'It looks just like my prize ham' (The Pirates! in an Adventure with Whaling - Gideon Defoe)

Member Name: clownfoot

Product:	The Pirates! in an Adventure with Whaling - Gideon Defoe
Date:	17/02/08 (258 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A delightful read, that should put a smile on the face of even the most sour faced grinch!

Disadvantages: Embarresment caused by guffawing while reading in a public place!

THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH WHALING

It was whilst on holiday in Corfu that I had a fortunate encounter with the Pirate Captain. I was enjoying a chilled pint of grog when the door slammed open to the hearty roaring of the enigmatic scourge of the seas, telling his affable scarf-wearing chum of the dangers from not eating your lemons and limes. I recognised him immediately. If the pirate hat and his luxuriant beard weren't giveaway enough, then the words 'Pirate Captain' etched into his shoes certainly made the distinction. It was quite an imperious entrance - just a shame that only a bewildered barman and a drunken chap in the corner were there to share the occasion.

The Pirate Captain looked a little deflated that his reception was greeted by such eerie silence, so I plucked up the courage to say hello and state how much I loved reading about the crew's previous adventure with scientists and the Captain's bravery in foiling the plans of the despicable Bishop of Oxford. The Pirate Captain beamed with delight that someone recognised him and invited me over to discuss just how brilliant he was. We enjoyed a few grogs before the Pirate with a Scarf motioned to the Captain that they needed to be off to locate some hams for the crew's dinner. I bid farewell to my new friends, but not before the Captain pressed a book with his signature into my hand as a token piece of 'pirate treasure.' And as they disappeared back to the pirate ship enjoying a rousing shanty, I turned the first page of The Pirates! latest adventure with whaling...

The pirate ship is in a bit of a state. The mast keeps falling down, the crew are getting some nasty splinters from the rotten deck and the boat's wheel keeps coming off in the pirate with a scarf's hands. With the Captain's prize ham deemed unsafe in such surroundings it's determined that something must be done and after a stop-off at Cutlass Liz's boatyard in Nantucket the Pirates! quickly find themselves the owners of the 'Lovely Emma', and a debt of six thousand doubloons. But with only 24 limes, 2 boxes of ship's biscuits, one deceased and electroplated pirate with an accordion and no treasure stored away in the hold; and time running out to pay back the beautiful yet deadly Cutlass Liz, the Butcher of Barbados; the pirates embark on a new adventure filled with Vegas stageshows, moving monologues and an elusive white whale in order to avoid death from crippling debt!

Gideon Defoe's follow up to The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists does everything a good sequel should do - more of the same, but in many ways quite different. So the compact structure of an absurd Monty Python giggle-fest remains, as does the brilliantly nameless crew, and the Pirate Captain's clueless idiocy and good-natured human decency. Again, it's all delivered with whip-cracking brevity throughout. Devoid of grandiose descriptions the tale is driven by observational humour, subversive anachronisms and brilliantly quotable dialogue. It also begins and ends with the same literary device; this time the pirates are arguing over what shapes the clouds above look like, rather than squabbling over the best thing about being a pirate, and the adventure ends with yet another fine-tuned action set-piece involving the Pirate Captain's hapless daring do. Black Bellamy, the Pirate Captain's arch-nemesis, makes another delightful cameo and there's the odd nod with regards to Defoe's universal theme - impressing a girl!

It's certainly from the school of not fixing what isn't broken and it's this familiarity with the source material that makes Whaling immediately appealing to fans of Scientists, whilst additionally catering for those that missed out on the Pirates! original adventure. You don't have to read Defoe's first book in order to get Whaling. Apart from some recurring events (how Jennifer became a pirate, why the pirate with an accordion has been electroplated), you don't really need to read any of the series in order, with them being very much stand alone adventures rather than a continuous story. Indeed the main difference is in the essential plotline, here substituting Charles Darwin and The Bishop of Oxford with the dour Captain Ahab and the dreaded white whale, even though this is often hidden by the ingenious sub-plot of the Pirates! putting on a Vegas stage show in order to raise the doubloons to pay for the 'Lovely Emma'. How can the Pirate Captain recounting his best anecdotes (both nautical and land-based), the Pirates! doing rousing shanties and unveiling an albino that walks like a man be anything but a success?

