Neither as funny nor as serious as the first two instalments. There’s just not as much going on. I think this might be the simple sea story promised in Rites of Passage. There’s drama and peril and two anchors dropping in the same port. Narratively, it’s a satisfying conclusion. ( )

Novela que da fin a la llamada "Trilogía del mar", Fuego e las entrañas ultima la narración de la larga travesía hacia Australia iniciada meses atrás desde Inglaterra, en la época de las guerras napoleónicas, por una galería de personajes encabezada por caballero Edmund Talbot. La atmósfera cerrada del maltrecho navío que forzosamente mantiene a unos y otros juntos y prisioneros parece ir cargándose a medida que el cercano final se hace mas incierto. En esta serie que se desarrolla a través de tres novelas -Ritos de paso, Cuerpo a cuerpo y Fuego en las entrañas- las cuales, pese a integrar una unidad, admiten cada una de por si una lectura independiente. William Golding, autor de El Señor de las Moscas, forja un magistral relato de aprendizaje a la vez que una prodigiosa recreación histórica.

Vocab gathered during my first reading of this book, in 2012:

> asperity (30) – roughness, harshness, coldness
> dinted (43) – context: “his body dinted as if leaden into the furnishings of his bed”: dint: to make a dent (s) in; to impress or drive in with force
> oppo (99) – a colleague or friend (Brit. informal)
> emolument (70, 268) – salary, pay, profit from work
> anodyne (88) – relieving pain, soothing (adj.); pain-relieving drug, something that soothes (n.)
> fard (101) – facial cosmetics; (v.) to apply cosmetics
> contumely (102) – insulting language or treatment
> superannuated (116) (183) – pension off, discharge or dismiss as too old
> propitious (122) – favorable, auspicious
> propitiate – appease, gain favor of
> fadge (149) – to fit, to suit, to agree; to succeed, to thrive
> pinchbect (151) – pinchbeck – alloy imitation of gold; something sham or counterfeit
> repeater (?) [like a clock?] – watch that strikes hours
> squeegeed (185) – tool with rubber blade for clearing water (from glass, etc., spreading wet paper); press or smooth with a squeegee [I had no idea this was a legitimate word and not a brand!]
> inured (188) – accustom, esp. to hardship, danger, etc.
> cambric (191) – fine white linen or cotton cloth
> egeria (192) – a woman councilor – (Roman legend) one of the Camenae, the wife and instructor of Numa Pompilius
> mountebank (222) – charlatan, fake
> salubrious (236) – favorable to health, beneficial [sounds like it should mean the opposite]
> connubial (257) – of marriage or wedlock; matrimonial; conjugal
> pusillanimity (263) - cowardice
> veridical (283) – truthful, veracious; not illusory, real, actual, genuine ( )

The final novel of Golding's Sea Trilogy. The narrator is Edmund Talbot, a stuffy, busybody passenger traveling from England to Australia to fill a government position facilitated by his influential godfather.

Since I hadn't read the first two books (Rites of Passage and Close Quarters) I had to pick up previous shipboard doings through exposition. Basically, it's nearly the end of an almost year-long voyage in which there's been a near disaster that leaves the ship hobbled by a broken foremast and other structural damage. There's a bit of intrigue due to crew and passengers being cast together for that long under trying circumstances. Eventually they reach Australia and everyone's situation is resolved, for good or bad. ( )

Golding is famed for his 'Lord of the Flies' but his Sea Trilogy is a greater achievement, putting you right in the action and perfectly recreating the trials of travelling by sea from England to Australia. ( )