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And the hell of it is that Clonfert isn't even a bad captain. He's just not great, and knows it, and he wants to be great more than anything in life. He wants Aubrey's reputation and he just doesn't quite have what it takes to achieve it, and it kills him.
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Apr 8, 2023 13:58
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it's even worse than that. The main thing getting in Clonfert's way is Clonfert. If he could just. . . chill
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Apr 8, 2023 15:32
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Clonfert is a really good portrait of a kind of noble idiot. There's too many bits of good writing in the books to think of. I wish there were more wild actions like the Waakzaamheid fight. But I like Stephen's melancholy musings a lot, like when he is hiking through the woods to Jack's cottage, or when he overhears Jack playing something sad. When Jack's brushes with deep dark emotions it's less cynical and thoughtful, and more just confused, like when he has to stop playing a certain piece of music because he feels like he might go crazy. Or the nightmare of riding a smaller and smaller horse. (My memory is slipping, I may have reversed Jack/Stephen in some of those -- I should reread the books!). But I think the bit of writing that really got me on my first read-through is in Post Captain when Maturin is depressed in Plymouth: "He looked out of the cabin window at the water of the Sound, oily, with the nameless filth of Plymouth floating on it, a bloated puppy, and dipped his pen." That bloated puppy is like a little scrap of a dark haiku.
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Apr 8, 2023 21:06
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Kylaer posted:And the hell of it is that Clonfert isn't even a bad captain. He's just not great, and knows it, and he wants to be great more than anything in life. He wants Aubrey's reputation and he just doesn't quite have what it takes to achieve it, and it kills him. Yeah, it's a very complex balancing act that O'Brian is doing. I really like the scene where he's boasting about his adventures with Sydney Smith(?). I forget if Jack or Stephen was listening to him, but they reflected that Smith really did do a lot of great things, with Clonfert along with him, but Clonfert is still talking obvious nonsense, like telling them the horn on his wall was from a unicorn and he saw Sydney cut it off the horse's head himself, when they could tell perfectly well that it was a narwhal's horn. I think that's what makes me love that book so much -- I go back and forth between Mauritius Command and Letter of Marque as my favorite. I feel like in any other writer's hands, Clonfert would just be an arrogant idiot, the captain who has his officers fawning over him, the guy who tells bullshit stories to make himself feel important, but O'Brian writes him as such a realistic, three-dimensional individual.
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Apr 9, 2023 05:02
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Phenotype posted:Where do you disagree? That's why I love that whole side plot as well -- here's Jack Aubrey, a model of the Royal Navy post-captain, and just being himself, without acting or artifice, forces the less-confident Clonfert to recognize all the ways he falls short, and the desperation behind all his showy antics meant to convince himself that he doesn't. It's interesting, I honestly don't know whether I disagree or not, but the question I wrestle with is whether you can truly hold someone blameless for being ignorant of their impact on others - especially an impact so profound as this. Yeah, this is ultimately Clonfert's story and he is to blame for how it turns out. But I am not quite sure I agree with Stephen's willingness to say that Jack's ignorance of everything is just who he is and hence you can't judge him for it. He's definitely not malicious, but being that insensitive to the people around you is not a laudable trait. I dunno, though.
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Apr 10, 2023 20:48
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Jack's busy.
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Apr 10, 2023 22:05
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Desolation Island: Stephen's assistant Martin catching typhus and dying threw me for a bit of a loop It's a different Martin, which is probably why O'Brian didn't say anything about him being a country parson
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Apr 11, 2023 20:01
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Notahippie posted:It's interesting, I honestly don't know whether I disagree or not, but the question I wrestle with is whether you can truly hold someone blameless for being ignorant of their impact on others - especially an impact so profound as this. Yeah, this is ultimately Clonfert's story and he is to blame for how it turns out. But I am not quite sure I agree with Stephen's willingness to say that Jack's ignorance of everything is just who he is and hence you can't judge him for it. He's definitely not malicious, but being that insensitive to the people around you is not a laudable trait. I dunno, though. Counterpoint, if Jack were aware of Clonfert's psychological crisis and the effect emulation of Jack was having on him , what could be possibly have done about it? He might have planned differently in terms of giving him tasks, but ultimately he is a professional military officer, they are not purely friends or social acquaintances, Jack would still just behave accordingly. He can't moderate his professional efforts because they're making a colleague jealous. Arguably any attempt at managing it, by reassuring Clonfert he is respected or by giving him further opportunities to excel, would make the situation worse, by encouraging him to see his superior the commodore as a valid person to compete against.
