors, and a few elements had a touch of illogic or plot convenience about them (which I won't venture into because they might constitute spoilers). I also found the very ending and wrap-up a touch rushed, all negatives enough to shave a half-point off the rating.

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