Free PDF The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna
Now, just how do you recognize where to acquire this publication The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna Don't bother, now you might not go to the publication store under the bright sunlight or night to look guide The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna We below consistently help you to discover hundreds type of book. Among them is this publication entitled The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna You might go to the web link web page provided in this set and after that go with downloading and install. It will not take even more times. Simply link to your web access as well as you can access the publication The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna online. Certainly, after downloading and install The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna, you could not publish it.
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna
Free PDF The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna
Book enthusiasts, when you need a brand-new book to check out, locate guide The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna below. Never ever stress not to find what you require. Is the The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna your required book now? That holds true; you are truly an excellent user. This is a perfect book The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna that originates from great author to share with you. Guide The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna supplies the very best experience as well as lesson to take, not only take, however also discover.
If you ally require such a referred The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna publication that will offer you value, obtain the most effective vendor from us currently from many preferred publishers. If you wish to amusing books, several novels, story, jokes, and also a lot more fictions collections are additionally released, from best seller to the most current launched. You could not be puzzled to delight in all book collections The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna that we will certainly give. It is not regarding the prices. It has to do with just what you require now. This The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna, as one of the very best vendors here will be among the appropriate options to read.
Locating the appropriate The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna publication as the best need is type of good lucks to have. To begin your day or to end your day during the night, this The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna will certainly appertain sufficient. You could merely search for the tile here as well as you will get the book The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna referred. It will not trouble you to reduce your valuable time to choose shopping book in store. In this way, you will certainly additionally invest cash to pay for transportation as well as other time invested.
By downloading and install the on the internet The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna publication right here, you will certainly obtain some advantages not to go for the book store. Just hook up to the net and also start to download and install the web page web link we share. Now, your The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna prepares to appreciate reading. This is your time and also your calmness to obtain all that you really want from this publication The Sand Pebbles, By Richard McKenna
- Sales Rank: #694948 in Books
- Published on: 1962
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A Masterful Portrait of a Tumultuous Time
By Rhandhali
For a book that eventually got made into a Steve McQueen movie I was very surprised by the depth of this book.
McKenna does an excellent job of portraying China in transition, told from the points of view of the sailors on the USS San Pablo and from the missionaries at China Light, people whose world is literally shattered. The first part of the book focuses on the protagonist, Jake Holman, as he learns to adjust to life onboard the tiny San Pablo after having transferred from the Pacific Fleet. Everything is going to be perfect, he is going to have his own engine, his own engine room and be able to run it the way he wants to. Except that's not how it is on the San Pablo - most of the engineering work is done by coolies, cheap contract laborers who make their living by skimming off the ship's supplies. Coolies cook, clean, iron uniforms, swab the decks, maintain the engine and do all of the menial work leaving the crew to drill, and drill and drill and drill. The paper tiger of the San Pablo's small crew and it's three pound cannon is the only force guarding American interests - missionaries, factories, mines and more, this far up the Yangtze and appearances have to be maintained no matter how ultimately ineffective the reality may be.
By the second part of the book the Chinese have seen through it. The armies of Chiang Kai-Shek marching under the "gearwheel" flag of the Kuomintang are marching north towards the Yangtze while Bolshevist forces are working and agitating along the northern banks of the river. At first the coolies start skimming more and more off the top, and then they abandon the ship, running overboard and swimming towards a blockade of sampans that have started to surround and harass the ship every day. China is awakening to a sense of self-identity that had been suppressed for a very long time and the men of the San Pablo are despised relics of the old China, an abused and tortured China with no sense of pride or self-worth.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things for the crew to deal with is the fact that the people they are supposed to be protecting, largely missionaries, are full supporters of the Kuomintang. When the San Pablo is told to stand back and only defend American lives, not American property, it is because of the missionaries who have gone home and lobbied for American non-involvement in China. The reader feels the frustration, anger and demoralization of the crew as they are curtailed repeatedly from executing what is supposed to be their primary purpose - protection of American interests. The Chinese have also learned how to make paper tigers of their own from their Russian advisors and waste no time in churning out propaganda and sometimes outright lies about the San Pablo and their men. There is no place for the men of the San Pablo towards the end of the book - their country has for all intents and purposes abandoned them and there is no place in this new, alien China they find themselves in.
One last thing I will mention is that that most readers will be sent running for a dictionary of mechanical engineering by about fifteen pages in. I learned more about steam and marine engines reading this book than I ever expected to.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Not as good as I once thought it was -- but, then again, what is?
By Amazon Customer
I read this the year it came out. Long, long ago. It's a well written interesting book, but it's from so long ago most people under the age of 60 won't have a clue. But it's still good.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
An unknown facet of the US Navy comes to light and life.
By Paul Sayles
The Sand Pebbles is the story of a small ship, on a small river deep in the heart of China. Unknown by most of the rest of the world but home to the crew of the ship. McKenna, a former Asiatic Fleet Sailor, describes life in the river gunboats of the 1920s with an accuracy and authenticity that is amazing. I could almost feel the heat of the engines and the aromas from the galley.
The book is a study of men in the Navy. They are far from the public eye, doing a job deemed essential by someone in Washington. They are essentially feared by the Chinese and despised by the American missionaries they come into contact with. It must have been a brutal emotional duty to carry out. Yet many men loved it. They spent their careers on the rivers and retired there when their time was up in the Navy.
Jake Holman, the central figure, is not better or worse than most other Sailors of that time. His motivation for joining the Navy were "...Army, Navy or reform school..." and so into the Navy he went. He is a competent machinest mate but has few real people skills. He is a loner on the outskirts of the Navy world. He has bounced from ship to ship and has now reached the end of the line. But even Holman makes friends in the ship as he tries to adapt to his surroundings.
It is an interesting look at the gunboat navy. The crew did military duties and drills but the day to day ship's husbandry were done by Chinese men. Is it any wonder the crew loved China duty once they got there.
One might say that the conclusion of the book is confusing and leaves you feeling troubled. Well it fits with the mission of the gunboat sailors and I think is perfect. Antiimperialists may condem the book and the subject but it was a real part of the American Navy and deserves to be remembered and respected.
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna PDF
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna EPub
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna Doc
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna iBooks
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna rtf
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna Mobipocket
The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar