The Rising Sun

Description

They have returned. One of the oarsmen is calling me. These are the last breaths of clean air, the last of a table that doesn't yaw beneath the pen. The last of civilization, save for what we take with us. It is the end of the seventeenth century, and Rising Sun, the biggest of a five-ship flotilla, is making the perilous trip to Darien on the northern coast of Panama. With it go all the hopes and fears of the Scottish people who, driven at last to defiance of their jealous and powerful neighbour, wholeheartedly throw themselves into the scramble for empire and trade, the quest for untold riches and the discovery of a promised land. Our narrator is Roderick Mackenzie, a young Scot of ambition, cunning-and naivety. Having secured for himself one of the much-coveted places aboard the Rising Sun as Superintendant of Cargoes he becomes the expedition's self-appointed chronicler- a task that turns out to be very different from the one he had anticipated.The Rising Sun is a tour de force of historical fiction, bringing to life the bustling atmosphere and exuberance of Edinburgh in the 1690s and also, in stark contrast, the sinister menace of the jungle, which proves more than a match for man. Mackenzie's journal takes us on a voyage of physical discovery. but more engrossing is the journey he makes into the depths of men's souls, not least his own, as the essence of civilization is tested to its utmost. For days past my dreams have been nothing but drownings and bangings. What world is a man in when he must prefer the dead life of exhaustion to sleep? ISBN:9780330396363