Close Quarters by William Golding (1987)

Close Quarters is the second installment in Golding's To The Ends of the Earth trilogy. I reviewed the first volume of the trilogy, Rites of Passage, in March. This continues the story of an aristocratic young man's sea voyage from England to Australia in 1814-1815 in a decrepit sailing ship which, as it turns out, is barely seaworthy. Edmund Fitzhenry Talbot again records shipboard events in his journal, unconsciously revealing himself still to be naive, snobbishly class conscious, and self-centered. Although he has learned something about human nature and about himself from the events in the previous novel, he obviously has not learned enough.

This chapter of the trilogy does not focus on one specific event, but instead on a series of occurrences: a careless young sailor's error leads to the topmasts being broken; in becalmed waters the ship meets a British frigate and the two vessels cooperate to hold an unlikely ball; Edmund falls in love; the ship leaks more and more and makes scant progress; Edmund in his self-involvement again fails to recognize the despair of another; amidst general fears of shipwreck, one man makes a tragic decision. The ending is abrupt, obviously in mid-story.

The writing here is again superb, as in the first volume. Golding's first-person narration in the voice of a young 19th century aristocrat never falters or sounds out of character or anachronistic. He makes Edmund Talbot seem totally real. He also admirably evokes the feeling of extreme claustrophobia induced by large group of people in close quarters. The book is aptly named.

This is one of those middle books of a trilogy which cannot really stand by itself. I would strongly advise either reading only Rites of Passage, which can stand alone, or reading all three.