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freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

PlushCow posted:

I really struggled with the slang when I started the series too and it really dragged for me because I wanted to know things, but this thread had some really good advice and that is not to get caught up on the slang; O'Brian uses the doctor character Stephen Maturin, who knows nothing about the sea, as a stand-in for the reader to explain things he wants you to really understand, so beyond those times it's OK to let your mind glaze over the nautical parlance.

Eventually you will come to understand a lot on your own. I did branch out to reference books eventually because I love the series so much and wanted to learn but that first read was tough because I felt I had to know everything first off, it went much smoother and much more enjoyable when I let that desire to understand all go when I went back to the first novel after struggling so much.

This is good advice (12 books in and I still only have a dim grasp of what's going on during the naval battles, and don't mind) though I think the books can be quite dense and confusing even before they go to sea. It's an Austenian prose style which can be off-putting for people unused to it, and O'Brian makes no concessions to a reader who isn't fully engaged with every sentence. One thing that really threw me was the lack of transitory exposition; Jack will mention that he has an appointment at the Admiralty later that day and then the very next line of dialogue is somebody speaking to him at the Admiralty, hours later, that sort of thing. It's not something that can be read with half your attention elsewhere.

I remember finding the first two books in particular - maybe even the first four - quite complicated and difficult to follow, and I don't know how much of that was me eventually growing accustomed to the style, or O'Brian eventually settling into a bit of a lower gear? It helps that after the first two books there's comparatively less time spent in Europe amid the various political machinations of the Royal Navy.

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Notahippie
Feb 4, 2003

Kids, it's not cool to have Shane MacGowan teeth

The Lord Bude posted:

It's been years so my recollection might be rusty but I'm pretty sure there are scenes in M&C which in hindsight were subtle hints that Maturin was a spy Wasn't he dropped off on a beach somewhere to 'visit a friend' or some such thing?

Resurrecting this post because I'm rereading the series and in The Thirteen Gun Salute O'Brian explicitly deals with this - he has Maturin reflecting on his history and remembering how he was when he first met Jack. He suggests that he was basically incredibly depressed after his romantic reversal and the failure of the uprising, to the point of disinterest in everything including politics, but that shortly after the events in M&C he meets a British intelligence agent and is recruited as he slowly recovers from depression and becomes more horrified with Napoleon.

I'm not sure the timeline makes much sense because I didn't think all that much time had passed between M&C and Post Captain, but O'Brian at least explicitly tries to square the presentation of Maturin in M&C and in the rest of the series.

thekeeshman
Feb 21, 2007

Notahippie posted:

Resurrecting this post because I'm rereading the series and in The Thirteen Gun Salute O'Brian explicitly deals with this - he has Maturin reflecting on his history and remembering how he was when he first met Jack. He suggests that he was basically incredibly depressed after his romantic reversal and the failure of the uprising, to the point of disinterest in everything including politics, but that shortly after the events in M&C he meets a British intelligence agent and is recruited as he slowly recovers from depression and becomes more horrified with Napoleon.

I'm not sure the timeline makes much sense because I didn't think all that much time had passed between M&C and Post Captain, but O'Brian at least explicitly tries to square the presentation of Maturin in M&C and in the rest of the series.

Yeah I thought in M&C they explicitly say he just hung out on the beach by himself for a while, he just wanted to get out of the ship.

Molybdenum
Jun 25, 2007
Melting Point ~2622C
ive said this before but this series of books was my first introduction into the genre as a whole. after obrian i read the dudley pope series, cs forester and now im reading bernard cornwall's sharpe novels. i feel like im always chasing the high i got from reading obrian and i may never get it again except for the inevitable re-reads.

