#jeames

Hello! Meet my little friend Jeames!

I got him as a birthday present by @ferrame - thank you again ❤️ - and he was crafted by the talented @sinnaminie - your works are amazing!

Since I love this little guy - and his Terror lookalike, a certain James Fitzjames, very much, I decided to take him to Egypt with me.

I’ve been putting off writing this review for three weeks as I’m extremely conflicted about it. Our dear Jeames was a fascinating man and remarkable naval officer, and it’s clear that Battersby did a staggering amount of detective work to pull together all the threads of his life, I just wish it had been a more enjoyable book to read. Obviously it’s a subjective thing, but I found Battersby’s writing style as dry as a ship’s biscuit. He simply presents the facts to the reader in a rather sterile manner, the whole thing reading like a first year undergrad’s essay. Massive chunks of text have been lifted directly from contemporary sources, which doesn’t help to create any kind of the flow, and I found the constant switch from modern to Victorian vernacular very difficult to follow. He managed to turn exciting source material into something rather dull, which is a real shame when the source material is so exciting. James Fitzjames seems to be one of those people who, if he didn’t already exist, someone would have to invent. In some ways he comes across as the slightly demented lovechild of Horacio Hornblower and Harry Flashman.

I think this book also answers the question as to why Fitzjames was picked for the Franklin Expedition. Namely that he’d managed to survive an absolute FUBAR of a mission under the command of a stubborn senior officer who the higher ups had little faith in. He suffered through malaria and (understandably) homicidal locals, and walked hundreds of miles through a sandy hell. In no way could the Chesney Expedition be described as a success, but without Fitzjames’ contribution it would have almost certainly been a complete disaster. It’s also clear that Fitzjames was just really good with people and knew how to get what he needed from them, not in a manipulative, sociopathic way, but in a genuinely warm and empathetic one. A skill that certainly wasn’t shared by Crozier.

All in all I found the book a frustrating read, but as already mentioned, it may simply be down to personal taste rather than any true indictment of Battersby’s writing skills. Even so, it makes giving a score out of 5 rather difficult. The subject matter and research deserve a 5/5, but the readability is more like a 2.5/5. I shall simply have to split the difference.

3.75 silver cups out of 5