No spoiler overview
I really don’t read that much nonfiction. The fact that both of my book clubs chose nonfiction books in the same month was a challenge. That’s how I ended up reading The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder; otherwise, I never would’ve picked it up.
We follow a fleet on a secret mission for the British Empire in an attempt to take down the Spanish. Unfortunately one ship, The Wager, got the shortest of all the sticks. When rounding Cape Horn to get to the Pacific Ocean, the ship takes a beating and loses the fleet. In the captain’s desperate attempt to rejoin them, they get stuck on an island off Patagonia. The crew quickly split into factions on the island, and tumble into depravity and despair. Miraculously, some of them make it back to England after many trials. Then the story shifts to he said, she said, ending in a court martial to determine their fate.
The Wager covers a broad swath of topics. If you enjoy exploring the bounds of civilization, the effects of colonization, and who stands on the “right” side of history, you’ll likely enjoy this book. David Grann has figured out how to make nonfiction more compelling through his narrative style, making this book more approachable for those of us who don’t love nonfiction reading. It still was not my most favorite, but I didn’t dislike reading it as much as I thought I would.
Full review
Grann ends The Wager with a focus on who controlled the narrative of this story. Everyone who survived that shipwreck had a version of events that skewed things their way, painted them in the best light. In the last few pages, he makes the point that, in the end, almost everyone missed the bigger picture. While pointing the finger at each other, they completely miss that it was the British Empire that was to blame. They only got into this mess because of the empire trying to distract from a failing war, which started because they wanted to keep expanding trade routes. The narratives of the survivors didn’t matter in the end, because the empire covered everything up, rending their struggle for naught. It was ultimately their blind loyalty to the empire that was to blame.
What’s interesting to me about this ending is that it felt out of left field when I was reading it. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s such a shift from the majority of the book. Most of the book is retelling the events of The Wager in a very straightforward “this is what happened” style. The section that covers the warring narratives is relatively short in comparison, and again feels very straightforward. There was no question in my mind about the way the events went down. It was more about who was in the right. In the last chapter, Grann delves into the cruelty of the empire through slavery, treatment of indigenous people, war. The empire’s control of the narrative meant that all those cruelties could get hidden behind they “victory” of finding the Spanish treasure.
It left me wondering, what is the point that Grann is trying to get across? What is his narrative of this story telling us about him?
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