Win Two Years Before The Mast: A Personal Narrative Of Life At Sea Engineered By Richard Henry Dana Jr. Disseminated As Booklet

rarely enjoy historical fiction, I find that authors often don't do enough to forget prejudices and sensibilities of their present day and carry this baggage into the imaginary past they are trying to recreate.
This time machine for language, notions, ideas, stereotypes is difficult to avoid for authors and might be easy to spot for readers, It is almost impossible to purge, to surgically remove all vestiges of now from a creating mind, something is bound to slip in unconsciously,

Why not read an account of an actual eyewitness then Something written at the time of the events in question is certainly going to be free of the interferences from the future.


Ever since setting foot in the Golden State for the first time I was interested in one point in history of California the time when it stood at the crossroads of possible futures, the time when it was an almost forgotten province on the outer reaches of newly independent Mexico, the time when Russians used it as a supply zone to access the riches of fur trade in Alaska, the time when no reliable passage overland was known to open it up for pioneer wagons from the East.


In comes Richard Henry Dana Jr, a Harvard student tired of his studies, so intense that they affected his eyesight, looking for adventure.
Inhe is recruited as a common sailor on board of a brig Pilgrim bound for California, His twoyear voyage spent on the open seas and on the desolate western coast forms a basis for this book, published to great acclaim in.


In addition to giving a historical perspective on a far away land and accurately depicting miserable living and working conditions of sailors, the book had a significant influence on many a traveler to the West, sparking in imagination of the masses the comparative ease of making it in the fertile lands of California.
Was Dana instrumental in determining the course of California's history by directing the stream of pioneers to the land of plenty years before gold was discovered there That we cannot say with certainty, but we can surely be grateful to Dana for his contribution to literature, if not by his own writing, but as a person responsible for pushing Melville to write his own masterpiece.


Another interesting aspect of the book is that it can be read today as a postmodernist recount by an unreliable narrator, It is evident from a close reading how the author hides his own failures and shortcomings, trying to paint himself in a more favorable light than he likely deserves.
He uses his influence in Boston to secure his own early return back home ahead of the rest of the crew, he hides from his duties with a toothache when things get too tough around Cape Horn, he recounts the cruel punishment of sailors by the captain but fails to stand up to the captain when he is clearly the only one in a position to do so.
Dana's personal deficiencies are complemented by prejudices common to many if not all in his days, These are necessary to paint a complete picture of the time and place: repeated references to inferior nations and races pretty much anyone who is not AngloSaxon, propagation of stereotypes of the day lazy Native Americans, good natured but stupid Hawaiians, fat loving and also stupid Russians, unenterprising Spaniards, etc, an attitude of reverence to everything English, an unshakable belief in Protestant values as the only acceptable ones.


In summary, it's an entertaining book of dwindling importance as the values it promotes no longer rhyme with the modern understanding of humanity.
I would recommend it for everyone interested in that period in history and specifically the history of California, I would suggest to skip the Concluding Chapter as its moralizing and preaching can get tiring very quickly, I believe this was one of the books that myth grade teacher, Mr, Bailey, recommended to me back in thes, For some reason I remembered the names of the books he recommended but never read any until I was in mys,

I can still remember taking them off the book shelf at the Paso Robles Library and placing them back on the shelf, I remember the exact shelf, You walked into the library, made a right turn into another room, and it was on the first end shelf along with "KonTiki" and "The Raft"both other recommendations by him.


Mr. Bailey's one other recommendation was "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, I have not read "Silent Spring, " I tried.

Mr. Bailey was also my favorite teacher, and I was always going around saying, "Mr, Bailey said " And now I wish I had kept in contact with him,

But this was a boring read with little action and emotion involved, If you like history and information on ships and life aboard one, you may like it, If you like adventure, well, I didnt think there was much in this book, I would think that many would like the Hornblower series, or “Treasure Island” over this, and for true adventures, “Kon Tiki,” "The Raft, "Paddle to the Amazon” and “Mutiny of the Bounty.
” But if a person wanted to know what daily life as a sailor was like on board a ship in thes, well, this book could be for you.


I questioned how he could write a diary on ship and not get caught, He wrote about the cruelty of the captain towards the men, He also wrote about a man on board, who he knew had jumped ship and had hid out on the coast line of California until the ship left, and on his return trip his learning that the man got on another ship would arrive to take him home.
If his diary was found it would have been the end of him, but maybe he just took notes and remembered to fill in the blanks later.


Here is a gem from this book:

The author came upon a few of the Kanaka tribe of Hawaii while in San Diego, and wrote: “Whatever one has they all have, money, food, clothes, they share with one another, even to the last piece of tobacco to put in their pipes.
” One of them said, “Kanaka all e same a one!” I liked the sharing and wondered what this world would be like if we all took care of each others needs.


I had to pass up the cock fighting and the killing of coyotes, but the fact that California is replete with rattlesnakes interested me.
He was in the woods chopping down a tree when he heard a rattlesnake, He just kept chopping because at least he knew where it was, sort of, and he felt as long as he could hear the rattle he was safe.
When the rattling stopped he became unnerved, so he threw a rock in the area where the sound came from, and it began rattling again.



California hasnt changed much over the years, One person, who lived along the coast in an RV park on Camp Pendleton, told me he would walk outside in the morning and there would be several rattlesnakes on his patio.
Since he was on a nature preserve he could not kill them, A Buddhist monk, who is a friend of mine, once told me that he walked out of his room just to run into one, and since they didnt believe in killing, he had to walk around it.


I had seen several in California over the years as I grew up there, Once I was gathering fire wood and came to the bottom of the pile, There was a rattlesnake curled up asleep, I got my shotgun and called a friend to ask if the shot would ricochet off the tin shed or go through it, I didn't know how powerful buckshot was, I pulled the trigger, picked up the snake with a shovel, and buried it, Later, I heard my dog barking, so I went outside, and the snake was half out of the ground, twisting in the air, That is when I cut off its head and buried it separately from the body, If the snake and kept squirming I was afraid that it could accidently bite the dog,

In this part of California where I lived, in Creston, farmers threw the dead ones over their fence that runs along the road so people can see them.
Maybe that is like notches on a gun butt, And these stories ran through my head as I read the book because I was trying to humor myself since I was so bored,

And then the book continued to move at a slow pace, and I was counting the time on my kindle like a person watching their watch when bored.
I wanted to finish it reading because I had owned the book for many years,

As a note: I admire that the author became a lawyer and fought for the rights of sailors and slaves, He also wrote the book, “The Seaman's Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship” which was a reference book for legal enquiries on the legal rights and responsivities of sailors.
It may be good to read this first if you need to understand sea terms, which, if you did not know them, it may also make “Two Years before the Mast” an even harder read.









For anyone interested in sea stories, the early victorian era, or the history of California, this book is required reading.


Dana does a great job conveying the specificity and nuances of his work at sea without ever coming off as selfimportant or boring.
His observations of Mexican California are fascinating, and one gets the sense of Dana's genuine curiosity about the languages and customs of this land so far removed from what he had known in

Boston.
He even picks up a little Spanish along with his marlin spike seamanship, Good for him.

As wonderful as the descriptions are, Dana is not afraid to describe the brutality he sees as well, recording in painful detail the whippings and other discipline meted out aboard a vessel run by a powerhungry captain, and the grief and vacant sense of loss after a man is lost overboard in a heavy sea.


All told it's a great yarn, particularly if you already have a strong grasp of nautical vocabulary, and are at least vaguely familiar with the geography and topography of the California coast.


Read it!

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