Synopses & Reviews
This is an epic novel of sea-faring adventure set in the 19th century charting the life of Robert Fitzroy, the captain of 'The Beagle' and his passenger Charles Darwin. It combines adventure, emotion, ideas, humor and tragedy as well as illuminating the history of the 19th century. Fitzroy, the Christian Tory aristocrat, believed in the sanctity of the individual, but his beliefs were a challenge to his career. Darwin, the liberal naturalist doubts the truth of the Bible and develops his theory of evolution which is brutal and unforgiving in human terms. The two friends became bitter enemies as Darwin destroyed everything Fitzroy stood for.
Review
"Published last year in the U.K. under the title This Thing of Darkness and shortlisted for the Man Booker, this is the first novel from Thompson, a British producer (Da Ali G Show) and travel journalist, who died of cancer last year at 46. Flag Lt. Robert FitzRoy, a Scots nobleman and prodigy, took command of the H.M.S. Beagle at 23; three years later, in the fall of 1831, he took on Charles Darwin, then 22 and a naturalist (and also a patrician), as geologist for the ship's Royal survey of lower South America, the Galpagos and Falklands. By then, Darwin, studying for the clergy, has already altered his life studies three times; FitzRoy is an unbending Christian. The voyage lasts five years, and their friendship develops alongside Darwin's radical theory, with FitzRoy providing an able foil for the younger man's philosophical flights. All is well when Darwin publishes The Voyage of the Beagle in 1839 to acclaim, but when, after nearly 30 years and innumerable conversations, Darwin publishes the godless The Origin of Species to great fanfare, the friendship ends, leaving FitzRoy in ignominy and despair. Thompson spends more than half the book on the voyage and tracks the two men's paths with aplomb. (July 19)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)