You Scurvy Landlubbers!
Book review of:
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists: A Novel
by Gideon Defoe
This is the third in Defoe’s highly entertaining “Pirates! In an Adventure with …” series, the first two adventures being with Scientists and Ahab. These books tell of the Pirate Captain and his crew (the albino pirate, the pirate who used to be a mailman, the pirate with scurvy, etc.) as they go on unlikely adventures. It’s hard to explain what is just so funny about these books, you sort of just have to read them. They are completely asynchronous, happening supposedly in the past but with frequent references to current cultural elements and events. One particularly funny example is when the Pirate Captain and Karl Marx discuss their “What’s Hot and What’s Not” lists.
To give you an idea of the books, go to the author’s website and read an excerpt from one of the books. Also, here is one of my favorite passages from the most recent book. The setting is that some of the pirates have been listening to Dr. Marx and believe they are being unfairly oppressed. They go to the Pirate Captain with their demands:
“The pirate with a monobrow began to recite his list. ‘One: an end to the use of derogatory phrases such as “you scurvy landlubbers” when ordering us about. Because when you think about it, it doesn’t even make much sense, seeing as how landlubbers don’t tend to get scurvy. Two: more of a say on what we eat at feasts. Perhaps we could be a little more adventurous with our choice of meats? Three: when you read us a bedtime story, we were hoping it could be something other than your unpublished novel? Oh yes, and four: a more equal distribution of cereal from mini variety packs.’”
Did I mention that they are obsessed with ham? Need I say more? Enjoy.
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