Black Sails Book Club

Trying to read my way through all the books in the show, or something like that... terfs will be blocked and reported

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So for The Odyssey, one of the more important books not just for the characters but thematically for the show itself, I decided to not just Read The Odyssey but to read four different translations of The Odyssey simultaneously. So every day in October I was reading the same chapter four times. Very normal choices. (It was actually a lot of fun though)

So I read:

Emily Wilson: chosen bc I was interested in her work on the concept of overliving. Fairly straightforward verse translation, fairly easy to read but it fell kind of flat for me

T.E. Shaw: chosen bc I thought that Lawrence had an interesting perspective to bring to the story that would be interesting for Black Sails. Prose translation, slightly out of date language if you're not used to it and more interesting if you know Lawrence, otherwise nothing special

George Chapman: chosen bc it would be the English translation available when Black Sails is happening. And boy is early 17th c verse hard to read, required a lot of concentration but there was beauty in the language

E.V. Rieu: chosen literally bc I've had this edition on my shelf for over a decade, which makes it even funnier that it was far and away my favorite version of these. It just worked really well for me, the language resonated in beautiful and somber ways and got the most emotional reaction (luckily I bought them as a pair so I also have his Iliad to read)

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Black Sails 3x10 / The Odyssey [translated by E.V. Rieu] book 22, Odysseus slaying the suitors

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Black Sails / The Odyssey, translated by E.V. Rieu

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Black Sails 4x10 / the prophecy of Tiresias' ghost to Odysseus about his fate, translated by George Chapman

[ID: three screenshots of Thomas and James' reunion in 4x10 overlaid with text reading: And then the periods of all thy labours in the peace shall end of easy death ; / which shall the less extend his passion to thee, that thy foe, the Sea, shall not enforce it, / but Death's victory shall come in only-earnest-pray-vow'd age, obtain'd at home, quite emptied of his rage

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When my father arrives, I would like to propose to him that we don't hang the pirates. That we pardon them.

Black Sails, 2x04 / Don Quixote, chapter 30 

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Thinking about the terrible tragedy of being a ghost in your own story; to have an identity that is already written and finished and beyond you, to be wholly unable to change or control anything, or make anyone see you as you really are. 

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"[P]iracy even at its most serious turns out to be a thoroughly performative practice. Readers, theatergoers, and victims are all audiences, and sometimes the only audience that matters is the pirates themselves."

Berwick and Powell, British Pirates in Print and Performance

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I was not born [..] to defend islands or cities from enemies who want to attack them. I have a better understanding of plowing and digging. 

Don Quixote volume II, chapter LIII / Black Sails 4x10

ID: four screen shots from Black Sails with text overlaid.

1. Flint looking resigned at Silver holding a gun on him. Text reads: “Let me go” 2. Overhead shot of James and Thomas looking at each other in a field. Text reads: “and find my past life” 3. Thomas and James embracing with their foreheads pressed together. Text reads: “so that I can come back” 4. Silver’s men standing in the woods turning to look around them after hearing birds calling. Text reads: “from this present death.” 

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Black Sails 2x02 / Don Quixote, part II chapter XVII 

Image 1: screencap of Admiral Hennessey subtitled with “Is it possible he’s fully mad?”

Image 2: Text reading: “What, then, is your master so mad,” answered the gentleman, “that you really fear he will attack such fierce animals?”

Image 3 and 4: Two screen caps of James subtitled with “He isn’t mad. He’s just... bright, determined, wealthy”

Image 5: Text reading: “He is not mad,” answered Sancho, “but daring.”

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Meditations / Black Sails / Treasure Island 

Image 1: text reads: 5. Whatever happens to you was preordained for you from time everlasting, and from eternity the web of causation was weaveing together your existence and this that happens to you 

Image 2: screen cap from Black Sails, Flint blocking Singleton’s blade subtitled with “It’s done.” 

Image 3: text reads: -all old Flint’s crew, man and boy, all on ‘em that’s left. I was first man, I was, old Flint’s first mate, and I’m the on’y one as knows that place. He gave it me at Savannah,* when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now, you see. 