Whaling has certainly allowed Defoe to fine tune the 'throw it together and see what sticks' feel of Scientists. The writing feels a little more polished and assured to compliment the knack he has for garnering humour from the most rudimentary items. There's even a hint of character development, making the crew a little more three-dimensional. Only the pirate with a scarf really stood out alongside the Pirate Captain in the first book, but here the pirate in green, the albino pirate and the pirate in red become integral to the plot. The Pirate Captain's background is embellished upon a little as well, with the reader finding out that he and Black Bellamy are old roommates at Pirate College. Additionally there's a good deal of pathos for the Pirate Captain when it looks increasingly likely that he won't be able to pay-off the debt, essential for keeping the readers attention in turning those pages, as you really don't want the adorable goof to be gutted like a fish by Cutlass Liz.

Despite the more polished feel, however, Whaling never seems to be quite as funny as Scientists. That's not to say it isn't hilarious. Far from it! You will still be inanely guffawing on the tube, attracting odd stares from the passengers around you, just not as much as if you reading Scientists. Perhaps the key problem is too much of Whaling is set at sea. Scientists' success was to move the Pirates! away from their nautical boundaries and place them within a daft environment, like Victorian London, from which a good deal of humour can be derived from the bizarre juxtaposition. The Pirates! sailing about in their boat searching for the white whale - despite the 'Lovely Emma' featuring working plumbing, tennis courts and a port-side swimming pool - just feels a little too normal and piratey. The Vegas endeavour follows the bizarreness of the original concept (how exactly do they anchor the pirate ship in Vegas) but it's only a short aside constrained by the main thrust of the story being at sea.

In some ways though the sea setting does lead to one of the finest gags in the series so far. With a host of endeavours failing to procure the funds with which to payback Cutlass Liz, the pirate in red suggests... well, that would really spoil the gag now, wouldn't it? So I guess you've got to take the odd squirt of lemon in the eye every now and then and actually purchase the damn book to find out!

So whilst not quite as good as Scientists, it would be relatively churlish of me not to recommend The Pirates! in an Adventure in Whaling. Not because the Pirate Captain is likely to use my body to play pop-up-pirate or steal all my hams if I don't provide a good write-up of his crews adventures, but because it is genuine comic genius. As stated previously, it's silly, daft, zany stuff, yet has a surprising amount of charm and affection about it that makes it more than a sheer gag-fest. If you know who Guybrush Threepwood is, this book is for you! If you don't know who Guybrush Threepwood is, you have no soul and can only be redeemed by purchasing The Pirates! in an Adventure with Whaling. Do it! Do it now!


Overall - Not quite as good as The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, but Whaling is still one deliriously funny festival of absurd pirate comedy capers with a heart-warming moral to the tale about false economy. Delightfully silly stuff!


Additional - This book has footnotes. Please, do not be afraid to read the footnotes. You may actually come away from this book incredibly enlightened. For instance did you know that the albatross can live for up to eighty years and has the largest wingspan of any bird, often exceeding eleven and a half feet? Whilst some may think this is an incredibly tedious Monty Python link (they'd be right) it's also one of the many trivial gems you can find in Defoe's Pirate! Books. See, not just silly, zany stuff involving pirate adventures - your kids might learn something as well!!


Author: Gideon Defoe
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2005), paperback Orion Books (2006)
RRP: £7.99 (hardcover) £5.99 (paperback)
Pages: 188
ISBN: 978-0753820803

And if you liked the Adventures with Whaling, you could do a lot worse than pick up The Pirates! previous Adventure with Scientists and their third Adventure with Communists which are also currently available.

The Pirates' fourth Adventure, with Napoleon, is due for release in May 2008 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.co.uk

Summary: The Pirates! in an Adventure with Whaling. Obviously...!