Grann, David. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (New York: Doubleday, 2023) pp. 329. The title of this book effectively summarizes the riveting story about sailing in the Strait of Magellan, the most turbulent and dangerous seas in the world, in the 18th century.
All this takes place in 1740 involving The Wager, one of Her Majesty Queen of England’s ships and its sailors who were assigned to sack and plunder Spanish properties in South America. This ignoble charge was part of yet another war between England and Spain at the time. In the broadest sense, The Wager offers but one more example of the maddening competition that statesmen of all nations have engaged in the name of one flag against another, mine against yours, all of it leading to horrible maiming and astounding loss of life not to mention property.
In this well documented novel-like report, the English sailors die due to the perilous voyage itself and not at the hands of their Catholic enemy. The description of the roaring polar winds and the giant crushing waves is riveting at the same time that the depiction of the Patagonian landscapes is equally astonishing. And the portrayal of human beings making their home in this forbidding part of the world is simply stunning, especially when it is contrasted with the stranded sailors who could not survive the cold and relentless rain and ice storms.
The Wager is scheduled to become a movie.
Pensamientos (thoughts) over the border by carlos b. gil 