Captain Blood

13 July 2025

I have attempted over the course of the past year to embark upon the reading of the novel, Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini.

The first attempt took place on 12 July 2024.  The first page offered to me the type of thrilling fictional writing that cannot be abandoned, or left easily.  I started to compose an essay, citing that enthralling first-page entry in this adventure novel that was originally published in 1922.  I figured I’d get back to the essay after having read this book, but I first wanted to at least get a crack at the first-page.  For me, if that initial sheet of printed words-on-paper doesn’t hook me, the book is a goner!

I was very undecided as to how much Compare-and-Contrast to include in this book review, between the 1935 Warner Brothers film, of the same name, and the historical fiction on which the vintage-Hollywood flick was based.  I didn’t want the flick to kick the literary template into the ditches.  After having written a few paragraphs on BACKGROUND, I saw that my description of the celluloid creation, which made an instant star of newcomer Errol Flynn, had pretty much overwhelmed this nascent book review.

Clearly, I wasn’t ready to read Captain Blood, or review it.

I set the project aside, thinking that with the woke assault on the First Amendment in America, it might be best if I delay any title involving the word, BLOOD.  The use of the term, bloodbath, by the intrepid man who came forward in 2015 to save America, had been so savaged with such ominous stupidity by the Propagandist Left that I took a step back from the bloody matter.

13 July 2024 then transpired, in all of its bloody and horrific history.

I can be viscerally superstitious, to the point of not wanting to be physically close to the object giving me the willies .  It might be the Scots in me, with my proven capacity, and ability, for second-sight; or the black cat in me, or both factors.  I steadfastly listen to what I call my inner voice.

Yes, the hand of God tipped the head of our beloved President on that tragic day in Butler, when father and local firefighter Corey Comperatore shielded his wife and two daughters from the gunfire of a young would-be assassin.  Hero Comperatore is with the angels now.

We, the Patriots, owe infinite thanks to Corey, his surviving loved ones, the families of the wounded at that battle-ground for the ballot box, and to all of the silent, suffering Americans who have had to survive the horror that was the Biden Auto-Pen Presidency.

The citizens of this nation must still endure the lunatic lawlessness that feeds upon itself in this blessed land.  America grants to its citizens the liberties first given them from God — with the heinous, but unavoidable, consequence that evil people will use that freedom to destroy all that is good, sacred, innocent, and humble in these, the United States of America.

I attempted, after the Presidential Election of 2024, to embark, once more, on reading Captain Blood. I could not do it.

Too much trepidation over the violence of the Lunatic Left.  Too much sadness over the reckless and wanton destruction of my country by people whose hatred has destroyed their souls.  Too much somber reflection upon what our constitutional republic has been through to survive the grotesque Political Class.  Too little enthusiastic energy for the future, even though I believe that the best is yet to come.

Even for California!

The battle for the soul of America has been ongoing for many decades.  The sane, civilized, and soulful among us know this battle is never-ending, as well it must be.

I’m not battle-fatigued anymore.  I’ve got my chain-mail of bravery back on me.  I’m gonna gently crack open CAPTAIN BLOOD for summer reading.