The Voyage of the Dolphin
Dublin, February 1916, and three students, Fitzmaurice, Rafferty and Crozier, are at Trinity College amidst a combination of student pranks, Home Rule disturbances, and the distant horrors of The Great War. The foppish and rather dense Hugh Fitzmaurice is given a bizarre alternative by the Senior Dean to being sent down for his lack of intellectual accomplishment: to lead an expedition to the Arctic to recover the bones of one Bernard McNeill, one of the so-called Tyrone Giants, buried there in 1865 on a previous expedition. He accepts, and takes along his two student friends – though none of them has any experience in maritime matters. Their vessel, the Dolphin, is captained by a gruff and foul-mouthed Glaswegian McGregor, and the story is a rollicking account of their adventures to the Arctic, which includes finding a suffragette stowaway, fun and games in Iceland, and a destructive storm. There are tensions, high drama and a measure of both fun and tragedy on the way to the Arctic.
This is the author’s second novel, and I was very impressed by the style and skill of his narrative. The story is thoroughly engaging, and amusing, whilst also being deep and intelligent, reflecting upon the challenges that face men and women throughout their lives – both in situations of immediate peril and the quotidian stuff of everyday life. At times, I was reminded of T.C. Boyle’s irreverent, witty fiction. My only reservation was, without giving away the essence of the plot, the climax of the novel entered the realm of sheer fantasy, which did not sit happily with the rest of the narrative and did not assist with a terribly satisfactory conclusion to events.