Image 4: screen cap from Black Sails, Flint turning toward the viewer subtitled with “Wouldn’t you agree”

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I am having three re-occurring reactions to reading Meditations thus far:

1. That seems an easy position for you, the emperor, to maintain.

2. I see your point and you’re not wrong...but sometimes other people are the fucking worst, and they must be held to account.

3. I am...perhaps too angry for this and/or for Stoicism in general.

That being said, there are definitely some passages I am !!! about and I see why Thomas would have wanted to give it to James, but still...

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Miranda: *flirts with James*

James, who has read Don Quixote on her urging which features a story about a man who has an affair with his best friend's wife which leads to all their deaths: this is a trap

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There’s a scene in Don Quixote where Sancho tells Don Quixote a story and tells him that if he doesn’t pay attention to something specifically, the story will be over. 

And I’m just fascinated by the idea that not only does a story require a subject and a teller/author, but an audience. And when the audience looks away or elsewhere, the story stops existing. And we who are watching Black Sails have already chosen that we will ultimately follow Silver and his story. Treasure Island made that choice for us over 100 years ago. As soon as Flint’s story diverges from Silver’s in the woods, Flint’s story stops because we are no longer paying attention because we cannot watch two points in space at the same time. But of course, just because the story wasn’t told doesn’t mean it didn’t happen just that we, the audience, have looked away. 

1. Text reading: Your grace has to keep track of the goats the fisherman ferries across, because if you miss one the story will be over and it won’t be possible to say another word. 

2. Two screen caps from Black Sails, Silver is saying “How exactly is one supposed to watch two points in space at the same time?”

3. Text reading: “How many have gone across?” said Sanco. “How the devil should I know?” responded Don Quixote. “That’s just what I told your grace to do: to keep a good count. Well, by God, the story’s over, and there’s no way to go on.”

4. Two screen caps from Black Sails, one of Silver, one of Flint, looking at each other in their final scene together in the woods

5.Text reading: “Does that mean that the story is finished?” said Don Quixote. “As finished as my mother,” said Sancho.

6. Text reading: --all old Flint’s crew, man and boy, all on ‘em that’s left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint’s first mate, and I’m the on’y one as knows the place. He gave it to me at Savannah, where he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now, you see.

7. Two screen caps from Black Sails: Thomas and James embracing at Savannah, and Silver and Madi standing on the cliffs far apart and looking towards each other. 

[blacksailsbookclub]

There's a scene in Don Quixote where Sancho is telling Don Quixote a story and he says that he (Don Quixote) has to keep track if the number of goats ferried across the river otherwise the story will be over. And when he pauses and asks, Don Quixote says he doesn't know how many goats so Sancho ends the story and says "in my story, there's nothing left to say: it ended right where you lost count of the number of goats that had crossed"

And I am thinking about the importance of the audience in a story and how for a story to exist the audience has to hear it and interact with it and the minute we stop paying attention the story has to end.

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I'm only about 100 pages (of 900) into Don Quixote and the amount of time I have had to stop and just Put My Head In My Hands over it is concerning...

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Oh this bit in Don Quixote hits on many levels :

"But what's that book next to it?"

"La Galatea, by Miguel de Cervantes," said the barber.

"This Cervantes has been a good friend of mine for many years, and I have known that he is better versed in misfortunes than in verses. His book has a certain creativity; it proposes something and concludes nothing. We have to wait for the second part he has promised.

By inserting the author into the narrative it recalls what RLS said in The Persons of the Tale : "The author has to get a story; that's what he wants"

What is the Story Cervantes wants to get?

And with the focus on the promised second part of another story, it asks the question, what do Black Sails and Treasure Island say to each other? Does Treasure Island offer a conclusion to Black Sails?

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Id: a copy of Don Quixote on a blue tie dye quilt

As voted on by my Twitter followers... next up is Don Quixote! The book Miranda gives to James in 2x03 to help him understand Thomas. I'm reading it in English despite her insistence (correctly imo) that James should learn Spanish to read it...maybe one day

As I was getting ready to read this I realized that I don't know if I can think of a single other originally in Spanish book I've read so we are stretching our brain muscles in both time period and culture with this one.