HMS Ulysses (novel)
| HMS Ulysses | |
|---|---|
 1994 paperback edition published by HarperCollins in London. |
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| Author(s) | Alistair MacLean |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | World War II Novel |
| Publisher | Collins |
| Publication date | 1955 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 357 pp (1994 paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Followed by | The Guns of Navarone |
HMS Ulysses was the first novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean and one of his most popular. Originally published in 1955, it was also released by Fontana Books in 1960. MacLean’s experiences in the Royal Navy during World War II provided the background and the ill-fated PQ-17 convoy to Murmansk provided the basis for the story.
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[edit] Plot summary
The novel features HMS Ulysses, a light cruiser that is extremely well armed and among the fastest ships in the world. (Ulysses is similar to the real Dido-class cruisers. MacLean had served in HMS Royalist of that class.) Her crew is pushed well beyond the limits of endurance and the book starts in the aftermath of a mutiny. Ulysses puts to sea again to escort FR-77, a vital convoy heading for Murmansk. (The fictitious convoy FR-77 is based on the ill-fated convoy PQ-17.) Predictably, they are beset by numerous plot elements: an unusually fierce Arctic storm, German ships and U-boats, as well as air attacks. All slowly reduce the convoy from 32 ships to only five. Ulysses is sunk in a failed attempt to ram a German cruiser after all her other weapons had been destroyed. This echoes events in which British G-class destroyer HMS Glowworm and HMS Jervis Bay, an armed merchant cruiser, sacrificed themselves by engaging larger opponents.
In what became a trait of MacLean's style, the book uses a relatively predictable set of events to paint moving portrayals of the crew and the human aspects of the war. His heroes are not especially motivated by ideals, they rarely excel at more than one task and they are outfoxed by a respectable enemy. It is only their resilience, as they redefine the word, that pushes this bunch of seamen to genuine acts of heroism. The realism of the descriptions, the believable motivations of the characters and the simplicity of the line of events make the story all the more credible, though the number of coincidental accidents that plague the crew are startling, robbing them of any real victory.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
The novel received good critical notices, with a number of reviewers putting it in the same class as two other 1950s classic tales of World War II at sea, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny and Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea. [1].
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
The same background of the World War II Murmansk convoys, with the combination of extreme belligerent action and inhospitable nature pushing protagonists to the edge of endurance and beyond, appears in Dutch novelist Jan de Hartog's The Captain (1967). Comparisons may be also be drawn with Wolfgang Ott's 1957 novel Sharks and Little Fish, written from the viewpoint of a sailor who serves surface ships and submarines of the World War II German navy, the Kriegsmarine.
The use of ship names derived from classical mythology is a well-established practice of the Royal Navy. However, commentator Bill Baley [1] suggests that the choice of Ulysses might have been less than accidental. "Unlike in Joyce's famous book, there are here no specific scenes clearly reminiscent of specific ones in Homer's Odyssey; but overall, it was Homer's Ulysses who gave Western culture the enduring template of a long and harrowing sea voyage where peril waits at every moment and of which few of the crew would survive to see the end."
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
HMS Ulysses has never been filmed but it was adapted by Nick McCarty for a BBC Radio 4 play of the same name which was first aired on 14 June 1997 in the Classic Play series. It starred Sir Derek Jacobi as Captain Vallery and Sir Donald Sinden as Admiral Starr. [2]
[edit] See also
- Arctic convoys of World War II
- Convoy PQ-17, an Arctic convoy almost destroyed by the Germans in 1942
- HMS Glowworm, a British destroyer that sacrificed herself in combat with a large German warship
- HMS Jervis Bay, a British armed merchant cruiser that sacrificed herself to defend a convoy by attacking a large German warship
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Bill Baley "The Enduring Homer", Chapter 3
[edit] External links
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