Talk:The Golden Ocean

Age-range

This book is suitable for children and up (the Aubrey series is suitable for near-adult and up). 82.163.24.100 (talk) 09:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

explanation

I changed a questionable assertion with this edit. The other contributor had inserted that the 1000 pounds of prize money PP gave his father "... will double his yearly income." I don't recall what dad's yearly income was, only that it was less than 50 pounds per year. My recollection is that PP imagined that most of the funds will end up being spent on his siblings, sending them to College, etc. Even if PP had imagined that the remainder of the prize money would double his father's yearly income -- after all his siblings had been taken care of -- the phrase the other contributor used was misleading. It did not make clear how poor PP's family was. Geo Swan (talk) 14:00, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Geo Swan The original phrase closing the plot summary was taken from the text, double the family's income. I reverted your change because it was not concise. The income can be doubled without a detailed statement of family finances -- were they living on 1,000 pounds a year or on the interest of that amount of capital? Not said in the novel. I do not think the novel spent much time on the poverty of Peter's family, as this was the story of his grand naval adventure and that he survived it. He was in the social class to join the Navy as a midshipman. By PP you mean Peter Palafox, right? As you are working on recall, perhaps it is a moment to get a copy of the book to see what was written about the son giving the money he earned on the long voyage to his father. Is 'genteel poverty' the phrase used in the novel? --Prairieplant (talk) 20:11, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

• You ask "were they living on 1,000 pounds a year or on the interest of that amount of capital? Not said in the novel. I do not think the novel spent much time on the poverty of Peter's family, as this was the story of his grand naval adventure and that he survived it..."
• Do you have your copy handy?
• The ship's chaplain was an old friend of Peter's dad -- who knew just how severe the income of a parson in a poor rural parish could be. Don't you remember how he actually struck Peter when Peter told him he had lost all the money his father had given him to meet his needs for equipment? This scene describes, in detail, their poverty.
• Okay, page 46-47, where Chaplain Walter discusses finances with Peter:

Walter informs Peter how much his required kit will cost...

Walter:	'...To equip you very modestly might cost as much as twenty pound..."
Peter:	"Oh sir," said Peter faintly. In Ballynasaggart twenty pounds kept the whole family for twelve months of the year.

After Peter informs Walter all his funds were lost at the races...

Walter:

'...The brisk intemperance of youth may excuse much; but not this. You know, or should know, the self-denial and privation needed to put by a single half-guineas...

• Peter's father has no investment income, no rich relatives subsidizing him. Fifty pounds a year was the meagre widow pension Diana Villiers got from the East India Company. It was the household income of the widow and three daughters in Sense and Sensibility. The large Palafox household made do on 40 percent of that.
• The Midshipman who tutored Peter in Mathematics, who died during the voyage, prior to earning any prize money? He was in the same situation as Peter, the son of a Parson, raised in rural poverty.
• I am sorry you don't remember these and other passages that make clear how poor Peter's family was.
• There was a book, popular about 20 years ago, entitled something like "What Jane Austen ate, what Charles Dickens..." It had a chapter, for modern readers to give them an idea of what money was worth, back then. What a disappointment that book was. When I was at University I read a much better book, from the University's library.

  Most of the wikipedia's readers won't know that 1000 pounds was a fortune.

• Doubling of income is much more significant when a household is as poor as Palafox's. If you can already afford to maintain a carraige, doubling the income means a grander carraige. Geo Swan (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
• P.S. A guinea was 21 shillings, where a pound was 20 shillings. Geo Swan (talk) 20:23, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Geo Swan Well, I had the book at hand when I wrote that plot summary, some time ago. It was a library copy so that is where my copy is now. But you are right, I have forgotten the talks about money, with the amazing survival of that one ship and all the aspects of sailing the ship, and what they did not know about scurvy yet, being what has stuck in my mind since I last worked on this article. Your string of quotes is impressive, and now it will stick in my mind. I have spent time reading books from that era, and did learn that a guinea had more shillings than a pound sterling for the brief time there were gold guineas, and know that the amount a person could live on was rather small compared to now, with pennies being split into such small fractions and still useful. Still, my closing impression was that the boy did give the money to his father, never thought to keep it for himself, and that was how I meant to close his adventure in the summary. But I see your point now. The phrase genteel poverty sounded strange after all that excitement at sea. Yet I cannot think of another phrase at the moment. --Prairieplant (talk) 15:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)