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018

Molybdenum posted:

ive said this before but this series of books was my first introduction into the genre as a whole. after obrian i read the dudley pope series, cs forester and now im reading bernard cornwall's sharpe novels. i feel like im always chasing the high i got from reading obrian and i may never get it again except for the inevitable re-reads.

exactly the same thing happened to me

Notahippie
Feb 4, 2003

Kids, it's not cool to have Shane MacGowan teeth

ChubbyChecker posted:

exactly the same thing happened to me

None of them are as good, in my thinking. I don't think there's any other author that captures the period with the subtlety, accuracy, and nuance that O'Brian does. The closest I have been able to come is reading authors from the period, but those are weird in themselves - I forget which book it was but I was reading a sea story from the mid 19th century where the author paused in the middle of the story to write a page-long defense of the idea of people "passing as gentlemen." The argument if I recall was that you clearly could never expect a commoner to fight as hard as someone "fighting to maintain the cleanliness of an unstained escutcheon with centuries of history." It may or may not have been the same book where a side plot featured an evil Jesuit dressing up as a devil to scare dying people into giving money to the Catholic church.

Raskolnikov2089
Nov 3, 2006

Schizzy to the matic

Notahippie posted:

None of them are as good, in my thinking. I don't think there's any other author that captures the period with the subtlety, accuracy, and nuance that O'Brian does. The closest I have been able to come is reading authors from the period, but those are weird in themselves - I forget which book it was but I was reading a sea story from the mid 19th century where the author paused in the middle of the story to write a page-long defense of the idea of people "passing as gentlemen." The argument if I recall was that you clearly could never expect a commoner to fight as hard as someone "fighting to maintain the cleanliness of an unstained escutcheon with centuries of history." It may or may not have been the same book where a side plot featured an evil Jesuit dressing up as a devil to scare dying people into giving money to the Catholic church.

You won't get the action, but Jane Austen is pretty good after Patrick O'Brian. And I was surprised to find out Charles Dickens is absolutely loving hilarious in much the same way as O'Brian.

High school was a terrible place to learn about the classics.

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

FOPTIMUS PRIME

Notahippie posted:

It may or may not have been the same book where a side plot featured an evil Jesuit dressing up as a devil to scare dying people into giving money to the Catholic church.
evil jesuits are everywhere in books of this time, and they're always badass. flannery o'connor's the enduring chill is about the appeal of this powerful antihero image

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




HEY GUNS posted:

evil jesuits are everywhere in books of this time, and they're always badass. flannery o'connor's the enduring chill is about the appeal of this powerful antihero image

People should read more Flannery O'Connor. She's a little nuts, has a sharp eye for social constructs to tear apart, and a jaundiced eye for human nature. She's an author I was happy to be assigned back in college.

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



Molybdenum posted:

ive said this before but this series of books was my first introduction into the genre as a whole. after obrian i read the dudley pope series, cs forester and now im reading bernard cornwall's sharpe novels. i feel like im always chasing the high i got from reading obrian and i may never get it again except for the inevitable re-reads.

If Dewey Lambdin is on your list, rest assured he never gets anywhere near as good as O'Brian, either. I've read him, Forrester, and the first few Sharpe novels and yeah, nothing's come close. Forrester's probably the closest for getting the versimilitude right, but Hornblower is kind of a boring, rigid protagonist that I couldn't bring myself to like very much. Lambdin's Alan Lewrie is at least an interesting character, even if his novels are a bit more pulpy (and, at least early on, contain some cringey sex scenes), and he does go to a lot of interesting places and periods. I also read Pride and Prejudice, which was actually a lot more interesting and funnier than I'd expected, and probably a LOT easier to read now that I've had a grounding in the subtleties of that era.

I've been meaning to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norris, which I've heard is very good at verisimilitude, although it's about supernatural stuff rather than realistic history. It's been sitting on my bookshelves for months while I re-read O'Brian.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell' is very good and you will enjoy it if you like fantasy and like O'Brian. Her writing style is much more Jane Austen than O'Brian, and it's more a comedy of manners historical novel mixed with magic than O'Brian, but they are very good and there is a similar sort of immersion imo.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

J Strange & Norrell is one of the best books of the last 20 years.

