The Wager
Autor David Grannen Limba Engleză Paperback – 25 feb 2025
În The Wager, aplicabilitatea practică a cercetării istorice transformă un naufragiu din secolul al XVIII-lea într-o analiză riguroasă a comportamentului uman în condiții de izolare extremă. Remarcăm modul în care David Grann reconstruiește universul claustrofob al unei nave de război britanice, unde structura socială se dezintegrează sub presiunea foametei și a disperării. Autorul nu se limitează la cronica supraviețuirii, ci investighează modul în care adevărul este modelat prin narațiuni contradictorii în fața unei instanțe judiciare.
Descoperim aici o poveste care extinde cadrul propus de A Voyage to the South-Seas, in the Years 1740–1 de John Bulkeley cu date noi extrase din arhivele Amiralității și manuscrise de epocă, oferind o perspectivă critică asupra conceptului de imperiu. Dacă în The Lost City of Z autorul explora obsesia exploratorului singuratic, iar în Killers of the Flower Moon investiga o conspirație criminală sistemică, în The Wager acesta combină ambele teme: lupta individuală pentru viață și eșecul instituțional al autorității. Stilul este unul precis, ancorat în fapte, amintind de rigoarea documentară din The Bounty de Caroline Alexander, însă David Grann aduce o notă specifică prin focalizarea pe procesul legal care a urmat evenimentelor. Apreciem în special modul în care autorul echilibrează ritmul unui roman polițist cu rigoarea unei monografii de istorie maritimă, demonstrând că, dincolo de furtunile din largul Capului Horn, adevărata bătălie s-a dat pentru controlul propriei versiuni asupra istoriei.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 0307742490
Pagini: 432
Ilustrații: 16 PP OF COLOR PHOTOS
Dimensiuni: 129 x 202 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.43 kg
Editura: Random House LLC US
Colecția Vintage
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De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm The Wager cititorilor pasionați de istorie maritimă și studii de caz despre leadership în situații de criză. Veți câștiga o înțelegere profundă a modului în care justiția și adevărul pot fi distorsionate de interese politice. Este o lectură esențială pentru cei care apreciază non-ficțiunea narativă care se citește cu tensiunea unui roman de suspans, oferind o perspectivă realistă asupra limitelor rezilienței umane.
Despre autor
David Grann este un reputat jurnalist de investigație și redactor la „The New Yorker”, cunoscut pentru capacitatea sa de a scoate la lumină evenimente istorice uitate. Autor de succes, lucrările sale au fost frecvent adaptate pentru marele ecran, printre cele mai cunoscute numărându-se The Lost City of Z și Killers of the Flower Moon. Grann este recunoscut pentru documentarea sa exhaustivă, petrecând adesea ani în arhive sau pe teren pentru a verifica fiecare detaliu al narațiunilor sale. Locuiește în New York și este considerat unul dintre cei mai importanți scriitori contemporani de non-ficțiune literară.
Recenzii
'Grann combines a forensic eye with a storyteller's enthusiasm... [he] skilfully moves between several genres – giving us a tense court-martial drama to finish an unrelenting survival thriller'
‘Vivid, immediate and tantalising… Grann has a knack not just for telling a great story, but for bringing it to life through its characters… There are a great many books on British naval history; very few are this good’
'This astonishing tale of maritime warfare, mutiny and survival in the 18th-century Atlantic proves that a nonfiction book can be as thrilling as any summer blockbuster'
‘Combining impeccable research with exceptional storytelling powers, [Grann] spirits the reader aboard a creaking wooden ship trapped at the eye of a howling storm… No book that you are likely to read this year or next will prove more dramatic and enthralling than Grann’s magnificent story of both life at sea and out on the desolate, mist-laden island whose solitary peak the Wager’s unfortunate crew aptly named Mount Misery’
'The story of The Wager is, like many of its antecedents - from Homer's Odyssey to Mutiny on the Bounty - a testement to the depths of human depravity and the heights of human endurance, and you can't ask for better than that from a story... The Wager will keep you in its grip to its head-stratching, improbable end'
‘A tour de force of narrative nonfiction, Mr. Grann’s account shows how storytelling, whether to judges or readers, can shape individual and national fortunes—as well as our collective memory... The Wager is likely to cast a powerful spell on modern readers as well’
'Those who love yarns involving cannon fire, sea-chests, plum duff and mainmasts will find The Wager riveting, as will those less intrigued by the age of sail. In the hands of David Grann, the story transcends its naval setting... [Grann] is a master of exciting tales in far-flung places. He has produced a volume so dramatic and engrossing that it may surpass his previous books'
'... one of the premier nonfiction storytellers of our time... Grann's masterful new book The Wager is at once an adventure on the high seas, a horror story and a courtroom drama - a little bit Rashomon meets Lord of the Flies'
'Grann recreates the voyage in all its enthralling horror'
'It's the kind of inspiring chronicle that would make for a rousing maritime adventure. But this is a David Grann book, and so he gives us something more... Their struggle for survival consumed them; reading about their struggle for survival intruged me - as Grann, the consummate narrative architect, must have known it would'
'The Wager is unadorned, almost pure, horror-filled plot ... a tightly written, relentless, blow-by-blow account that is hard to put down'
'Bestseller Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) delivers a concise and riveting account of the HMS Wager… Grann packs the narrative with fascinating details about life at sea—from scurvy-induced delirium to the mechanics of loading and firing a cannon—and makes excellent use of primary sources, including a firsthand account by 16-year-old midshipman John Byron, grandfather of the poet Lord Byron. Armchair adventurers will be enthralled'
'A genre-defying literary naval-history thriller, part Master and Commander, part Lord of the Flies'
'David Grann is one of the very select club of writers: those who books of history are so diverting that they almost seem implausible. Their narrative constrictions are so effective, the dialogue so apposite, that jaded readers might think everything has been made up or twisted to give the books life, in novelistic fashion'
‘While the story of HMS Wager is well known, David Grann brings a distinctive and specialized approach to his treatment of it. He has carefully built his book on a firm knowledge of the published historical literature on the period and an extensive examination of the manuscript sources in a wide range of archives in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States. […] He has structured this book not as an analytical historian but as a mystery writer’
Descriere
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. With the twists and turns of a thriller Grann unearths the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.
Notă biografică
DAVID GRANN is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was a finalist for the National Book Award and won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. He is also the author of THE WHITE DARKNESS and the collection THE DEVIL AND SHERLOCK HOLMES. Grann’s investigative reporting has garnered several honors, including a George Polk Award. He lives with his wife and children in New York.