TeesbyPostillion

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Levasseur in Pirate Fiction




When I first became interested in pirates, I pretty much confined myself to reading factual historical accounts. I tried to watch movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean,” but the lack of realism was too much for me. Personally, I don't understand why Hollywood cannot present a factual account of pirates. I mean, if you read the factual accounts, most of the action is better than what they put in the movies. In my opinion, a well done pirate documentary would be way better than a fiction movie any day.
 

But lately I have picked up a couple of pirate fiction novels, and I've found a couple of portrayals of Olivier Levasseur that were quite interesting, and I decided to share a couple of them with you.
 

In Michael Crichton's book Pirate Latitudes, we first become aware of Levasseur when a character named Mrs. Denby wakes up Captain Hunter to tell him there is a message from the Governor's mansion and that “The Frenchman with the scar is downstairs looking for you.”1


Then he goes downstairs to the common room, where he finds Levasseur “sitting in a corner, hunched over a tankard of grog”2


Here is how the scene goes:


Hunter crossed to the door.
 

“Hunter!” Levasseur croaked, in a thick drunken voice.


Hunter turned, showing apparent surprise. “Why, Levassuer. I didn't see you.”


“Hunter, you son of an English mongrel bitch.”


“Levassuer,” he replied, stepping out of the light, “you son of a French farmer and his favorite sheep, what brings you here?”


Levasseur stood behind the table. He had picked a dark spot; Hunter could not see him well. But the two men were separated by a distance of perhaps thirty feet – too far for a pistol shot.


“Hunter, I want my money.”


“I owe you no money,” Hunter said. And, in truth, he did not. Among the privateers of Port Royal, debts were paid fully and promptly. There was no more damaging reputation a man could have than on who failed to pay his debts, or to divide spoils equally. On a privateering raid, any man who tried to conceal a part of the general booty was always put to death. Hunter himself had shot more than one thieving seaman through the heart and kicked the corpse overboard without a second thought.


“You cheated me at cards,” Levassuer said.
 

“You were too drunk to know the difference.”


“You cheated me. You took fifty pounds. I want it back.”
 

Hunter looked around the room. There were no witnesses, which was unfortunate. He did not want to kill Levasseur without witnesses. He had too many enemies. “How did I cheat you at cards?” he asked. As he spoke, he moved slightly closer to Levasseur.


“How? Who cares a damn for how? God;s blood, you cheated me.” Levasseur raised the tankard to his lips.


Hunter chose that moment to lunge. He pushed his palm flat against the upturned tankard, ramming it back against Levasseur's face, which thudded against the back wall. Levasseur gurgled and collapsed, blood dripping from his mouth. Hunter grabbed the tankard and crashed it down on Levasseur's skull. The Frenchman lay unconscious.3
 
 

And so ends Levasseur's part in Michael Crichton's novel. Poor Levasseur ultimately also dies in Raafel Sabbatini's Captain Blood, and I will review that one for you later.

This book was somewhat of an enigma to me. It seemed like maybe it was not complete. I can’t help but think that if he had lived, Michael would not have published this book in its present form.

Most of his novels are considerably longer, and several times it seemed like scenes were incomplete, as though he meant to come back to it at some future date with the intention of expanding and “fleshing it out.”

I got the book out of a $1 bin at Office Max and was glad that was all I paid for it. I would have been a lot more disappointed in it if I had paid full price for it.

It’s not a bad read, it’s fun, I just think that it's not worth paying full price for.

 

1Crichton, Michael, Pirate Latitudes, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2009, p 31.

2Crichton, Michael, Pirate Latitudes, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2009, p 32.

3Crichton, Michael, Pirate Latitudes, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2009, pps 32-33.

 

 

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