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Apr 12, 2023 09:45
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Genghis Cohen posted:Counterpoint, if Jack were aware of Clonfert's psychological crisis and the effect emulation of Jack was having on him , what could be possibly have done about it? He might have planned differently in terms of giving him tasks, but ultimately he is a professional military officer, they are not purely friends or social acquaintances, Jack would still just behave accordingly. He can't moderate his professional efforts because they're making a colleague jealous. Arguably any attempt at managing it, by reassuring Clonfert he is respected or by giving him further opportunities to excel, would make the situation worse, by encouraging him to see his superior the commodore as a valid person to compete against. It's possible he could have avoided the specific way the story ended if he'd been more sensitive and come up with a way to highlight (even if he had to stretch the truth) how Clonfert's earlier actions contributed to the victory. But to me that's not really the issue. To me the criticism of Jack isn't in how he behaved, but the fact that he never even knew he was having that impact on Clonfert. Jack's pretty generally clueless socially in general, and this is just an extension of it. It's all apiece with how he's taken in by Amanda whatshername in Canada or with his political problems, and I don't know if I'm as willing as Stephen is to just shrug and say you can't blame him for that because that's who he is. It's like when you run into somebody who uses "I'm a blunt person" to excuse being an rear end in a top hat - awareness and acknowledgement of a character flaw doesn't excuse you from trying to address it. If I knew Jack personally, the fact that he was completely unaware of how Clonfert was seeing him and acting towards him would diminish him a little in my view. I think it's an interesting commentary on Stephen and his love for Jack that it doesn't, since Stephen is both by nature and by his profession extremely attuned to social relationships how people see each other and he's also generally not hugely forgiving except towards his intimates.
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Apr 12, 2023 16:24
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Notahippie posted:It's possible he could have avoided the specific way the story ended if he'd been more sensitive and come up with a way to highlight (even if he had to stretch the truth) how Clonfert's earlier actions contributed to the victory. But to me that's not really the issue. To me the criticism of Jack isn't in how he behaved, but the fact that he never even knew he was having that impact on Clonfert. Jack's pretty generally clueless socially in general, and this is just an extension of it. It's all apiece with how he's taken in by Amanda whatshername in Canada or with his political problems, and I don't know if I'm as willing as Stephen is to just shrug and say you can't blame him for that because that's who he is. It's like when you run into somebody who uses "I'm a blunt person" to excuse being an rear end in a top hat - awareness and acknowledgement of a character flaw doesn't excuse you from trying to address it. If I knew Jack personally, the fact that he was completely unaware of how Clonfert was seeing him and acting towards him would diminish him a little in my view. I think it's an interesting commentary on Stephen and his love for Jack that it doesn't, since Stephen is both by nature and by his profession extremely attuned to social relationships how people see each other and he's also generally not hugely forgiving except towards his intimates. Stephen has insight into Clonfert's character because he is around Clonfert when on missions together, treats him as a patient, and discusses his mental health at length with his therapist. He's also not Clonfert's commanding officer, so naturally Clonfert is more open around him than he would be around Jack. There is literally no way for Jack to gain the same level of insight without Stephen spelling it all out for him, which obviously he can't do. I think Jack has a decent superficial read into Clonfert's character, which is that he has real abilities but is also a touchy show-off, and Jack's goal is to figure out how to channel that productively, but he has no way of knowing that Clonfert is literally obsessed with him and constantly comparing himself against him. It's also not Jack's job to manage the mental health of a subordinate commander to that level, Clonfert is supposed to be the leader of his crew and part of that is having his own poo poo together. Fundamentally they're both adults with a defined professional relationship, and if Clonfert can't hack it it's on him to resign his commission and go back to London and be the general consolation of the ladies of the town.
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Apr 12, 2023 20:00
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Yeah, that's my general feeling too. Jack is even at some level aware that Clonfert sees him as a rival, or even as someone who's beaten him -- isn't there a passage where Jack promotes Clonfert into a frigate and Clonfert's like "I never thought it would be you giving me my step"? Stephen's not going to tell him that Clonfert is literally making himself sick over his little internal competition, but otherwise Jack pretty much understands what's going on. He just can't know that the poor guy is so obsessed over the whole thing that he'd rather tear his throat open than have to congratulate Jack on the victory.
