In June 1816 French frigate Medusa
ran aground on a sandbar off the African coast. What followed—gross incompetence, murder and cannibalism—shocked European society and pushed the fragile, recently restored French monarchy to the brink. From the swirl of characters boiling around the story—admirals, ministers and kings—Miles (David Jones: The Maker Unmade
) anchors his tale on Medusa
survivor Alexandre Correard and painter Théodore Géricault. After surviving the wreck and subsequently drifting on a raft on which 133 of 147 died, Correard, an engineer fleeing the growing chaos in post-Napoleonic France, wrote a bestselling account of the tragedy and agitated for the monarchy's end. Revealed in the ensuing controversy was France's ongoing participation in the illegal trade of African slaves. With such great elements in place (flesh eating, palace intrigue and illicit love) this yarn has much promise. Unfortunately, while the story roars along with its own inherent momentum, Miles's prose is sometimes awkward ("Their union was obviously intense and, as with all true love, supremely precious. Catastrophically, it was to prove short-lived"). Nevertheless, the story of the wreck of the Medusa
and the churning cultural machinations around it does make for a compelling read. (July)
