Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



"The operation was a success but the patient died" is a hoary old joke though.

O'Brian does love to poke fun at the doctors sometimes. I forget which book it is where Stephen and another doctor get seasick, but of course it can't be as simple as that so they are diagnosing and prescribing each other, and when the rough seas end decide all their cures worked at the same time while Jack and the other sailors just smirk knowingly.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



He doesn't hate the shirts, it's that he and Padeen JUST got done packing the sea trunk as tight and neat as could be with ropes and fancy knots, and were not going to open it again to put in some shirts.

edit: However Stephen does remember his laudanum, and I'm sure if it had been left out they would have repacked the chest.

Sax Solo fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Oct 7, 2018

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



MeatwadIsGod posted:

since it's probably my favorite action sequence of the series (so far).

Oh for me it's gotta be the Waakzaamheid.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



I don't know if I could pick a second favorite ship action. The one in the beginning of Post Captain where Jack is a passenger on an Indiaman and helps defend against a French privateer was good with an unusual, non-quarterdeck, POV. (This is the one where the Misses Lamb are posing as powder boys, but Jack doesn't recognize them and cusses them out.)

My least favorite ship action is easily the Shannon/Chesapeake fight in Fortune of War. It's a boring battle in the first place, and there's a faint stink of national pride in the writing, too.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Back when I started this last read-through I went looking for videos on youtube and found a couple decent ones:

- Star of India
- How to Sail a Full-Rigged Ship: Sørlandet

I especially like the first video of the Star of India video about weighing anchor. I had no idea what was going on there.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Martin's death is only in spirit, as he starts to bore and annoy Stephen, and Stephen starts to hate the living poo poo out of him. Martin fucks himself up so badly over Clarissa that Stephen has the pretext to just boot him out of the ship and his life completely.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Genghis Cohen posted:

I think this is a rather harsh interpretation!

I exaggerated a little, but Stephen can be a harsh character. Stephen is blind to some aspects of himself and I think it's interesting to read the books with that in mind.

For example at some point Stephen writes to Diana that a large part of Martin's downfall was that Jack did not like him, and the crew sensed this and never fully warmed up to him. Stephen says that in short Martin did not, "accomplish the feat of making a friend of his friend's close associate."

Yet earlier, when Martin begs off a social event to avoid Clarissa:

quote:

There were some of the exactly-timed evolutions and manoeuvres they had seen far to the south, in Annamooka, and they were received with applause; but not with nearly such hearty applause as the much freer hula, danced with great skill, grace and enthusiasm by a number of young women.

‘I am glad Martin is not here,’ said Stephen in Jack’s ear. ‘He could never have approved these licentious postures and wanton looks.’
It sounds like Stephen put a little poison in the well. More than that, Jack is not a fool, and if Stephen is broadcasting, "I don't actually like Martin anymore" then he and other people are going to pick up on that.

Later when Martin criticizes habitual drug use, Stephen actually goes kind of broke-brain about it:

quote:

'...Yet providing we do not die of thirst, I comfort myself with the thought that even this languid pace brings us nearly a hundred miles closer to my coca-leaves – a hundred miles closer to wallowing in some clear tepid stream, washing the ingrained salt from my person and chewing coca-leaves as I do so, joy.’

Martin tapped a sheaf of papers together and after a moment he said, ‘I have no notion of these palliatives, which so soon become habitual. Look what happened to poor Padeen, and the way we are obliged to keep the laudanum under lock and key. Look at the spirit-room in this ship, the only holy of holies, necessarily guarded day and night. In one of my parishes there are no less than seven ale-houses and some of them sell uncustomed spirits. I hope to put all or at least some of them down. Dram-drinking is the curse of the nation. Sometimes I turn a sermon in my mind, urging my hearers to bear their trials, to rely on their own fortitude, on fortitude from within, rather than their muddy ale, tobacco, or dram-drinking.’

‘If a man has put his hand into boiling water, is he not to pull it out?’

‘Certainly he is to pull it out – a momentary action. What I deprecate is the persistent indulgence.’

Stephen looked at Martin curiously. This was the first time his assistant had spoken to him in a disobliging if not downright uncivil manner and some brisk repartees came into his mind. He said nothing, however, but sat wondering what frustrations, jealousies, discontents had been at work on Nathaniel Martin to produce this change not only of tone but even of voice itself and conceivably of identity: the words and the manner of uttering them were completely out of character.
This is an, "I am so loving done w/ you" response going on in Stephen's mind.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



I don't think Stephen ever quite understands Diana, like a naturalist doesn't exactly understand a wild animal, though he may want to admire it, keep it, and put his name on it.

When it comes to who did what with whom, I wonder if Sophia ever did her revenge-affair on Jack and had like the first orgasm of her life.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



builds character posted:

Wasn’t there a local squire that Diana and maybe someone else introduced her to? I could have sworn it’s implied that she figures things out with him.

Captain Apollo lol; he gave a splendid ball you know:

TYA; Diana talking to a probably very uncomfortable-looking Stephen posted:

'... Then I said, but in a tone I thought she would understand, that what she most urgently needed was a really kind, gentle and considerate lover to put her in tune and show her what all the talk and poetry and music and fine clothes were really about, and how it justified them all. A man like Captain Adeane, who danced with her at all the last Dorchester assemblies and who was so discreetly particular. Do you know him, my dear?’

