This is a classic nineteenth century adventure novel that sees a group of people head out on a voyage around the world after finding a message in a bottle that tells them that some people are shipwrecked somewhere. The message is damaged, so they don’t know exactly where they are, but they have enough information to begin a search.
In some ways, I absolutely loved this novel. There are scenes where they’re out on the ocean exploring the world, or in the wilderness somewhere on the other side of the world and you really feel the grand sense of adventure that runs through the whole thing. Then with lots of information about the different places they visit, it genuinely feels like it’s quite an educational experience as well. It’s a great mixture of excitement and learning and that makes me very happy.
But then there are other times where the novel reflects the rather unpleasant values of the time in quite an overt way. The indigenous peoples of different countries are invariably portrayed as savage and bloodthirsty and pretty much always called “Indians” too, regardless of where they are from. You do at least have a character called Thalcave, who is a sympathetic indigenous person that they meet in Patagonia, although even then he’s portrayed in a very stereotypical way as a kind of stoic wanderer who knows the land and guides everyone through the wilderness. He’s likeable enough and it’s good to have at least one indigenous person who isn’t a villain, but he’s not very well developed. Outside of that, there’s also stuff like a disregard for animal life (like when they meaninglessly kill a shark at the start) and that was kind of off-putting.
Something I quite liked about though was the character Jacques Paganel. He offers some decent comic relief as the absent-minded academic character who is dragged along for the adventure after accidentally falling asleep on the protagonists’ yacht, thinking it was a different vessel. Everyone largely trusts the conclusions he comes to about where they should be going to find the castaways, and he’s wrong almost every single time. His ridiculousness and fallibility add quite a human heart to the main cast of characters, who would otherwise just be a bunch of serious adventurers. Paganel is arrogant and his confidence is misplace, and yet he was easily my favourite character in the whole thing.
Towards the end, the stakes got pretty high and I was surprised by how dramatic things became – not that the characters don’t find themselves in life or death situations almost all the way through, but it started to go down a path I wouldn’t have anticipated. I was quite satisfied by how it all wrapped up too – even if it was probably a bit longer than I’d have liked.
If you’re used to looking past uncomfortable historic attitudes and enjoy a good historic adventure, then I reckon you’ll have a good time with In Search of the Castaways. I wish I could say which translation I read, but annoyingly the translator was not credited in my edition.
Rating: 6.8/10
