Splice the mainbrace! Let's read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Splice the mainbrace! Let's read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels!

master mystifier: Oct 9, 2007

Current reading - begin Post Captain, read to page 197 (chapter 7) by Monday 3/14.

Ahoy there, fellow goons! The weather is getting warm, I�ve finished my winter pile of books to read, and I�m in the mood for a good sea-story � so I�m going to read, for the first time, Patrick O�Brian�s Aubrey-Maturin novels.

Who? What?
Starting in 1969, Patrick O�Brian wrote a sequence of 20 books (plus another unfinished, published posthumously) about the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and his ship�s surgeon, Stephen Maturin, who are both members of the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Most of the books were bestsellers, and many critics regard the series as the best historical novels ever written.

Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review posted:

�O'Brian reconstructs a civilization. The Royal Navy at the beginning of the 19th century was a world of extraordinary breadth and complexity. Its hundreds of ships, the larger of them regular floating cities with close-packed populations of 1,200 souls, allowed Britain first to survive and then to prevail in a struggle whose cost and size would have been unimaginable only a generation earlier. These sailing ships -- today reduced to quaint and soothing images on wall calendars -- were in their time the most complicated machines on earth, and the deadliest.
Patrick O'Brian presents the lost arcana of that hard-pressed, cruel, courageous world with an immediacy that makes its workings both comprehensible and fascinating. All the marine hardware is in place and functioning; the battles are stirring without being romanticized (this author never romanticizes); the portrayal of life aboard a sailing ship is vivid and authoritative.
But in the end it is the serious exploration of human character that gives the books their greatest power: the fretful play of mood that can irrationally darken the edges of the brightest triumph, and that can feed a trickle of merriment into the midst of terror and tragedy. O'Brian manages to express, with the grace and economy of poetry, familiar things that somehow never get written down, as when he carefully details the rueful steps by which Stephen Maturin falls out of love.

Why are you doing this?
I�ve always wanted to read these � the subject matter is fascinating, though as a product of the American public school system, I know next to nothing about nautical history or the Napoleonic wars � and I�ve tried reading the first book, Master and Commander, a few times before, but have given up halfway through from a combination of a too-busy schedule and the fact that this series is very jargon-heavy. I�ve been told that it works like a full-immersion language program � don�t worry about what you don�t understand until you find that you understand it � so I�ll give that a try this time around.

How will this work?
I�m hoping to read 200-300 pages a week, which will amount to one book every ten days or so. I�ll adjust the pace as needed. Hopefully we�ll get a bunch of people reading along, so I won�t be the only one talking about what I�ve read.

BIG IMPORTANT NOTE: I�ve never read these books before. Don�t spoil them for me or anyone else. Re-readers are more than welcome to join, but please don�t discuss what happens until we�ve gotten there as a group.

So. The first book in the series is 1969�s Master and Commander.

Your library probably has it, as well as your local bookstore and Amazon. If you prefer to listen to your literature, the audiobooks of the series are top-notch.

I plan on reaching page 244 (the beginning of Chapter Eight) by Friday. See you then. Happy sailing!

master mystifier fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Mar 9, 2011

# ¿ Feb 28, 2011 18:57

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 22:16

master mystifier: Oct 9, 2007

Supplemental
I�ll also be talking about the background of the novels � the historical context, the technology, the wildlife, as well as any outside literary criticism or commentary I come across. I�ve obtained a copy of A Sea of Words, a reference book by Dean King et al. that explains everything from how a kidney stone was removed to where the mizzen topgallant staysail was. There will be lots of things to talk about, and I hope that people who know more about European naval history than I do (e.g. anyone) will chime in and help us understand.

Here�s the entire piece I quoted in the OP, an appreciation of the series in the NYT Book Review by Richard Snow: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/18/specials/obrian-plank.html

(There will be lots more added later)

# ¿ Feb 28, 2011 18:58

master mystifier: Oct 9, 2007

Pigsfeet on Rye posted:

It's very interesting what O'Brian notes in the foreword of M&C(I think, I'm away from home atm), how the actions and ships described are closely modeled on real ones that he learned about via various Royal Navy and other maritime-related sources.

