Ich finde, es gibt schlechtere Gründe, sich für die Hebriden zu entscheiden. Die Idee dazu kam ihm während seines Dienstes im Krieg: einer seiner Kameraden kam von den äußeren Hebriden und ist ihm durch seine Gelassenheit aufgefallen. Jetzt habe ich erfahren, wie es dazu kam, dass Gavin Maxwell die Insel kaufte (wobei es mich immer wieder überrascht, wie einfach es doch ist, eine Insel zu kaufen). Ich kannte Gavon Maxwell bereits aus der Trilogie The ring of bright water, das zeitlich nach diesem Buch spielt. Es folgten Jahre voller Lehren, Rückschlägen und der Erkenntnis, dass es auch die besten Absichten nicht immer zum Erfolg führen. Nach einigen Überlegungen fasste er den Entschluss, etwas schon Bekanntes größer aufzuziehen und entschied sich für die Jagd auf Riesenhaie. Er wollte nicht nur der Besitzer der Insel sein, sondern auch den Einwohnern eine Perspektive bieten. Gavin Maxwell kaufte die Insel nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg. Harpoon at a Venture erzählt von dem Versuch, auf der kleinen Hebrideninsel Soay ein Unternehmen zu gründen. In the end, the subject matter put me off too much to enjoy it, and I can only be grateful that Maxwell saw the error of his ways in later years. The pages are full of well-described land and sea scapes, quirky characters, and captures of a way of life long extinct. On the other hand, seafaring always interests me and the usual tall stories and heroism abound here. It's repetitive stuff indeed, with plenty of bloodshed filling the pages which I found somewhat repellent. After WW2, Maxwell set up a business hunting basking sharks off the western coast of Scotland for their liver oil, and this short book charts the rise and fall of the enterprise. However, I'm also a huge nature lover, and HARPOON AT A VENTURE is all about the mass killing of wild creatures for human profit. He keeps you interested in the most mundane day-to-day details of life and his writings are next to none in terms of realism and depth. I love Gavin Maxwell as an author and adore his RING OF BRIGHT WATER trilogy. His Eilean Bàn home remains a museum and the island a wildlife sanctuary. The house at Sandaig was destroyed by fire in 1968, and Maxwell moved into a former lighthouse keeper's cottage on the nearby island of Eilean Bàn. It was the first in Maxwell's 'otter trilogy', for which he remains best known: its sequels were The Rocks Remain (1963) and Raven Seek Thy Brother (1968). The story of how Maxwell brought Mijbil back to rise in his isolated home in Sandaig (named Camusfeàrna in the book) on the west coast of Scotland, is told in Ring of Bright Water (1960) the book sold more than two million copies and in 1969 was made into a film. It was there that he adopted the otter Mijbil. In 1956 he travelled to the Tigris Basin in Southern Iraq with the explorer Wilfred Thesiger to explore the area's vast unspoiled marshes Maxwell's account of their travels was published as A Reed Shaken by the Wind (1959). He was raised in the small village of Elrig, near Port William, which he later described in his autobiography The House of Elrig (1965).Īfter serving in the Second World War as an instructor with the Special Operations Executive, he purchased the Isle of Soay in the Inner Hebrides, where he attempted to establish a shark fishery. He was born in Scotland in 1914 to Lieutenant-Colonel Aymer Maxwell and Lady Mary Percy, whose father was the seventh Duke of Northumberland. Gavin Maxwell was a Scottish naturalist and author, best known for his work with otters.
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