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Apr 13, 2023 05:55
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Notahippie posted:It's possible he could have avoided the specific way the story ended if he'd been more sensitive and come up with a way to highlight (even if he had to stretch the truth) how Clonfert's earlier actions contributed to the victory. But to me that's not really the issue. To me the criticism of Jack isn't in how he behaved, but the fact that he never even knew he was having that impact on Clonfert. Jack's pretty generally clueless socially in general, and this is just an extension of it. It's all apiece with how he's taken in by Amanda whatshername in Canada or with his political problems, and I don't know if I'm as willing as Stephen is to just shrug and say you can't blame him for that because that's who he is. It's like when you run into somebody who uses "I'm a blunt person" to excuse being an rear end in a top hat - awareness and acknowledgement of a character flaw doesn't excuse you from trying to address it. If I knew Jack personally, the fact that he was completely unaware of how Clonfert was seeing him and acting towards him would diminish him a little in my view. I think it's an interesting commentary on Stephen and his love for Jack that it doesn't, since Stephen is both by nature and by his profession extremely attuned to social relationships how people see each other and he's also generally not hugely forgiving except towards his intimates. Very interesting - while I agree with others' responses above that Jack had far less opportunity to see into Clonfert's mind than Stephen, and basically did assess the situation accurately from a professional point of view, you are onto something. Jack is rather oblivious to social subtleties and not much given to introspection. But I would say that makes the times he does reflect inwardly even more interesting. And arguably his psychological resilience and lack of fear are flip sides of that insensibility.
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Apr 13, 2023 08:17
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Gentlemen, you're all forgetting that Jack IS responsible, because he deliberately failed to transport Lady Clonfert to her rendezvous.
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Apr 13, 2023 19:39
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Rereading Desolation Island cause of the Waak-zaam-ThankYouMaam chat and I'm delighting in one of my favourite of Maturin's character traits: his drug use. It's a constant cycle of discover a new drug, get addicted, marvel at its myriad of beneficial properties, deny that he's addicted through elaborate philosophical arguments with himself, OD or suffer a drug induced injury or have rats rat his entire stash, lament lack of drug, discover new drug etc etc
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Apr 15, 2023 08:45
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I'm dying at Martin discovering that Maturin casually takes 1000 drops of laudanum during Reverse of the Medal, when the normal dose is 25. E: I'm using modern strength laudanum and general rough conversion factors but that's 500mg of oral morphine. That maps not terribly to 25 drops being 12.5mg, which is pretty drat close to a typical modern dose. Which means holy gently caress Maturin is ludicrously tolerant. I'm impressed he shits at all. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 13:31
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jazzyjay posted:Rereading Desolation Island cause of the Waak-zaam-ThankYouMaam chat and I'm delighting in one of my favourite of Maturin's character traits: his drug use. It's a constant cycle of discover a new drug, get addicted, marvel at its myriad of beneficial properties, deny that he's addicted through elaborate philosophical arguments with himself, OD or suffer a drug induced injury or have rats rat his entire stash, lament lack of drug, discover new drug etc etc It's not specific to him. That's how science, medicine and academia worked at that time. You did the science, you did the drugs, you operated on yourself, did obscene experimental operations, observed the effects of experiments on humans and animals and recorded them in Hippocratean fashion. The industrial outcome of this approach (based in Greco-Roman medicine, particularly Alexandrian with its emphasis on dissection and vivisection) is mass animal testing, legislated mass addiction (Oxycodone, alcohol) and modern elective surgery, for example. Note that Stephen is not addicted to alcohol, or at least not in the sense that alcohol addiction was gauged at the time - drinking around the clock. Stephen never has to be carried home on a shutter; granted, he almost dies from unwittingly healing his addiction to laudanum and then taking his normal dose again once he procures an uncompromised source.
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Apr 19, 2023 03:48
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Finished up The Surgeon's Mate last night and I think this might be the first book that hasn't supplanted the previous as my favourite, Fortune of War was great and it was refreshing to see Stephen in his element (in a way I guess) sneaking around Boston and loving the American's poo poo up. To me Surgeon's Mate felt it took a too similar line to Fortune of War with the second and third acts and having Duhamel spring them from jail felt a little anticlimactic after having Jack on the absolute verge of breaking them out, although it had some fun comedy with Jack basically being like "these fuckin' guys are useless" and Jagiello just inadvertently charming every woman he comes across. It also felt like the most light hearted of the books so far, I know they all have their moments but this definitely felt like the most sustained, especially with Jagiello seeming to be the comedic foil for just about every other character. Anyway, moving on to the next one tonight.
