x dismiss this message
Did you know you can edit this page?
-
Sign Into Shelfari
-
Choose something to edit
-
Save your contributions
see page history
Description edit
This now-classic novel by Richard McKenna enjoyed great critical acclaim and commercial success when it was first published in 1962. The winner of the coveted Harper Prize, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for seven months and was made into a popular motion picture that continues... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Jake Holman: Machinist Mate 1st Class, USS San Pablo, principle character
- Frenchy Burgoyne: Watertender 1st Class, USS San Pablo, Jake’s friend
- Shirley Eckert: Missionary volunteer, Jake Holman’s love interest
- Maily: Chinese bar hostess, Frenchy Burgoyne’s love interest
- Lt. Collins: Captain of the USS San Pablo
- Ensign Tom Bordelles: Executive officer of the USS San Pablo
- Po-han: Chinese coolie working on the San Pablo’s engine
- Craddock: American missionary, Shirley Eckert’s boss
Quotes edit
-
“We <the military personnel here> serve the flag. The trade we all follow is the give and take of death. It is for that purpose that the American people maintain us. Any one of us who believes he has a job like any other, for which he draws a money wage, is a thief of the food he eats and a trespasser of the bunk in which he lies down to sleep.”
Captain Collins -
“Jake Holman knew he was a strange bird and he was used to going aboard new ships. By the time they realized they were in a struggle Jake Holman would already have made for himself the place he wanted on their ship and they could never dislodge him. Or wish to. It was going to be the same on the USS San Pablo. He did not know why he was reluctant to go right aboard. This one might be a pretty strange nest, too, he thought.”
author -
“He had met that kind on other ships. He knew them now by their very tone of voice and manner. They sat on a nickel’s worth of knowledge as if it were the great Inca treasure, and if anyone junior to them learned something, they thought they were being robbed. Nothing in the world delighted Jake Holman more than bankrupting a son-of-a-bitch like that.”
author -
“After supper he went below again, in clean dungarees, to check some of his sketches. Po-han followed him and he would point to one of Holman’s sketched crosses and then to a particular valve and ask, “Belong same?” Po-han was always wrong, but he knew that there was something very wonderful about those marks on paper, if he could only grasp the secret. He worked his lips and screwed up his features and he looked about to cry. Holman could read that expression and he had often known in himself the painful, tantalizing feeling behind it. Something in Holman answered to the young bilge coolie.He tried to explain, but the pidgin English they shared was not enough. Po-han could not get the idea of breaking down the great mass of piping into separate systems. He could not say what was moving in what direction through any of the pipes that Holman pointed out. He did not even have the idea of stuff moving through pipes. All of Holman’s doubts came back. How could these bilge coolies ever tend machinery?“Come over here,” he told Po-han.Po-han followed him over to the feed pumps. Holman choked the throttle on the duty pump and dropped the pressure fifty pounds.“You fix,” he told Po-han.Po-han eased open the steam inlet and restored the pressure. The hot well stood just aft of the pumps. Holman knelt and opened the rundown valve. Po-han watched the water level drop in the gauge glass with his Chinese eyes as wide and round as he could get them. Just as the water went out of sight, Holman closed the rundown valve.“You fix,” he told Po-han.Po-han practically flew to the make-up feed pump and set it clacking. He watched tensely until the water level built up again and then secured the pump.Holman tried him on several other operations and questioned him on them all. Po-han knew what to do, but he did not know what it was that he did. He knew in a vague way that steam and water moved through pumps and valves, but when he twisted a valve he did not realize that he was opening or closing it. To Po-han, all that he did was isolated little magics that moved a pressure gauge pointer or a water level back to the right place. What he had glimpsed in Holman’s sketches, what his eager, wistful eyes were reaching out for, was the big magic that would make a living whole out of all the little magics. Well, some navy engineers he had known were not much better off than Po-han, Holman thought.”
author -
“He went up the ladder, angry again. He had met that kind on other ships. He knew them now by their very tone of voice and manner. They sat on a nickel’s worth of knowledge as if it were the great Inca treasure, and if anyone junior to them learned something, they thought they were being robbed. Nothing in the world delighted Jake Holman more than bankrupting a son-of-a-bitch like that.”
Author
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
-
“We serve the flag. The trade we all follow is the give and take of death. It is for that purpose that the American people maintain us. Any one of us who believes he has a job like any other, for which he draws a money wage, is a thief of the food he eats and a trespasser in the bunk in which he lies down to sleep!”
Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers -
had to feel about it, although they tried. So you did things their way and you felt about them your own way, and you did not let them know how you felt. That way you kept the two things separate and
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Organizations edit
First Sentence edit
"Hello, ship," Jake Holman said under his breath. The ship was asleep and did not hear him. He lowered his big canvas thirty-year bag to the ground and stood there in the moon shadow of a brick wall and had his long first look at her. She looked stubby and blocky and top-heavy down there at the edge of the black, rolling river, and she was all moon-white except for her slender black smokestack that rose very high, high as her two masts. Four guy wires slanted down from the stack like streamers from a maypole. She had a stubby, shielded gun on her open bow and a doubled, man-high hand steering wheel on her open fantail aft, but in between she looked more like a house than a ship. Her square, curtained windows and screened doors opened on a galleried main deck like a long, narrow verandah and on a pipe-railed boat deck under taut white awning. It was after midnight and they were asleep down there, all but the watch. In a few minutes he’d go aboard and find a bunk and wake up with
Series & Lists edit
This is book 9 of 10 in Publishers Weekly Bestselling Novels In 1963. (authoritative list)
Preceded by The Glass-Blowers, and followed by The Battle of the Villa Fiorita.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Richard McKenna (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Harper & Row
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1962
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 597
Publisher: Harper & Row
Country: United States
Publication Date: 1962
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 597
Awards edit
- Harper Prize (1963: Best Novel)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3563.A3155
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
Movie Connections edit
- The Sand Pebbles (1966) (IMDb): Staring Steve McQueen
We’re hiding the errata, links to supplemental material, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.
