The Beagle was an unassuming name for a very ordinary ship. Scarcely ninety feet long, she was the type of ship called,
with morbid humour, a coffin brig. These vessels rode so low in the water that they were prone to capsizing, and were more likely to sink than to make two successful trips around the world.
Despite her humble pedigree, the Beagle gained fame as the ship that took Charles Darwin on his voyages of discovery. Thompson’s book is about Darwin and the Beagle , but only incidentally. The real centre of the
novel is the ship’s captain, Robert FitzRoy, a man whose story is even more remarkable than Darwin’s.
In 1828, FitzRoy takes command of the Beagle at the unheard of age of 23 and begins a survey of the murderous coast of Tierra del Fuego, a jumble of
islands at the southernmost tip of South America. This lays the foundation for an adventure novel of unsurpassed intensity. In fact, the first one-hundred pages, with their richness of character and density of action culminating in a heart-stopping storm, contain enough material to fill an entire novel. And this is even before Darwin enters the scene.
In the harsh yet spectacular environment of Tierra del Fuego, FitzRoy reveals himself to be a model captain. He commands his crew firmly and fairly, gaining their admiration through his skill, intelligence, and unrelenting labour. He also reveals, in a nightmare encounter with some native Fuegians, the manic depression which was his deepest secret. The disease, referred to in the title of the book, becomes almost another character as it stalks FitzRoy throughout his career. Thompson recreates the sensations experienced by a manic depressive with painstaking detail, allowing the reader to participate in FitzRoy’s periods of alternating euphoria and despair.
The captain’s state of mind prompts him to choose a travelling companion for the second surveying voyage, and leads to Darwin’s joining the crew as a resident naturalist. FitzRoy hoped that Darwin’s exuberant disposition and love of fierce debate would keep the demons away, but the two men soon reveal their fundamental differences. Although they begin a supportive friendship, FitzRoy’s unshakable belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, and Darwin’s open, questioning mind lead to frequent quarrels, and the five-year voyage ends with a coldness between them that would never be removed.
The story of those five years, which include the exploration of the Andes mountains and Galapagos Islands, the quelling of an Argentinean uprising in the Falkland Islands, the rescue a British crew held captive by native South Americans, and visits to New Zealand and Tahiti, is an utterly compelling tale and takes up the bulk of the book. But Thompson carries the story to its conclusion, following both Darwin, as he achieves fame as the author of The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species, and FitzRoy, as he stumbles along from one government appointment to another after political interference ends his naval career.
The book is incredibly well-researched. The dialogue preserves the flavour of the eighteenth century—formal, ornate, yet never tedious. Thompson’s depictions are wonderfully precise, whether he is portraying life on a ship or colonial government in New Zealand. And he brings us back to Victorian London so faithfully, with such vivid appeals to the senses that you would think he had Charles Dickens at his elbow, prompting him.
Nominated to the longlist for the Mann Booker Prize, This Thing of Darkness brings one of history’s thrilling lives into fiction with a masterly touch. In it, you will meet unforgettable characters, see amazing natural phenomena, debate the meaning and origin of life, and set sail on the adventure of a lifetime.