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The Cruel Sea

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Today's economic participants are perpetually at sea and failure may very well be a sort of virtual death. Our livelihood, which is often synonymous with life itself, can be stolen by seemingly inhuman forces, which are easily hated. Our home ports are but a fleeting reprieve, sometimes despised for the temporary shelter that they represent. And we are constantly cast adrift, at sea, at war, again and again. This had been on my "to read" list for years. The notion of "war at sea" is not one that comes easily to me. I once had an argument with someone whilst rowing on Roath Park Lake. I got scared, because I was in a position of conflict with about 2 feet of water below me. It reminded me of the time, one balmy June day, when the clinker I was rowing in on the very warm Isis river sprung a leak. Two of the scariest moments of my life. How can it be? There’s too many classics to choose from. Antiwar masterpieces like All Quiet on the Western Front and Fear. Literary opuses such as The Naked and the Dead and The Thin Red Line. Big, operatic epics like Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. Once you start listing them, it’s hard to stop. Catch 22. The Things They Carried. The Red Badge of Courage. Even War and Peace can be classified here. A lot of great literature exists in this genre.

Monsarrat's first three novels, published in 1934–1937 and now out of print, were realistic treatments of modern social problems informed by his leftist politics. His fourth novel and first major work, This Is The Schoolroom, took a different approach. The story of a young, idealistic, aspiring writer coming to grips with the "real world" for the first time, it is at least partly autobiographical. The Cruel Sea was recommended to me (h/t Bevan) after I finished reading Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny. Part of the reason I loved The Caine Mutiny was its sense of authenticity. In its minutely detailed depiction of life aboard a rusting old minesweeper, I felt like Wouk had created something real. That is certainly the case here. Monsarrat served in the Royal Navy during World War II, and has a grasp of all the granular details of life aboard ship. The particularity is mesmerizing. But this isn't just a war story. In a surprisingly subtle way, The Cruel Sea also chronicles the often abrasive process by which classes, previously unknown to each other, were thrown together onboard ship and had to learn to rub along - and how the earned respect, in the long term, led to the future Welfare State and the social equity and cooperation of the 50's and 60's.

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HMS Marlborough Will Enter Port – TV film (1956), adapted from HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour, narrated by Ronald Reagan, produced by Revue Studios. Teleplay by George Bruce. At the beginning, there was time for all sort of things - making allowances for people, and joking, and treating people like sensitive human beings, and wondering whether they were happy, and whether they - they liked you or not. But now, now the war doesn't seem to be a matter of men any more, it's just weapons and toughness. There's no margin for humanity left - humanity takes up too much room, it gets in the way of things.

It is a masterpiece, I feel in some respects very ahead of its time (coming from my novice literature experience) it doesn’t shy away from anything, even delving into the troubles of married life with a no holes barred approach, which I would guess for the time it was written was taboo to say the least.The ending is low-key, and I like this. The book gives readers a glimpse into another aspect of the Second World War. It is a book featuring so-called “fictional characters”, but it draws the true to life reality of the war as it played out for the men stationed on escort ships guarding convoys. I repeat—Monsarrat writes of that which he knows.

His final work, unfinished at the time of his death but published in its incomplete form, was a two-volume historical novel titled The Master Mariner. Based on the legend of the Wandering Jew, it told the story of a 16th-century English seaman who, as punishment for a terrible act of cowardice, is doomed to sail the world's seas until the end of time. His hero participates in critical moments in history; Monsarrat used him to emphasize the importance of seamen. Xuereb, Paul (March–June 2001). Cauchi, Prof Maurice N (ed.). "Nicholas Monsarrat (1910–1979)". The Gozo Observer. University of Malta, Gozo Centre. 1 (5). Archived from the original on 23 February 2007 . Retrieved 8 May 2011. a b Krueger, Christine L. (2003), Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries, Facts on File, p.257, ISBN 0-8160-4670-0 The Ship That Died of Shame, and Other Stories (1959) (comprising The Ship That Died of Shame; Oh To Be in England!; The Reconciliation; The List; The Thousand Islands Snatch; Up The Garden Path; The Man Who Wanted a Mark IX; I Was There; The Dinner Party; Licensed To Kill; Postscript)This is good, very good, better than I I had expected. Years ago I had begun listening to this on a BBC broadcast. Such broadcasts are abridged, which is not to my liking!

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