Patrick O'Brian posted:

From the great wealth of brilliantly-fought, baldly-described actions I have picked some I particularly admire; and so when I describe a fight I have log-books, official letters, contemporary accounts or the participants' own memoirs to vouch for every exchange.

Quick check-in: I'm still only in chapter two, but I'm already getting sucked in. Not a whole lot to comment on just yet, but one thing that has struck me is how O'Brian shows Aubrey's and Maturin's flaws from the start, although their flaws seem to cancel out whenever they're in the same room.

The conversation where Jack convinces Stephen to join him on the Sophie, for example, demonstrates the self-confidence and expertise of each man in his field, but as soon as they separate it becomes apparent how hopeless they are without each other. Jack struggles to get his new sloop together, and Stephen wakes up hung over in an abandoned church apse, where he has been sleeping after his landlord "began to grow a shade uncivil".

The going is slow, since I'm consulting A Sea of Words once or twice per page, but if I have to look up something more than that, I'll just gloss over it and continue on. So far I still feel quite out of my depth, but at least I know where the royal sails are located, and when the yardmaster Mr. Brown calls them "nasty, unnecessary, flash, gimcrack things", even though it's not important to my overall understanding of the story, it's a wonderful bit of world-building that I appreciate.

Background/contextual stuff:

I tried looking for Locatelli's quartet in C major, as described in the opening pages, only to find out that although Pietro Locatelli was an actual composer, he never wrote a single quartet, let alone one in C major. Is this an intentional joke on O'Brian's part? His research is so stellar that I can see that as the only conclusion. Here is a lovely violin concerto by Locatelli, though.

And here is a picture of a hoopoe. No wonder Maturin got so excited about seeing one.

And finally a bit of background on Port Mahon:
Minorca is a Mediterranean island off the coast of Catalonian Spain that changed hands several times during the eighteenth century, and Port Mahon is its capital. Wikipedia tells me that the city has the second deepest natural harbor in the world, and when our story begins in April 1800, it is controlled by the British, although when the Treaty of Amiens was signed in 1802 (ending the hostilities between France and England [I'm sure there will be more to say about that later]) the island was ceded back to the Spanish.

Ninja edit: Forgot to mention my favorite passage so far:

page 30 posted:

He took no notice of the goat abaft the manger, that fixed him with an insulting devilish split-pupilled eye and defecated with intent.

This book is awesome.

master mystifier fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 1, 2011

# ¿ Mar 1, 2011 21:04

master mystifier: Oct 9, 2007

Quick update, since I'm in class most of today and travelling this weekend:

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 8 and loving it so far. I got a bit lost during the capture of Almoraira - I'm someone who needs a map to understand a battle - but my library has a copy of Dean King's companion atlas, so I'll pick that up on my way home today.

A few notes:

The humor in this book is very endearing - and it's primarily character-based, in that it plays on what the reader already knows about the characters and their relationships, rather than any kind of situational tension. Here's an example of what I'm talking about :

page 183 posted:

In [Stephen's] glass he saw the coswain nursing Jack's fiddle-case with stiff, conscious dignity. He leant back, took one foot out of the water - tepid now - and gazed at it for a while, musing upon the comparative anatomy of the lower members in the higher mammals - in horses - in apes - in the Pongo of the African travellers, or M. de Buffon's Jocko - sportive and gregarious in youth, sullen, morose and withdrawn in age. Which was the true state of the Pongo? 'Who am I,' he thought, 'to affirm that the gay young ape is not merely the chrysalis, as it were, the pupa of the grim old solitary? That the second state is not the natural inevitable culmination - the Pongo's true condition, alas?'

'I was contemplating on the Pongo,' he said aloud as the door opened and Jack walked in with a look of eager expectation, carrying a roll of music.

'I am sure you were,' cried Jack. 'A damned creditable thing to be contemplating on, too. Now be a good fellow and take your other foot out of that basin - why on earth did you put it in? - and pull on your stockings, I beg.'

