Sci-fi-loving sailor

Sci-fi-loving sailor

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Angelo Gualtieri, born of an Italian father and English mother, was brought up in England. This gave him a passionate temperament held down, sometimes unsuccessfully, by British reserve and upbringing. He started his career as a research engineer in the UK, then at the Stanford Research Institute in the US, before moving to Thailand years ago.

A keen sailor, he became commodore of the Royal Varuna Yacht Club. He also built a number of yachts, one of which, a 14m ketch, was sailed from Thailand to Europe by the owner, and later to the US, where it remains.

In 1978, Angelo was made managing director of a company that built ships for the Royal Thai Navy. During the next 12 years the company built many ships for the Navy, Customs Department, Harbour Department and Marine Police. These ships ranged from 20m, fast patrol boats to a 4,500 tonne tank landing ship and a 7,500 tonne dredger. The company also exported a number of boats to foreign governments in the region.

Now retired, Angelo is busier than ever. He assists his grown-up son in running a new company that develops projects in the region. He also just completed a book, and it’s not about yachts. The Gates Of Olympus, released last year, is Angelo’s sci-fi novel about genetic engineering and a race of telepathic human beings.

— Anchalee Kongrut

What is on your bedside now?

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. It was published in 1972 and I have read it before. It is a magical story of a boy who became the favourite of Alexander the Great. I started to read it yet again since Persia, now Iran, is much in the news. Persia under Alexander became an empire in the 4th century BC and much larger than Iran is today. The story is told in the first person by the Persian boy, Bagoas. It is a fascinating account of the conquests of Alexander and a very personal story of the relationship between Bagoas and the great king. Despite the fact that both characters came from two nations that had been at war for decades, each came to like the other’s culture. Greece was famed for its cultural heritage, its art, its architecture and its philosophy. Persia was famous for its army, but was considered barbarian. It is an interesting interplay of how opposites can attract each other.

Paper or e-books?

I haven’t switched to electronic books. Not yet. From habit, I suppose, I like to hold a book and like to see it on a table or book stand. If the cover is interesting, it draws me.

An electronic reading device is usually a tablet, featureless and cold in appearance. One knows it to be convenient and containing perhaps a thousand books, which is much more efficient in terms of book availability, but there is no magic, no wonder; it remains a tool.

Do you have any disappointing books that were recommended by many? Why?

There are several on my shelves. They all share the same problem. They are uninteresting to me. One has to allow that people’s tastes differ and a well-recommended book must have been interesting to someone. As such I do not condemn such books. I will only say that they do not interest me.

As an expert on boats, are there any books on the subject would you recommend?

The Trireme Project: Operational Experience 1987-90, Lessons Learnt, edited by Timothy Shaw, on the design and building of an ancient Greek trireme in 1987. The trireme was the naval war weapon of the ancient Greeks and used quite differently from more recent warships — with no guns, the Greeks developed this design where the whole ship was the weapon and used for ramming other ships. With it the Greeks had the most powerful navy of their time and triremes were the means by which they defeated a much larger military power, the Persians, at the battle of Salamis.

What is your most favourite book?

My favourite books are [the Mars trilogy], Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is the fictional story of the colonisation and introduction of human civilisation on the planet Mars. It is scientifically plausible, written with huge attention to detail and was a winner of the Nebula award. Arthur C. Clarke called it “a staggering book ... the best novel on the colonisation of Mars that has ever been written”.

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