I think it was Hiernoymous who said the only other author who writes historical fiction as well as O'Brian is Mary Renault, though her preferred period is antiquity. I've had The King Must Die on my TBR pile for a while and still haven't gotten round to it.

Molybdenum
Jun 25, 2007
Melting Point ~2622C

Phenotype posted:

If Dewey Lambdin is on your list, rest assured he never gets anywhere near as good as O'Brian, either.

i read the first few Lambdin books and one of the dedications really stood out. it was something like:

to my ex-wife, dont flatter yourself, you're not in this book.

yikes.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



I heartily recommend the Sharpe series - having read through Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin, "Sharpe's Trafalgar" was probably the best described and most interesting navel battle I've ever read. It's also a lot less repetitive than the AM novels.

Raskolnikov2089
Nov 3, 2006

Schizzy to the matic

Phenotype posted:

I've been meaning to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norris, which I've heard is very good at verisimilitude, although it's about supernatural stuff rather than realistic history. It's been sitting on my bookshelves for months while I re-read O'Brian.

Strange and Norrell is one of my favorite books. It's very much a manners comedy, like O'Brian, Austen, etc, so if you enjoy the humor from the latter two, I think you'll enjoy Strange and Norrell.

Sharpe I enjoy for the history of battles (Cornwell always does great research) and the battles are exciting but I can only read a little bit of Sharpe at a time. Every book is basically the same. A haughty new officer hates Sharpe. A new foe appears. A new woman appears. Sharpe fights the new officer. In order to get out of trouble, he has to undertake some impossible John Wick-ian task involving the new foe (or the officer if he's the main villain) in a big battle. Rinse and repeat, every book.

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018

Raskolnikov2089 posted:

Strange and Norrell is one of my favorite books. It's very much a manners comedy, like O'Brian, Austen, etc, so if you enjoy the humor from the latter two, I think you'll enjoy Strange and Norrell.

Sharpe I enjoy for the history of battles (Cornwell always does great research) and the battles are exciting but I can only read a little bit of Sharpe at a time. Every book is basically the same. A haughty new officer hates Sharpe. A new foe appears. A new woman appears. Sharpe fights the new officer. In order to get out of trouble, he has to undertake some impossible John Wick-ian task involving the new foe (or the officer if he's the main villain) in a big battle. Rinse and repeat, every book.

yeah, and he has the same format in his viking books

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



FWIW I like Austen and POB, but I couldn't stand Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel. It might be because faerie stuff bores the bejeezus out of me. I don't recall it seeming especially clever or well written though; it seemed more fannish than human. Is it really better than Little, Big? I couldn't finish that but at least it did seem like there was something there.

Genghis Cohen
Jun 29, 2013

freebooter posted:

J Strange & Norrell is one of the best books of the last 20 years.

I think it was Hiernoymous who said the only other author who writes historical fiction as well as O'Brian is Mary Renault, though her preferred period is antiquity. I've had The King Must Die on my TBR pile for a while and still haven't gotten round to it.

Mary Renault is a great author if you like ancient Greece. Very much 'gets' the period and I can see why the comparison with POB would be drawn. Her characters are more authentic to the period than most attempts, not just modern people with a thin coating of ancient mannerisms. Probably not so much as POB's, but then it's a much more distant period to our own.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



Raskolnikov2089 posted:


Sharpe I enjoy for the history of battles (Cornwell always does great research) and the battles are exciting but I can only read a little bit of Sharpe at a time. Every book is basically the same. A haughty new officer hates Sharpe. A new foe appears. A new woman appears. Sharpe fights the new officer. In order to get out of trouble, he has to undertake some impossible John Wick-ian task involving the new foe (or the officer if he's the main villain) in a big battle. Rinse and repeat, every book.
The parts about having a new villain and new mission (i.e, plot) in every book are reasonably true.

