Israel Potter

By: Herman Melville

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Based on the life of an actual soldier who claimed to have fought at Bunker Hill, Israel Potter is unique among Herman Melville's books: a novel in the guise of a biography. In telling the story of Israel Potter's fall from Revolutionary War hero to peddler on the streets of London, where he obtained a livelihood by crying "Old Chairs to Mend," Melville alternated between invented scenes and historical episodes, granting cameos to such famous men of the era as Benjamin Franklin (Potter may have been his secret courier) and John Paul Jones, and providing a portrait of the American Revolution as the rollicking adventure and violent series of events that it really was.

Public Domain (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Cameo appearances made by King George III, Benjamin Franklin, and John Paul Jones give Boehmer the opportunity to render their vivid personalities as he chooses. Boehmer’s second talent, we learn, is to make the unfamiliar words of the time—the 'must needs' and 'e’re longs'—melt into the phrases we do understand. His flow upgrades the story for contemporary listeners and creates an adventuresome ambiance. Boehmer’s ultimate talent comes with his agility at employing accents, all credible and entertaining." (AudioFile)

Original Forrest Gump BUt Higher IQ

Melville takes a break after the heavy Moby Dick and Pierre sagas and gives us this delightful historical fiction based loosely on real people and events.

Our colonial Gump begins his story at a mountain home in New England, and we follow him to a shipwreck in the West Indies, to hunting whales in the Pacific, fighting at Bunker Hill, to intercepting British supply ships under General Washington, a prisoner of war, escape, cultivating strawberries for a benevolent Knight, raking gravel with King George, a secret courier for Benjamin Franklin, kidnapped and impressed into service into the Royal Navy, naval battles with John Paul Jones, POW Ethan Alan in England… finally to arrive back in Boston 50 years later on July 4th, 1826 (another auspicious date).

And lots of running in between episodes :-)

I really appreciate the…

…narrator taking on more obscure works when he could’ve done the 1000th version of Gatsby or whatever. Boehmer has a pleasant voice and is a passable actor, but not a literary reader. He continually botches the rhythm of the prose, eliding sentences for no reason and then pausing slightly mid-sentence, so the listener can’t at first be sure where the clauses belong. This is doubly a shame since it’s Melville’s easiest reading. Boehmer also doesn’t know how to pronounce certain words like portentous, or crag. He says the latter like crayg.