The Cruel Sea

Product Information

Primarily concerned with life at sea, this doesn't completely ignore the home front, but sees it primarily in terms of the impact home lives have on the men at war. As a female reader I never felt excluded from this narrative, made up as it is of overwhelmingly masculine characters, and wasn't hit with technical sea-faring terms or the names of different types of ship body parts... Instead it focuses on the characters, and the intense pressures they're under. So reading a book about large ships in sub-zero temperatures, two thousand miles from the nearest land and three thousand fathoms from the sea bed, written over 60 years ago- for all sorts of reasons, wasn't pushing itself massively in front of my nose to be read. There's nothing flashy or 'modern' about this book, it's told in a steady, sober voice, starts at the beginning of the war, ends in 1945, with no parallel narratives, or time-switches - something no contemporary novel seems to be able to do without. And yet for all that this is more passionate, more engaging, and more tension-filled than many a thriller. Thumim, Janet. "The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry". Screen. Vol.32, no.3. p.259.

The novel, published in 1951, was an immediate success and it has never been out of print since. It brings home the realities of the longest battle in the second world war, the Battle for the Atlantic, but it does so not through harrowing depiction of the horrors involved, but through its detailed depiction the people involved, people we come to care about, to admire, and to mourn. -- BBC Radio4xThis had been on my "to read" list for years. The notion of "war at sea" is not one that comes easily to me. I once had an argument with someone whilst rowing on Roath Park Lake. I got scared, because I was in a position of conflict with about 2 feet of water below me. It reminded me of the time, one balmy June day, when the clinker I was rowing in on the very warm Isis river sprung a leak. Two of the scariest moments of my life. Today's economic participants are perpetually at sea and failure may very well be a sort of virtual death. Our livelihood, which is often synonymous with life itself, can be stolen by seemingly inhuman forces, which are easily hated. Our home ports are but a fleeting reprieve, sometimes despised for the temporary shelter that they represent. And we are constantly cast adrift, at sea, at war, again and again. The book serves to bring to life the historical accounts of the war, but it also opens up parallels that exist in our current lives. In the hear-and-now, stresses are also ever-present and they accumulate with time. We eventually lose our peace-of-mind to a constant and continuing struggle. Ireland comes in for a lambasting; the country is potrayed as contemptible for remaining neutral and benefiting from the vital food and other supplies from North America, guarded by the Royal Navy, whilst at the same time allowing the Nazis to run an espionage base on their territory.

The ending is low-key, and I like this. The book gives readers a glimpse into another aspect of the Second World War. It is a book featuring so-called “fictional characters”, but it draws the true to life reality of the war as it played out for the men stationed on escort ships guarding convoys. I repeat—Monsarrat writes of that which he knows.

Retailers:

The Cruel Sea is a 1951 novel by Nicholas Monsarrat. It follows the lives of a group of Royal Navy sailors fighting the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War. It contains seven chapters, each describing a year during the war. a b Krueger, Christine L. (2003), Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries, Facts on File, p.257, ISBN 0-8160-4670-0

Nicholas Monsarrat". Historic Naval Fiction. Archived from the original on 17 August 2016 . Retrieved 11 January 2015. HMS River" and "HMS Saltash" were fictional River-class frigates in H M Frigate (1946), and the novel The Cruel Sea (1951). (In the 1953 film version HMS Saltash was depicted by Castle-class corvette: HMS Portchester Castle, and hence named " Saltash Castle"). This is good, very good, better than I I had expected. Years ago I had begun listening to this on a BBC broadcast. Such broadcasts are abridged, which is not to my liking!My Father for years, with an almost mantra repetitiveness has been telling me to watch the film or read the Cruel Sea, I always replied, “will do” with no real intention of getting round to it. I am so glad I now have. Resigning his wartime commission during 1946, Monsarrat entered the diplomatic service. He was posted at first to Johannesburg, South Africa and then, in 1953, to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. [5] He began writing full-time during 1959, settling first on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, and later on the Maltese island of Gozo. [6] Ranks [ edit ]