Raskolnikov2089
Nov 3, 2006

Schizzy to the matic

Xander77 posted:

The parts about having a new villain and new mission (i.e, plot) in every book are reasonably true.

I'm far from the only person who has noticed this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sharpe+formula+cornwell

Not saying Sharpe novels aren't entertaining, they're certainly a cut above most historical fiction. But there is definitely a heavily recurring story structure.




Also I just realized we're talking other historical fiction and no one has mentioned Flashman

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018

Raskolnikov2089 posted:

I'm far from the only person who has noticed this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sharpe+formula+cornwell

Not saying Sharpe novels aren't entertaining, they're certainly a cut above most historical fiction. But there is definitely a heavily recurring story structure.




Also I just realized we're talking other historical fiction and no one has mentioned Flashman

there's also an ancient front page article: https://www.somethingawful.com/awful-movie-database/sharpes-piss-pot/

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

That's fuckin great!

And yeah Sharpe is formulaic but that's the charm. Cornwell is definitely dumbed down a bit from O'Brian but he's technically competent in a way most historical fiction authors just aren't.

We do have an ongoing Let's Read of Flashman right now! https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3894423

Fire Safety Doug
Sep 3, 2006

99 % caffeine free is 99 % not my kinda thing
While not as formulaic, POB definitely starts treading familiar paths in the later books. There's only so many places you can go once your lovable underdogs are multimillionaire family men.

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

That's fuckin great!

And yeah Sharpe is formulaic but that's the charm. Cornwell is definitely dumbed down a bit from O'Brian but he's technically competent in a way most historical fiction authors just aren't.

We do have an ongoing Let's Read of Flashman right now! https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3894423

:nice:

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Even when POB's plots are pretty clunky his writing is still pretty sharp IMHO.

PatMarshall
Apr 6, 2009

Mr. Midshipman Easy by Marryat is terrific if you want a quasi-contemporary naval fix (also the three-sided duel is hilarious).

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018


Genghis Cohen
Jun 29, 2013
Sure, to 'relieve constipation'. We've all heard that one before!

Fire Safety Doug posted:

While not as formulaic, POB definitely starts treading familiar paths in the later books. There's only so many places you can go once your lovable underdogs are multimillionaire family men.

I agree there is a certain sameness. Aubrey has commanders who dislike him (although they are quite different in nuance), repeatedly seizes lucrative prizes and gets embroiled in lawsuits. Stephen has many visits on intelligence business to exotic natural-beauty spots, Diana leaves him several times, Joseph in the last two books is basically a replacement for Martin, etc. Overall I think they're different enough that it doesn't become as wearisome as Sharpe/Uhtred. After all POB's books are more novels of manners than pure adventure books which rely on the tension of action.

Lockback
Sep 3, 2006

All days are nights to see till I see thee; and nights bright days when dreams do show me thee.
POB's story beats repeat over the course of novels too, in which the space between the beats is wide enough that you can introduce enough new events to alleviate the repetition. It's usually not the missions or objectives that color the story archs, but the human elements. Torrid love affairs on the ship, breaking crew-mates out of prison, public trials, nearly dying of dehydration in the doldrums. "Jack really pokes Napoleon's eye with that capture!" is more of a background coloring.

PhantomOfTheCopier
Aug 13, 2008

Pikabooze!

Phenotype posted:

There was definitely more than one occasion where Jack's dinner guests slid off their seats in an alcoholic stupor.
What a bunch of prudes we've become.

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

That's why there's all this 'a glass of wine with you sir!'
And jerks (we've become). The loss of formal dinner is quite the tragedy.

Is this a project Gutenberg recreation or just fake? It starts off with a couple of long s characters but the rest are clearly 'f'. The crossbar can be seen and there are f ligatures in places. Feems quite inconfiftent.

Was this an 18th century "cool ftory bro"? :fork:

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

What a bunch of prudes we've become.

