When I was a child and my family visited relatives, I had my own criteria for determining quickly how successful the visit would be. My checklist was fairly simple: kids my age or close, edible food not involving mayo, a comfy bed (no cots or sofas) and lots of books. I was like a mini hotel inspector, assigning stars or making deductions when the standards weren't met.
Visiting the gene pool was uneventful for the most part until the day we went to visit Aunt G and Uncle E. in Chicago. Incredibly enough, they flunked my rating system at every single point. They were the first ones ever to get a No Star rating:
Their son was grown-up and out of the house. They served tuna salad for lunch. There were almost no books except for a shelf of Readers Digest Condensed Books in the den. And worst of all, I was informed that I would be sleeping in the basement on a sofa. It was explained to me that I had drawn the basement billet because my younger brother was suffering from a cold and the adults had determined that my chances for surviving the nights below ground were slightly higher than his.
Perhaps you think that when they referred to a "basement" they were really talking about a nice, finished family room? Such was not the case. When they said basement, they meant basement. You had to go down rickety steps leading to a cellar with shadowy, cobwebby corners and an old furnace that made loud banging and hissing noises. It was exactly the sort of place that no one would ever enter voluntarily unless they were a HVAC professional or pest exterminator. Or a small, timid, visiting child.
After one's pupils dilated enough to discern shapes, a small area could be made out where someone had attempted to create an outpost of habitation which consisted of an oriental rug, a large sofa, and a side table with a lamp. Directly behind and reachable from the sofa was a bookcase filled with old Popular Mechanics and dozens of musty classics.
Inevitably, the time came when my parents told me it was time for "bed". My uncle thoughtlessly added pestilence to the list of immediate dangers (deranged serial killers, ghosts, boiler explosions) with his admonishment to “not let the bedbugs bite”. Leaving the warmth and solace of human companionship behind me,I trudged down the steps and entered the dank no-mans land.
After arranging an ancient and decayed comforter around myself, I found that actual sleeping was impossible. My choices were either lying rigidly awake on red alert waiting for the zombie horde, or to take down one of the volumes on the shelf next to me and try to sedate myself with Victorian prose. I reached for the closest book.
That is how I came to read The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss which was originally published in 1812 and has gone through numerous translations and versions. Far from boring me to sleep, to my surprise it was a fast moving and incredibly interesting survival tale filled with lots of educational information about botany and animal husbandry and zoology and carpentry. The marooned family members were all plucky and resourceful and cheerful, causing me to pause and assess realistically the survival chances of my own family in a similar situation. Not Good.
As the mayo-filled days toiled on, the steps to the cellar became less ominous every night. I scurried down them, not so much to avoid the ghostly hand reaching for me, but rather to get back to the sofa post haste to find out how things were going on the island. My overstuffed sofa with the quilts and the bookcase and the table lamp began looking less and less like a persuasive case for Child Protective Services and more and more like the cozy enclave of a sunlight sensitive bibliophile.
I was able to finish the book by the end of the visit and to see the Swiss Family restored to society, some of them anyway. Mom and Pop Swiss Family chose to stay behind on their HOA-less island where they could eat flamingos and build anything they wanted without permits.
This tale seems to have inspired in me a lifelong fascination with stories involving shipwrecks, survival and survivors, exploration, and the like. The Swiss Family Robinson is the idyllic entry level book before one confronts the harsh reality that exists in the non-fiction side of this genre.
The all-time number 1 Shipwreck/Survival Book in my opinion is Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing which was originally published in 1959 and is considered by most to be THE definitive study of one of the greatest heroes of exploration and the most compelling true adventure story in modern history. Think I'm exaggerating? I'm not. I had to keep pinching myself and saying, "this really happened". The final leg of Shackleton's journey when he fulfills the promise he made to the men left behind reduced me to a blubbering mess.
Another absolutely great read for shipwreck buffs is Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Joan Druett which tells the incredible but true story of two groups of shipwreck survivors from different ships, the Grafton and the Invercauld who occupied the same island in the Southern Ocean south of New Zealand at the same time in 1864, each unaware of the others presence. This is the ultimate truth is stranger than fiction story.
The two camps have completely different experiences based primarily on the group dynamics that dominated within each. The Grafton crew can be said to have emulated the plucky resourcefulness, co-operation and inventiveness of the Swiss Family Robinson while the Invercauld lot did pretty much the opposite. One group survived intact and the other one's number dwindled due to . . . .oh, never mind, you'll find out.
Speaking of, another shipwreck ripper is Nathaniel Phibrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex the recounting of the sinking of the titular Nantucket based ship in1820 by an extremely focused and goal oriented sperm whale. The crew has to take to the boats and sail thousands of miles across open seas to the coast of South America. There is another diminution of the cast of characters when "hard choices" have to be made. It's a tribute to Philbrick that he is able to write about grisly and ghastly acts without being overly lurid or descriptive. The history and background of Nantucket and the whaling industry are fascinating and enlightening.
One last completely engrossing true tale of shipwrecks and survivors is Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival by Dean King. Surviving the wreck turns out to be the least of it for twelve American sailors whose ship goes down off the coast of Northwestern Africa in 1815 who then find themselves the captives of nomads leading lives of extreme privation themselves. The fact that their story is known is the tipoff that this story has a happy ending, at least for those who made it back to their homes and loved ones.
So what books have you discovered due to circumstance, that you would have never sought out yourself? What are your favorite survival books?
Books in My Life is a weekly diary published every Friday morning about books that have had a particular resonance in ones life for some personal reason. If you would like to write a diary in this series please contact Phoebe Loosinhouse by Kosmail to schedule a date