It's really tough to pull off character-based humor well, and O'Brian can do it within 200 pages. Stunning. I already care about these characters, and the thought of 8000 pages more with them fills me with a deep satisfaction.

It's like what Tarantino has called hangout movies - "movies whose plot and camerawork you may admire but whose primary attraction is the characters. A hangout movie is one that you watch over and over again, just to spend time with them." The joy of reading the Aubrey-Maturin books is that I get to wrap myself up in these characters and their world, and the writing is so solid - as tight and taut as the ships themselves - that my transportation to the Mediterranean of the early 1800s is almost effortless.

Historical context:
I'm hoping to fill this section out more as I get into the books and I can do a bit more research, but I've found this article about the siege of Genoa, described VERY briefly on page 143:

The Naval History of Great Britain, Vol III posted:

The blockade of the port of Genoa was undertaken by Lord Keith himself; who, after the accident to the Queen-Charlotte, shifted his flag, first to the 74-gun ship Audacious, Captain Davidge Gould, and subsequently to the Minotaur 74, Captain Thomas Louis. The principal part of the vice-admiral's force consisted of frigates sloops, and Neapolitan gun and mortar boats. These had on several occasions successfully co-operated with the Austrian army in attacks upon the outworks of Genoa. The services of the 38-gun frigate Pha�ton, Captain James Nicholl Morris, had been particularly noticed by the Austrian general, Baron d'Ott, who had succeeded General M�las in the command: and who, in the early part of May, had pushed his advance to the village of Coronata, and compelled General Mass�na to retire within the walls of Genoa.

http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Naval_History/Vol_III/Vol_III_P_009.htm

Again, once I peruse the atlas, I'll have much more to talk about. Gotta run off to a physics quiz, though. I'll leave you with this passage from a conversation between Jack and his midshipmen; I don't have much to say about it but I marked it as a revealing sentence:

page 151 posted:

The Navy speaks in symbols, and you may suit what meaning you choose to the words.

Read from page 244, finish the book by Wednesday.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2011 18:55

master mystifier: Oct 9, 2007

Decius posted:

I don't quite understand why intense friendship without sexual undertones is such an alien concept nowadays, that it must become automatically associated with gay (or end in a relationship if between men and women)? They are such a large part of history and stories in the past. I'm sure such friendships haven't suddenly disappeared, even if they are only "kosher" in media when between soldiers in a "Band of Brother"-like scenario. Neither Jack nor Stephen, neither Frodo nor Sam, neither Bones nor Kirk want to have a sexual relationship with men or the other person. Isn't that the definition of the difference between friendship and relationship? The former is without sexual undertones, the latter with (and actual sex hopefully). I'm sure O'Brian would be the last one having issues with writing them as gay couple if he wanted them to be gay, there isn't a shortage of gay characters in his books after all (although mostly secondary characters).

This issue came up in my recent re-reading of Lord of the Rings. Jack and Stephen (and Tolkien, to boot) lived in a society where they didn't have much interaction with women - at least not much intimate interaction, and I mean in the emotional sense instead of the sexual. It was perfectly normal then for two men to have a deep, platonic friendship; it's only been recently (within the last fifty or sixty years) that people have attributed homosexual aspects to friendship between males.

Sorry for the ramble, I shouldn't post before I've had coffee.

But I�ve finished Master and Commander, and so anything from the book is open to discussion. If you haven�t finished yet, stop reading this post and get back to the book!

The �immersion� approach I was taking with the jargon? I�m totally immersed. I keep thinking about the books whenever my mind wanders � and it wanders quite a bit � which isn�t the best thing when I�m trying to study for a calculus test, but I haven�t been this excited about a series of books in years.