And jerks (we've become). The loss of formal dinner is quite the tragedy.

Is this a project Gutenberg recreation or just fake? It starts off with a couple of long s characters but the rest are clearly 'f'. The crossbar can be seen and there are f ligatures in places. Feems quite inconfiftent.

Was this an 18th century "cool ftory bro"? :fork:

no idea, i found it in the cursed pics thread

and formal dinners haven't disappeared, and no one is stopping you from organizing one

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

What a bunch of prudes we've become.

And jerks (we've become). The loss of formal dinner is quite the tragedy.

I'm not sure what's jerkish and prudish about not getting black-out drunk as a manner of course during a meal.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

ChubbyChecker posted:



and formal dinners haven't disappeared, and no one is stopping you from organizing one

I mean, COVID

but even before that, it's harder to have a dinner party in modern america because lots of people are on very specific diets.

quote:

DS: I think that’s a luxury problem from the days of yore, really. Because now, I think the problem is how do you even have a dinner party anymore? I mean one person is lactose intolerant, another person can’t eat wheat, someone’s a vegetarian, someone’s a pescatarian.

That was a thing I noticed in France. People eat stuff there. You can actually have a dinner party. We’ve never had that problem in France.

https://www.splendidtable.org/story/david-sedaris-on-his-father-he-would-eat-in-his-underpants

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

I recall an anecdote about an American expatriate becoming pregnant in France, and asking a French mother whether she would drink alcohol in pregnancy. And the French woman was aghast and said, "Oh, no, never! Only wine."

PhantomOfTheCopier
Aug 13, 2008

Pikabooze!

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

but even before that, it's harder to have a dinner party in modern america because lots of people are on very specific diets.
I think it's nearly impossible to achieve:
* Adults sitting at a table (no screaming brats)
* People engaged in the flow of a primary conversation
* Side conversations that are suitably subdued (instead of everyone trying to talk over the noise)
* And because there's no 'captain', people relinquishing the lead so others can engage the table.

It's not so much appetite as it is attitude. In America anything over two people seems to fail. Homes are basically non-public taverns in terms of noise, drinking, etc.

Class Warcraft
Apr 27, 2006


PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

I think it's nearly impossible to achieve:
* Adults sitting at a table (no screaming brats)
* People engaged in the flow of a primary conversation
* Side conversations that are suitably subdued (instead of everyone trying to talk over the noise)
* And because there's no 'captain', people relinquishing the lead so others can engage the table.

It's not so much appetite as it is attitude. In America anything over two people seems to fail. Homes are basically non-public taverns in terms of noise, drinking, etc.

I was invited to a dinner party for a friend that was moving away about 6 years ago. Being millennials we threw it half ironically, with everyone dressing up and serving the fanciest foods we could think of. Despite the veils of irony it was a hell of a good time and we did nearly drink ourselves under the table.

I think the main thing preventing it from being more common is how busy everyone is, and how much of a pain in the rear end it is to get home after a long night of drinking.

Kylaer
Aug 4, 2007
I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!
You need some stout deckhands who can sling you over the side in a net and row you back to your own ship.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
It's not impossible, yeah, I've done it, but it's easier when you don't have kids and the host will need a day off minimum to prepare. When I've done it, i've done it on weekends. Generally for six people not eight though.

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE
Elaborate dinner parties were easier when the work involved in organising them was 'rattle off some instructions to the servants and then reward yourself for the effort with a gin and tonic'.

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Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



The Lord Bude posted:

Elaborate dinner parties were easier when the work involved in organising them was 'rattle off some instructions to the servants and then reward yourself for the effort with a gin and tonic'.

I watch The Great British Bake Off sometimes, and it's funny the way this influenced their traditional dishes -- British cooking and baking seems to go in for very intricate design work a lot of the time, stuff that's very labor intensive, because to the landed gentry, labor was incredibly cheap, so why not demand the best, fanciest-looking food you can imagine?

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