In recent years, many writers have described the age of European exploration as one of atrocities. The record of the conquest of indigenous peoples, of their exploitation and conversion, has tarnished the reputations of Columbus, Magellan, and Cortes, among others. Napoleon Baccino Ponce de Leon, author of this month's featured novel, Five Black Ships, does not try to refute these claims; rather, he tries to conjure up a different image, that of men lured by the sea and their fantasies, eager for adventure and seduced by the possibilities of the unknown.
The tale is an evocative, elegantly written account of Ferdinand Magellan's ill-fated attempt to discover a route to the Spice Islands of the East by sailing west. The story is narrated by Juanillo Ponce, Magellan's jester. Its strength lies in the poetic blending of dreams and reality, cruelty and compassion, high drama and tedium on the seas. Though he's the ship's fool, tasked with keeping Magellan and the crew amused, Juanillo is very much a pragmatist, signing on solely to keep from starving. His chronicle of the voyage is actually a petition to Emperor Charles I for reinstatement of the pension he was deprived of when mysteriously dropped from the roster of the voyage's survivors.
The excerpt that follows captures the poetic way in which Baccino evokes the dreams, fears, excitement, and horror of a voyage whose captain vacillates between being a visionary and a tyrannical madman. In the end, Juanillo recognizes the truth of Magellan's creed: "He taught me the importance of a dream, an impossible goal that makes life worth living."
In her commentary, novelist and essayist Barbara
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