2008/01: The Custom of the Sea, Neil Hanson

The Custom of the Sea -- Neil Hanson

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Some [survivors of shipwreck] will be driven to the extreme of self-destruction: suicide. Others will adopt the other extreme of self-preservation: the practise of cannibalism.

The Mignonette, an elderly vessel converted from fishing-boat to yacht, set sail from Southampton for Sydney in May 1884. Two months later, she was struck by a freak wave and sank, leaving four survivors in a tiny dinghy. When, after 24 days in an open boat with no food or water, the men were rescued, there were only three: the cabin boy, Richard Parker, had been killed and eaten. (This is the Richard Parker who lends his name to the tiger in Life of Pi.)( Read more... )

That privilege meme

I've seen this all over, and every time I read another take on it I notice something -- some assumption, some omission -- that I haven't noticed before. So ...
( Read more... )

Thing is, few of the above factors made me feel underprivileged. I did feel underprivileged by things like my mother telling me off ("you did it on purpose!") instead of being sympathetic / taking me to the doctor when an exploding cherryade bottle sliced my knee open. By going on a school trip and having the teachers ask me why I was wearing 'smart' shoes and not trainers, and being too embarrassed to say that I didn't own a pair of trainers. By going to the first wedding I remember attending (I was about 14) and having to wear a hat that my mother had made for me, because everyone wore hats to weddings as far as she was concerned. By not having 'official' school uniform because my parents refused to buy it from the 'official' shop.

But that's all relative. And there were others in the same boat.