“Pirate Latitudes” by Michael Chrichton. (Harper Collins $27.99, 312 pages. Hard cover.) www.michaelchrichton.com.
Switching speeds we move from a brand new author to the last book by one of the best selling, most popular Grit-Lit authors of all time. Chrichton is the only writer – EVER – to have the number one book, movie and TV show all at the same time. “Pirate Latitudes” was discovered as a complete manuscript shortly after his death in 2008. DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg have all ready bought the movie rights.
But we all know that with the possible exception of James Bond, Harry Potter and any movie featuring lots of scantily clad women, no movie is never as good as the book. Right? RIGHT!
It is 1665 and King Charles II’s Jamaican Colony is a weak English outpost surrounded by a vastly stronger Spanish empire. English privateers (pirates to you and me) have free reign to raid Spanish ships and settlements as long as the governor and the crown receive their cut of the booty. But political shenanigans and devious competitors conspire to make even being a simple pirate a bloody savage experience.
Here’s an example of why Chrichton is one of the best of all time.
“… Sir William had explained the workings of the Colony to the new governor. Sir James had listened and had thought he understood, but one never really understood life in the New World until confronted with the actual rude experience.
Now, riding in his coach through the stinking streets of Port Royal, nodding from his window as the commoners bowed, Sir James marveled at how much he had come to accept as wholly natural and ordinary. He accepted the heat and the flies and the malevolent odors; he accepted the thieving and the corrupt commerce; he accepted the drunken and gross manners of the privateers. He had made a thousand minor adjustments, including the ability to sleep through the raucous shouting and gunshots, which continued uninterrupted through every night in the port.”
Chrichton at his best.
Hey, Mr. Depp. Wanta play another pirate, Matey?