It may be painless to mount a defense of this work despite its many flaws, in that it is an relic of a very specific time and place. However I am not about to do so.

This book is tedious, pointless and dull as dishwater a good 80% of its length. Useless details about ship stowage, map coordinates, the market for sea cucumbers and so on may set a certain feeling of reality for a population used to sea faring memoirs, but exciting reading they do not make.

There is some Poe sensibility here, especially near the end, but not enough to answer for the utterly pointless digressions that plague the majority of Pope's only novel.

He should have stuck to sort stories


I added a star for cannibalism but this is a two star book.