I�ve become used to O�Brian�s style of writing � his way of dropping major plot points into a muttered conversation, or how he�ll jump ahead three weeks in a single paragraph � but I�ve managed to repress my skimming tendencies and the only part of the book I got a bit lost in was the Battle of Algeciras Bay, near the end.
But I think that�s intentional � the ending of the book gets a little weird in its narrative technique � and having the reader separated from the action of the battle, alongside Jack and Stephen, makes us feel as frustrated as they no doubt were. It�s an unconventional thing to do, but O�Brian has the chops to pull it off. Likewise, the court-martial at the very end feels much like the pilot episode of a TV show; there�s no dramatic tension, since I know Jack�s career will survive past this book, and there�s a sense of �there are many more adventures to come!� Again, this is something I wouldn�t tolerate from a lesser writer, but O�Brian is so skilled at constructing his story and characters that these unconventional tricks work.

Shame about Dillon, by the way � I was surprised by his death, because of how much depth his character had been given.

Now let�s talk about history a bit.

Most of the events of Master and Commander were taken almost directly from the adventures of Thomas Cochrane, who commanded the two-masted brig HMS Speedy.

Here are some of the things he got up to during 1800-1801:

Wikipedia posted:

Cochrane was less than impressed with his new command, declaring that Speedy was "little more than a burlesque of a vessel of war".[19] His cabin had only 5 feet (1.5 m) of headroom; when Cochrane wished to shave he had to open a skylight and set his shaving equipment out on the quarterdeck.[20] On another occasion he walked the quarterdeck with Speedy's entire broadside, seven pieces of four-pounder shot, in his pockets.[20] In an attempt to increase the firepower of his new command he asked for and was given two 12-pounder long guns to use as bow and stern chasers, but the scantlings could not support them and they had to be removed.[20] He then requested his 4-pounders be upgraded to 6-pounders, but his gunports were not big enough.[20] He had better luck with his mast, taking a spar from HMS Genereux that was considered too large for Speedy, but which Cochrane felt improved her speed.[20]

In early May Cochrane was escorting a convoy from Cagliari to Leghorn. On 11 May a ship which turned out to be the 6-gun privateer Intr�pide was spotted capturing one of the merchant ships in the convoy, at which point Cochrane chased the Intr�pide and forced her to surrender.[21] Three days later, as the convoy passed the island of Montecristo, five rowing boats emerged from one of the island's coves and captured two of the rearmost merchant ships. Cochrane immediately gave chase, and recaptured them early the next morning.[21] He was then given a free hand to raid enemy shipping in the area, and captured seven or eight vessels that June and July, including the 10-gun privateer Asuncion off Bastia on 25 June and the privateer Constitution off Caprea on 19 July.[3][22] On 22 September he captured a large Neapolitan vessel and, on bringing her into Port Mahon, discovered that the Spanish had taken notice of his depredations and were preparing a frigate to captureSpeedy.[22]

Cochrane prepared for an encounter with this Spanish vessel by painting Speedy to resemble a Danish brig, then in the Mediterranean, called the Clomer. He also appointed a Dane as quartermaster and found him a Danish naval officer's uniform.[23] While cruising off Alicante on 21 December, Speedy encountered an enemy frigate, but tricked her into thinking she was a neutral vessel.[24] Cochrane again used this false flag technique to his advantage; on 22 January he was sailing with a convoy of Danish merchantmen under a Danish flag, pretending to escort them. When a 10-gun French ship and 8-gun Spanish brig approached, Cochrane hoisted British colours and attacked, capturing both of them.[25]

Speedy was cruising off Barcelona at dawn on 6 May 1801 when a large enemy frigate was sighted. The frigate, a xebec-rigged vessel named Gamo, carrying 319 men, was armed with 8- and 12-pounder guns and 24-pounder carronades.[26] This amounted to a total broadside of 190 pounds, more than seven times that of Speedy. Furthermore, Cochrane had only 54 men on board; the rest were serving as prize crews.[27] Instead of evading the frigate, Cochrane closed on her, and at 9:30 a.m. Gamo fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours. In return Cochrane hoisted American colours.[27] The Spanish hesitated, allowing Cochrane to get closer, hoist British colours, and evade the first broadside. Gamo fired another, which Cochrane again evaded, holding fire until Speedy ran alongside and locked her yards in Gamo's rigging.[28] Gamo attempted to fire upon her smaller opponent, but her guns were mounted too high and could not be depressed sufficiently, causing their shot to pass through Speedy's sails and rigging. Cochrane then opened fire with his 4-pounders double- and treble-shotted, their shots passing up through the sides and decks, killing the Spanish captain and boatswain with the first broadside.[29]

