Acts of Mutiny

By Derek Beaven

Book Overview

In 1959, young Ralph travels to Australia on an ocean liner with his mother and her smooth-talking American lover, Mr. Chaunteyman. As the three journey from England, Ralph witnesses the beginning of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1857026624
• ISBN13: 9781857026627
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.7" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Traces of "Ship Of Fools" in Experimental Fiction

Beaven's book is truly an experimental work of fiction. He uses both a temporal and narrative montage, where time is switched on the reader, indicated only by the start of a new chapter. And the narration is sometimes in the head of the character or the dialogue of the characters that Beaven is focusing at the time.While reading the first 150 pages, I could not really seperate a feeling of traces of Katherine Anne Porter's tremendous fictional work, "Ship Of Fools" but in a sense, I guess all cruises in one way or another are a ship of fools. Beaven is particularly heavy on his use of adjectives, to the detriment of his objective. He is overly involved with the scenery, the views, the coastlines, the interractions with others, that are described by him with almost endless strings of adjectives and adverbs. But, he tries hard to build a well written novel, which is more than just a plain old story.Beaven's book is truly an alleghory, as so many books really are. And in this one, without the reader realizing it, until the last section of the book, the alleghory is rather well put, by the threat of some type of nuclear contamination. But once again, this is not Beaven's true point. Beaven's true point, is how people live their lives, the hypocrisy, the airs, the specious interractions, the ridiculous facades, the true love of those truly in love, and how that love transcends virtually all, everything, to become a force of its own, regardless of the raging world around it.The book shows a style of writing that is still a little immature, that needs some refinement. But yet, it has its moments of pure captivation. It is a good reading novel.