Captain Robert FitzRoy is one of those interesting, but marginal, figures in history that you might well have heard of but can’t put your finger on. Harry Thompson clearly hopes that he can change that by writing this, a fictionalised account of FitzRoy’s voyage on the Beagle (he was captain, Charles Darwin the ship’s naturalist) but I’m not sure he really does him any favours.
FitzRoy was clearly mentally ill and unprepared for the stress of being years away from home having been given impossible tasks and inadequate equipment. He was depressed, delusional and unstable. His enormous achievements in mapping, navigation and weather prediction are testament to his ability and itelligence, but not necessarily to his suitability to command.
Darwin is an important but somewhat marginal figure in this book. It’s FitzRoy’s story, and rather a tragic one. His multiple careers all end in failure, his circumstances diminishing with every new disappointment. Thompson puts the blame in lots of hands, rarely FitzRoy’s, and turns him into a victim as he does it.
His maps are scorned by the Admiralty, he is passed over for appointments, his political career is ruined by spite, his governorship of New Zealand wrecked by vested interests. Throughout, he is a liberal, conscientious, reforming good man, set upon by a wicked world. No doubt that was the case, but it’s laboured until I lost patience and started resenting him.
It might be the fault of the length of the book. At 750 pages it’s far too long and in desperate need of a good editor. The writing is fine, there’s just so much of it and it’s so clearly biased it becomes wearing. Of course a historical novel has no obligation to be objective, but surely he must have had a few faults beyond disagreeing with Darwin?
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