Seeing their disadvantage the Spanish second-in-command assembled a boarding party, at which Cochrane drew off and pounded their massed ranks with shot and musket fire before drawing in close again. After having their attempts to board frustrated three times, the Spanish returned to their guns.[29]Cochrane then decided to board the Gamo, and assembled his entire crew into two parties, leaving only the ship's doctor aboard.[30] The British then rushed the Gamo, some boarding from the bow with faces blackened to look like pirates, the rest boarding from the waist.[29] There was a hard-fought battle between the two crews, until Cochrane called down to the doctor, at the time the only person on Speedy, ordering him to send another 50 men over. At the same time he ordered the Spanish colours to be torn down.[31] Thinking that their officers had surrendered the ship, the remaining Spanish seamen stopped fighting. The British had lost three men killed and nine wounded, while the Spanish had lost 14 killed and 41 wounded, a casualty list exceeding Speedy's entire complement.[32] The British then secured the Spanish prisoners below deck and made their way back to Port Mahon. Stung that he had been beaten by such an inferior foe, the Spanish second-in-command asked Cochrane for a certificate assuring him that he had done all he could to defend his ship.[31] Cochrane obliged, with the equivocal wording that he had "conducted himself like a true Spaniard".[31] Cochrane was amused to learn that this certificate had later secured the Spanish officer further advancement.[31]

Later actions and capture
Cochrane returned to the coast off Barcelona in June 1801, and joined the 16-gun HMS Kangaroo in attacking a Spanish convoy of 12 merchant ships and 5 armed vessels anchored under the guns of a large tower.[33] After a sharp action fought between the afternoon of 9 June and the morning of 10 June, the two ships sank or drove ashore all of the ships with the exception of three brigs, which they captured.[33] Three weeks later he was cruising off Alicante when he encountered several merchant vessels, which ran ashore. Rather than wasting time trying to get them off, he burnt them, but in doing so attracted the attention of a foe vastly more powerful than the Gamo.[34]

A formidable French squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Charles-Alexandre L�on Durand Linois had left Toulon bound for Cadiz to collect reinforcements for Napoleon's army in Egypt.[34][d]On 3 July they sighted and chased Speedy, and Cochrane ordered the guns, boats and provisions thrown overboard to lighten the ship.[35] The French caught up nonetheless, and after narrowly avoiding the broadside of the 74-gun Dessaix, Cochrane struck his colours.[2][35] He was taken aboard the Dessaix, where her captain, Christy-Palli�re, recognised Cochrane's accomplishments by refusing to accept his sword.[35] Cochrane was taken along with the fleet and watched the Battle of Algeciras Bay from the Dessaix. He and the crew of the Speedy were later exchanged in the aftermath of the battle.[36] On returning to Gibraltar he was court-martialled for the loss of his ship, and honourably acquitted.[37]

tl;dr - almost everything in the book was taken from Cochrane's voyage.
I had no idea when I was reading that almost all this stuff actually happened. As O�Brian said in his foreword, �there was only one Nelson,� but that doesn�t mean that the other guys in the Royal Navy weren�t just as heroic and incredible.

Here�s a picture of the Speedy:

Links to Wikipedia entries on the Speedy, the Battle of Algeciras Bay, and a brief biography of �Queeney�:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Speedy_(1782)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Algeciras

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hester_Maria_Elphinstone,_Viscountess_Keith

Reading update � starting Post Captain, will reach page 197 (beginning of Chapter 7) by Monday. A little slower pace, but I have a ton of work and school stuff to do in the next few days.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2011 14:06

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Splice the mainbrace! Let's read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels!