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The Pilgrim (2011)

by Hugh Nissenson(Favorite Author)

3.23 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

140220924X (ISBN13: 9781402209246)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Sourcebooks Landmark

review 1: I put the book down several times, not wanting to finish, but something compelled me to finish to see what people were liking about the book. I had read several positive reviews. I was disappointed that so much (half) of the book was based in England. I would have preferred a short preface of what happened there and gotten right on to the "beginning" when he set sail to America. With so much of the book taking place in England, I felt deceived by the title of the book. Overall the last half of the book was more like what I had expected and was well written.
review 2: Fictional story about Charles Wentworth, an Englishman who becomes one of the first wave of settlers to America in the 1620s (like a year or so after the Mayflowerites arrived). I heard him on... more NPR I think and was super excited to read this because I'd researched some of this stuff for a script, but it was only okay. Fun to read a modern fictional novel written as though in the language/POV from someone from the 1620s. Interesting to experience things like the struggles with religion that they used to go through (and honest belief they were damned if they felt/did x, y, z). Even more interesting to see what this guy's motivations were for going to New England (avoiding sexual temptation), and the first hand experience with personal/friends being stricken by small pox, scurvy, starvation, native american attacks, etc., which happened both in the US and England. That said, somehow I felt like the main character had some sort of an emotional remove that really prevented me from getting into the story the way I'd wanted to. And I really wanted to. Maybe that emotional remove is unavoidable due to the language/type of person who was created, but still, I really wanted to be in it with him because when you really think about it, their experience was insane, but I always felt at an arm's remove. Maybe because he was such a different type of person that our brains couldn't sync up? Who knows. Anyhow. So, three stars. Hopes were higher. Still, absolutely nuts that we ever managed to settle this country given how ill-prepared/stupid/bad we were at the start. Goodness. less

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