G.A. Henty has a very old-fashioned
writing style. To me, it’s very different from the authors today. Henty’s books
really show how much are language has evolved into what it is now. The way they
spoke back then, was much more graceful. Today, we speak very straight forward
and we have a lot of slang words. At first, when I started reading these books
I would get very frustrated when I couldn’t understand the way they were
speaking. But now I kind of just go with it even when I don’t understand it
because I know that the book takes place a long time ago and that was how they
used to speak. The way this author writes I notice he includes a lot of
dialogue and not so much description of the area. Henty does describe things
just not as much as I’ve seen other authors do. But, I’m okay with that because
there’s been some books that I have read and the author takes pages and pages
and pages to describe one room. That’s the type of description that I don’t
like because I didn’t want to read the book to just get a description of where
it takes place, I also want to stay with the storyline. So, as long as you do
good amounts of describing, and sticking to the storyline, you’re an author I
would like.
Other than the way they talk in the
book, the setting I think is pretty interesting. I would love to just time
travel back to that time and take a peek at how it was back then. They had
massive ships, elegant clothing, and so much more. No, they didn’t have cell
phones and flat screen TVs…..Actually they had no TVs at all. But I still think
it would be a great trip to take to get the experience. The one thing that I wouldn’t
really want to see is the slavery. Henty showed the struggles of being a slave
and I would not want to see that happening because there wasn’t really a lot of
equality during that time. But I would want to see the scenery, the people,
etc.. There was some pros to that time period, but of course there was some cons.
We have that today too.
Picturing the slavery taking place
in the book made me cringe. I really hate when people get mistreated. The main
character named Gervaise, didn’t like slavery either. He officially became my
favorite character because of the way that he treated the slaves. When he was
in charge of a ship that had slaves, he took great care of them. Yes they still
had to do work, but he made the work more pleasant. For example, when they had
to row, Gervaise covered them from the sun so that they don’t have to work in
unpleasant conditions. When they got food served they got much better servings.
People like Gervaise, were very rare during this time because everybody would
treat the slaves like dirt. Actually, I think even dirt got treated better than
the slaves sadly. But the reason he acted so nicely to them is because he knew
what they were going through. How you ask? Well he actually served as a slave
for 2 months under the same harsh conditions. So he was going to try to help
the slaves whenever he can.
I would definitely be like Gervaise
because I would hate to watch people just like you and me get treated as if
they were completely different. Back then they denied the fact that everybody
was the same, just different colors. Even today there are some people who deny
it. But whether your Straight, Gay, Black, White, Hispanic, etc. We’re all the
same and nobody should get treated differently for who they are. Because they
can’t change themselves.
Overall Henty’s writing style is
still something that I have to get used to because it’s sometimes hard for me to
understand compared to the books that I read that take place in the present. But
it’s a learning experience and I think I should get introduced to other writing
styles.
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