Voyage: A Novel of 1896

I'm glad to see that other reviewers thought as much of this book as I do. As the title states, this book is a novel of 1896. The year 1896 is pivotal (as is every other year, every other day, every other moment)in this country's history. Hayden creates a tableau of this pivotal time which surrounds and captures and includes the reader. He highlights the vast differences between the rich and the poor. He paints the east coast and the west coast; the nascent labor movement and the robber barons; American pride and American comtempt for fellow Americans. This book is a wonderful historical novel and certainly ranks in stature with historical novels by Dos Passos and Vidal.As the title also states, this book is about a voyage; rather, many voyages. The book focuses on the voyage of the 'Neptune's Car', a large barque on a voyage from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. The barque's voyage is contrasted with the comfortably posh voyage of the Cuttings of New York by private train car and crewed yacht to observe the eclipse of the sun in the northwestern Pacific. The characters are vivid and visceral. Like cross waves in a big swell the voyages of the individuals are traced and examined. Their actions are believable and their interactions sometimes explode like the storms around Cape Horn.This book is nothing short of wonderful. It is a sea story, an American story, a compelling historical novel, and a timeless story of human voyages and ships that pass in the night.

Maverick actor Sterling Hayden's first book was "Wanderer", the tale of how he took his children and escaped to sea. His lifelong love of sailing and his great knowledge of the sea fill the pages of "Voyage". But "Voyage" is not so much a sea story as a snapshot of America at an important, even a major turning point: the election of 1896. In that year, the Democratic party was captured by the Populist left, led by William Jennings Bryan, and was defeated in the general election by McKinley and the Republicans, thereby setting American politics on a conservative course which has lasted to our own day.But "Voyage" doesn't talk much about the politics of the times so much as the people who lived in those times. Above all, they were hard people.On the one hand are the working stiffs. Shanghaied into the crew of the great four-masted barques, poor brutal men who have no control over their lives, well aware how badly they are used, capable of huge tenderness and sensitivity, and immensely skilled at fighting their ships through the world's worst weather around Cape Horn. On the other hand are the great capitalists who build the ships and the railways and the banking empires, and the tough-minded captains and mates who do their work for them. All of them are strong in their way, with a kind of iron toughness that has pretty well vanished nowadays, and they fight out their story across 704 pages of great adventure and conflict.Hayden surprised people with this book. He took a stab at a huge important story filled with colorful, exciting characters in all their strengths and weaknesses. "Voyage" is important, and exciting, and is as close to the mythical "Great American Novel" as anything ever attempted.

A story of 1896 written in 1976 by a man with an old soul. I envisioned a gray haired patriarch narrating this tale of a time when a four-masted barque would sail under the horn. The style is rough and heavy handed but you can taste the salt and feel the cold when he speaks of the sea. This is a hard read of a harsh time but well worth the voyage.

Open the pages of this novel and you will be transported to the fo'castle of a clipper ship headed for the Horn in 1896. Your Captain is Iron Saul Pendelton, and there is no seaman like him. His first mate is Mr. Ruhl. They will take you through an adventure on the waves which you will never forget.

I first read this book when it was published in 1977.I have read it at least three times since. It is always new and exciting. If you can find it, read it, you won't be sorry