Pitcairn's Island follows the mutineers of the Bounty as they take refuge on the loneliest island in the Pacific.
In the annals of seafaring there is no more fascinating account of South Seas adventure than Pitcairn's Island. The novel unfolds a tale of desperation, profligacy, and betrayal as it chronicles the fate of Fletcher Christian, his fellow mutineers aboard H.M.S. Bounty, and a handful of Tahitians, who together take refuge on the loneliest island in the Pacific. Living undiscovered for eighteen years, the settlers of Pitcairn establish a primitive but thriving community whose peace is ultimately shattered by a struggle of bitter vengeance. ( )

Pitcairn's Island is the most ambitious of the three books in the Bounty Trilogy. In fact, it is likely the most ambitious book Nordhoff and Hall ever undertook. In relating the story of the Bounty mutineers' escape and exile, the authors dispense with earlier perspectives and their wide epic sweeps. Whereas Mutiny on the Bounty described the voyage from England to Tahiti and the sailors' rebellion against Captain Bligh and did so from the point of view of Midshipman Roger Byam and Men Against the Sea told of Bligh and the rest of the loyal crew members' 3600 nautical miles sail in an open launch to Timor and did so from the perspective of the ship's doctor, Thomas Ledward, Pitcairn's Island mostly tells things from the third person. The latter novel also has all its action take place on a small, almost forgotten island in the far regions of the South Seas.

The result is a novel that pursues the study of its characters in a much more psychologically detailed manner. The lush island surrounded by ferocious seas also serves as a pressure cooker of sorts that eventually reveals the inhabitants of the island in all their petty jealousies, uncontrolled anger, drunkenness, and revenge. It results in a civil war, leaving a devastated community forever scarred with the memories of debauchery and murder.

Then, as the civil war comes to a close, the novel abruptly shifts to a flashback. The time moves from 1794 to 1808, and the last third of the story is told from the first person narration of the last surviving seaman, Alex Smith. The repentant Smith brings us back to the initial form of storytelling narration that existed in the first two books of the trilogy. And at book's end it provides us with a somber and elegiac close that will forever have those readers who themselves lust after clear mellow nights on the South Seas looking to the same skies that Smith did. Perhaps looking for their own redemption and escape. ( )

This is the story of what happened to the mutineers from the Bounty, and why they decided to raise their children as Christians! I was surprised! ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2927397.html

Pitcairn's Island, unlike the other two volumes, has no narrator, apart from the last three chapters which are told by Alexander Smith aka John Adams. Of the fifteen men (nine English and six Tahitians) who landed at Pitcairn in 1789, he was the only survivor when the island was eventually discovered by the American ship Topaz in 1808; Smith/Adams himself gave several different accounts of what had happened during the remaining two decades of his life, and one of the women who moved there in 1789 eventually returned to Tahiti and gave her own account. It's a messy story of violence, alcoholism, and sexual confusion, in an earthly paradise - Pitcairn has the natural resources to support a couple of hundred inhabitants, but even so the small settlement disintegrated fatally.

Nordhoff and Hall dramatise some parts - Fletcher Christian here lives for a few agonising days after the inevitable killing starts, whereas most historical accounts agree that he was one of the first to die - and undersell others - I would very much like someone to write the story from the Tahitian women's perspective, given that they outnumbered the men by three to one after the first spate of killings, and by twelve to one from 1800 when the second last mutineer died. It's also striking that the society was a very young one - Fletcher Christian was 24 when the mutiny took place, and 28 when he was killed; the other mutineers (and presumably the Tahitian men and women they brought with them to Pitcairn) must have been mostly the same age or even younger. Nordhoff and Hall fall back on the clichés of the veteran tars, the unsophisticated "Indians" or "Maori", and their statesmanlike leader, rather than the possible truth of the confused young men and women in an extraordinary situation. But the moment of discovery of the island by the Topaz is particularly well done, and is almost worth the read in itself.

I read this so long ago that I can't really give a good review other than to say I really liked it. I need to read this one again someday. ( )