Book Review
"Morgan's Run"
by Colleen McCullogh
Simon & Shuster, 600 pp., $28.
Very soon after starting "Morgan's Run," I noted to myself that it was a very fat book with thin paper and small type. This was my last critical observation though. From this moment on I was truly swept up and along by Colleen McCullogh's l8th century saga: the very first settling of Australia.
England's penal system was, in 1775, the most cruel in western Europe; a man could be sentenced to hang for stealing a sheep. Those in power devised a scheme for ridding the British Isles of these prisoners and establishing a colony for the Crown at the same time. The only ships fitted out to take hundreds of convicts were slave ships, where men were stacked like cord wood for the voyage halfway across the world. In arm and leg irons, they were penned up below decks like animals for the journey that lasted a year or more.Their route from Portsmouth, England to Rio de Janeiro to Capetown, South Africa to southwest Australia wasn't exactly "as the crow flies."
The British Government could not apply their full attention to the convict question at this time due to another irritating problem. Their American colonists had taken it upon themselves to rebel against the rule of George III and against all odds, seem to be doing extremely well at it.
The daily lives of the people who bring this period into technicolor reality for us, are full of small things that make it breathe and pulse and happen. McCullogh's research is awe inspiring and I understood it better when she thanked her entire staff at the end.
The hardships are so immense, one is filled with admiration for the survivors who landed on a strange shore off a death ship. I was filled with sadness at the real suffering endured by these people who certainly were not criminals as we see them today. They become heroic as they meet and overcome the unbelievable.
The main character, Richard Morgan, is a giant of a man in every way and he is such a leader that it is his choices and decisions which mold this new settlement on Norfolk Island, just east of Australia. His best friend, Stephen, will stay in my mind a long time; he's a very special man., a midshipman in the Navy. It's interesting that the government on both these islands, Australia and Norfolk, was under the Royal Navy, as were our own islands under the US Navy after being purchased from Denmark.
Many writers flounder or get graphic and carried away when sexual interludes appear. McCullogh has a graceful style in this area, such as: "Sacred, an act dedicated to God, who had made it possible. This is what we suffer for, one divine spark that turns the blackness of the pit to the brilliance of the sun. In this is true immortality. In this we fly free."
Watching Richard live through and surmount so many difficulties builds our respect for him, but we like him as well and root for him as we would our home team. Erasing the great differences in our time and that of "Morgan's Run," took a lot of creative panache but McCullogh makes it happen so smoothly and naturally, there's a small shock when you close the book on l780 and suddenly, it's 2000.
"Morgan's Run"is available at Dockside Bookshop at Havensight Mall. To check out other Dockside favorites click here.