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Apr 26, 2023 02:20
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screaden posted:Finished up The Surgeon's Mate last night and I think this might be the first book that hasn't supplanted the previous as my favourite, Fortune of War was great and it was refreshing to see Stephen in his element (in a way I guess) sneaking around Boston and loving the American's poo poo up. To me Surgeon's Mate felt it took a too similar line to Fortune of War with the second and third acts and having Duhamel spring them from jail felt a little anticlimactic after having Jack on the absolute verge of breaking them out, although it had some fun comedy with Jack basically being like "these fuckin' guys are useless" and Jagiello just inadvertently charming every woman he comes across. It also felt like the most light hearted of the books so far, I know they all have their moments but this definitely felt like the most sustained, especially with Jagiello seeming to be the comedic foil for just about every other character. Anyway, moving on to the next one tonight. An interesting one on that - the broad strokes of the denouement you found anticlimactic (I don't know about the details) are directly taken from the life of Sir Sidney Smith.
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Apr 26, 2023 22:31
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Genghis Cohen posted:An interesting one on that - the broad strokes of the denouement you found anticlimactic (I don't know about the details) are directly taken from the life of Sir Sidney Smith. I did see that on the wiki, but yeah it felt a little odd after so much time and words dedicated to their escape attempts, an extremely minor complaint over all though and the interceding passages of the French trying to break Stephen were really good. Anyway, got started on Ionian Mission last night and once again loling at Stephen loving up a game in his attempt at playing pool/billiards.
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Apr 28, 2023 01:43
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Double posting but I'm halfway through Ionian Mission at the moment and it's a bit of an odd duck. I get that it's kind of the point to show the boredom of the blockade assignment by having not a whole lot happen but the minutiae of being in the service out at sea. Luckily it still manages to remain interesting with all the cultural and social descriptions of life on board a ship though, like them getting ready to perform Hamlet, Jack worrying it might be too difficult for them, Jack getting a bunch of instruments for the hands, the cooks reserving the blood from the animals for prop work...but now I'm itching for something to happen.
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May 4, 2023 01:28
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screaden posted:Double posting but I'm halfway through Ionian Mission at the moment and it's a bit of an odd duck. I get that it's kind of the point to show the boredom of the blockade assignment by having not a whole lot happen but the minutiae of being in the service out at sea. Luckily it still manages to remain interesting with all the cultural and social descriptions of life on board a ship though, like them getting ready to perform Hamlet, Jack worrying it might be too difficult for them, Jack getting a bunch of instruments for the hands, the cooks reserving the blood from the animals for prop work...but now I'm itching for something to happen. Don't worry, poo poo gets real! Ionian Mission and Treason's Harbour are drat good.
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May 4, 2023 23:22
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The double ended ship in Post Captain is a symbol of Jack's indecision.
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May 4, 2023 23:29
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Nay tis the carpenter's mistake!
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May 5, 2023 00:02
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O'Brian can be very hamfisted with his sense of humor. I just re-read the Surgeon's Mate and forgot how good of a book this was. Jack has a fling with a somewhat neurotic Amanda Smith who becomes very clingy and then at the end of the book, he learns that she has been married and hails from Knocking Hall, Rutland, and of course knocking and rutting are both synonyms for loving.
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May 8, 2023 02:52
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Huggybear posted:O'Brian can be very hamfisted with his sense of humor. I just re-read the Surgeon's Mate and forgot how good of a book this was. Jack has a fling with a somewhat neurotic Amanda Smith who becomes very clingy and then at the end of the book, he learns that she has been married and hails from Knocking Hall, Rutland, and of course knocking and rutting are both synonyms for loving. Diana describes Rutland as "Slow horses and fast women" which is a war-crime level burn, especially coming from her.
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May 8, 2023 14:45
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Anyone this deep in this thread, please consider this month's Book of the Month: Renault is the only other writer of historical fiction on O'Brians' level. https://twitter.com/alloy_dr/status/1653514266266279936?s=20
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May 8, 2023 14:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Anyone this deep in this thread, please consider this month's Book of the Month: Renault is the only other writer of historical fiction on O'Brians' level. A high compliment but I have to say I am a great fan of Mary Renault as well.
