Fitzroy

Fitzroy:
Southwesterly veering northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6. Rough or very rough, decreasing moderate for a time. Occasional rain. moderate or good.

I finished "This Thing of Darkness" on the way back from Austria.

Tragedy being " a form of drama characterized by seriousness and dignity, and involving a great person whose downfall is brought about by either a character flaw or a conflict with some higher power such as the law, the gods, fate, or society", the book is the tragedy of Robert Fitzroy.

The organisation and exposition is efficient rather than self-consciously literary, which is no bad thing given the quantity and complexity of the material presented.

The only jarring note was the genocidal General Rosas' justification of his wars of extermination. I thought when I read it that it sounded like a neocon pastiche, and in the "Author's Postscript", Thompson owns up to"having taken the liberty of drawing almost exclusively on the words of Tony Blair and the various self-justifications he produced to defend his foreign policy adventures with George Bush in the Middle East and Central Asia".

Ho ho very satirical.