Sunday, July 5, 2015

Short Story Sunday

Jim Greely, The North Sea Skipper
by R. M. Ballantyne

Review

This is a story about a North Sea fisherman from Yarmouth.  He marries a wonderful woman who he loves dearly.  After a few years he turns to drink, but after his ship sinks and he nearly dies he reassess his life and returns home sober.

The language in this story is a bit difficult if you're not familiar with ships, but skipping over those parts you still get the gist of the story.  The speech of the characters is also a little difficult to understand since it was written in the mid to late 1800s and seemed to be spelled phonetically (noo instead of new).

The story was a little predictable, and it seemed a bit rushed.  This could probably have been told as a novel or novella length story where the characters were really developed so you could feel for Nellie, Jim's wife, and for King, the stand-in ship hand.

I give this a 7/10.  I loved the way it was written as well as the story itself, but Ballantyne could have expanded a bit more with it. 

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