"The Riddle of the Sands"

The Riddle of the Sands (Erskine Childers)

I have to give this book credit: It takes real confidence to apologize, around page 70 of your 250 pages, for the book being boring up to that point. This is not a good sign, and yet I still finished this book. I'm not sure if you can chalk this up to me being a glutton or punishment, or (more likely) the fact that this is a weird, interesting little historical curio. This is an "invasion" novel (and I guess a well-known one as it's mentioned on the wiki page about them), a book written in 1903 about a imaginary German plan to invade England. This genre is usually mentioned offhand in history books, and I have to admit I've always wondered about reading one. The problem with this one is that it's full of a lot of yachting stuff. This is a book either for big history nerds (cough), or yachting fans, and I don't know that either group is going to be  entirely happy with it.
As for how I liked it - well, I finished it; I can't really recommend it unless you belong to one of the above groups, as it just moves too slowly and has too much sailing in it. The most entertaining parts, I dare say, are in seeing some of the ways that language and society has changed since the book was written; The subtext between our hero and his friend with the yacht, I'm sure, was meant to be two bronzed Anglos sailing around doing ultra manly stuff, but comes off as a bit, umm, hmm. Let's just say that towards the end of the book when the narrator is re-united with his pal and is felt up in the dark with his big knobby hands, it certainly adds some subtext to the earlier scene where our hero sees his friend's "wistful face on the quay" and then "heard his grim ejaculation". To be fair, this is very juvenile, but the author isn't helping with his steady stream of what I'm sure is meant as perfectly harmless patter ( "'Mud-holes!' he replied, with a contemptuous laugh." "'Pull it out,' said Davies"). All I'm saying is these guys really love sailing.

Grade: C-