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May 8, 2023 20:27
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Mary Renault is excellent, and I would also nominate Georgette Heyer as being on the same level of meticulous historical writing, although in the romance genre.
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May 9, 2023 03:21
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AngusPodgorny posted:on the same level of meticulous historical writing
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May 9, 2023 17:39
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Sax Solo posted:How are they on like writing skills though? O'Brian is meticulous but I think on top of that he's a very deft writer. No one is quite as subtle a stylist as O'Brian but renault"s character work is on par or maybe superior. She makes you believe you're listening to Theseus, or Alexander, or Socrates.
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May 9, 2023 18:17
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I'd also put in a good word for Hilary Mantel, the Wolf Hall trilogy is fantastic.
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May 9, 2023 20:51
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Heyer is closer to Jane Austen in writing style than O'Brien, but certainly well above what I'd usually expect from a romance author.
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May 9, 2023 21:07
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Mary Renault is fantastic. Her writing is maybe slightly less meticulous (also she has far fewer contemporary works to draw inspiration from) but her characterization is stronger, imo.
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May 10, 2023 13:12
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First time reader plowing through the series. I just finished Reverse of the Medal last night. I think I was in denial the whole time leading up to the pillory scene. Jack's far from perfect but it really hit hard how many people showed up for him. Myrmidongs fucked around with this message at 00:10 on May 12, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 00:17
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Myrmidongs posted:First time reader plowing through the series for the first time. I just finished Reverse of the Medal last night. Yup. Makes me tear up every time I read it.
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May 11, 2023 05:36
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I’ve recently started to listen to the series again (my second time), and I’ve just started Post Captain. I am only three chapters in, but I’m amazed at how much I like it! My first time through I grew very bored with the whole “Captain Aubrey in the Countryside” portion of the plot, but now I can’t get enough! What I once thought was an interminable interlude following all of the sea action in Master and Commander is now easily my favorite part of the 20+ hours I’ve listened to so far. What creatures we humans are.
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May 13, 2023 01:51
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:I’ve recently started to listen to the series again (my second time), and I’ve just started Post Captain. I am only three chapters in, but I’m amazed at how much I like it! My first time through I grew very bored with the whole “Captain Aubrey in the Countryside” portion of the plot, but now I can’t get enough! What I once thought was an interminable interlude following all of the sea action in Master and Commander is now easily my favorite part of the 20+ hours I’ve listened to so far. What creatures we humans are. This is definitely the one book in the series (so far) that's grown on me the most in retrospect. I felt the same way initially but there's so much fantastic character writing in it.
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May 13, 2023 02:54
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:I’ve recently started to listen to the series again (my second time), and I’ve just started Post Captain. I am only three chapters in, but I’m amazed at how much I like it! My first time through I grew very bored with the whole “Captain Aubrey in the Countryside” portion of the plot, but now I can’t get enough! What I once thought was an interminable interlude following all of the sea action in Master and Commander is now easily my favorite part of the 20+ hours I’ve listened to so far. What creatures we humans are. First time through you read the series for the exciting action. On subsequent reads, you come to appreciate how deeply drawn all the characters are.
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May 13, 2023 03:38
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Myrmidongs posted:First time reader plowing through the series. I just finished Reverse of the Medal last night. If you aren't familiar with that era, you would not know to what extent Jack would have been considered a legitimate hero by the Navy and probably the general public. He was revered as a fair captain, a fighting captain, and a sailing captain, and he was not a blue light captain. He was remarkably experienced in battle, and O'Brian hints many, many times at how common it was for many officers to have had no fighting experience. And O'Brian gifts him with total, unwitting humility about it all. Of course, he had to have his faults but none of them were related to captaincy other than a couple of sailor stereotypes, being somewhat in the roving line, for example. I think O'Brian deliberately uses Jack's political difficulties (his father, Wray, his own time in parliament) to not have to write in knighthoods and baronetcies and so forth, to keep the reader from thinking of him as the hero, so he can maintain the dual protagonist equivalency in Stephen (equally frequently reduced to the mortal plane due to his addictions and squalid lifestyle, despite his massive accomplishments in espionage) Huggybear fucked around with this message at 01:24 on May 15, 2023 |
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May 15, 2023 01:20
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“Jack Aubrey in the countryside” like it’s a Jane Austen novel is in many ways one of the greatest moments of the series IMO.
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