‘I believe not.’

‘He is a soldier, and he has a big place behind Colton, kept for him by a rather young and skittish aunt. Being so absurdly handsome, he is usually called Captain Apollo. He will have nothing whatsoever to do with girls, but the young married women of the neighbourhood – well, I will not say that they actually stand there in lines, but I believe he is a fairly general consolation. He gave a splendid ball last week.’

‘I should like to meet the gentleman.’

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



I wouldn't like it if the narrative was too neat and tidy; it really does help the feeling of verisimilitude. That said, it does acquire an edge of laziness in later books and fast-forwarding through sea battles (like with the Xebec full of gold in one of the last few books, iirc) is sad.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



That's beautiful, I wonder if the canvas like that on deck is what "rigged for church" looks like?

I feel POB would be disappointed in the stern windows, no curving sweep of glowing light.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



the vile Polycule Polychrest

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



No, I think PlushCow has a really good eye and the overhead view is wrong. (e: or else now I have the brain sickness too.) The wheel is going right and the tiller goes right.

Coincidentally, I was just reading in Cochrane: the Real Master and Commander, that the Speedy had a hand tiller, not a wheel -- in contradiction to Cochrane's own autobiography. You can see it in Geoff Hunt's painting of the Speedy, too:

(Sophie is definitely written as having a wheel though.)

Sax Solo fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Oct 8, 2019

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

Note that this question is discussed on the talk page for that Wikipedia entry. I think it's just a case of an overhead view of a spinning wheel being ambiguous, a la https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Dancer

Well unfortunately not everyone is right on the internet. I don't think it's ambiguous -- tricky and difficult but not ambiguous. However! Even if we ignore the wheel movement, the tiller/rudder is moving wrong because the image is supposed to be synchronized, but it's not.

To see it.. I'll add port and starboard labels to the two views. I pray I do not gently caress it up:


Now look at the movement of the two tillers. They are going (right left right left) in sync together on your screen, right? But that means they're not going (port starboard port starboard) together in those views. Therefore, wiki gif is wrong.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Sophie is also especially sheltered and detached from reality, sort of by choice/temperament.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



PlushCow posted:

Stephen felt his mouth widen involuntarily, his diaphragm contract, and his breath beginning to come in short thick pants.

Even in narrator voice, it can't quite be called laughter.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



freebooter posted:

What exactly is the deal with the child in India?

I'm still wondering what was the deal with the child "bed companion" in Pulo Prabang in the Thirteen Gun Salute.

edit: The most generous reading I can come up with is that it's part of a cover, and/or some kind of weird daughter attenuation training.

Sax Solo fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Jan 22, 2020

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Kylaer posted:

I didn't pick up on her being described as a child, I thought she was an adult prostitute and it was just another example of what an oddball Maturin is (and maybe a bit of intentional misdirection on his part to make people misjudge him). Maturin may have referred to her as a child (although I don't remember him doing so) but he routinely does that to women who are adults.
I think you are right, and it is not as sinister as I remember. I found the paragraph and she is described as a "young woman", and Stephen's "passivity" does not surprise or displease her, so it's probably chaste. Sorry for stirring the pot!

As for Dil, I think she is sort of an illustration of the problem Stephen is having with Diana. It's through her he decides to make a go of it, though it's not exactly looking like "this way to a happy ending".

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Nuclear War posted:

He is not a nice person. having juat gone through the audiobooks up to 18, i genuinely dont like him much anymore. different times or no. Jack's a different matter

Yeah Stephen becomes rather self-absorbed and complacent, and kinda drifts away from being in love with Jack. This could be more tolerable if we got equal time w/ Jack, but the books become more and more just what Stephen thinks and does, and we stop getting Jack's POV -- so in the books we also feel like we're losing Jack too, or only seeing him through Stephens (often uncharitable) eyes, e.g. a Stephen who very much wants to let us know that his daughter is beautiful and brilliant, not like Jack's fat stupid kids. The growing undercurrent of Stephen having surpassed Jack, or the books becoming 100% about Stephen's life and 0% about Jack's, was so strong to me that I had a dream of the culmination of their friendship, where Jack and Stephen get marooned on an ice floe, and Stephen cuts open Jack like a tauntaun for warmth, feeling only a mild fond gratitude for this last bit of friendship from his useless uninteresting old friend.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



freebooter posted:

Just finished The Letter of Marque. What's the deal with Stephen and Padeen hiding Stephen's freshly laundered shirts on top of the wardrobe (I think that's what they're doing?) and being ashamed when the maid catches them?

I think it's that Stephen and Padeen just got done sealing up the trunk, and they don't want to re-do it, so they hide the freshly cleaned and pressed shirts, getting them immediately filthy with dust and newsprint.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Genghis Cohen posted:

Is it because Aubrey becomes more the 'great man' with high responsibilities? I'm tempted to think it's just because Maturin has more of the author in him.

O'Brian didn't mind yanking Jack's career towards the story he wanted to write, so I don't think it's a case of his hands being tied narratively. I think he identified more with Maturin, sure, but I think PoB is a good enough author to know what he was doing.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



I feel that passage, where Stephen is in awe of Jack's violin playing -- while charitable -- confirms the alienation from Jack.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Oh, I read it as.. It's not just any old reveal of a new facet, like, "Oh I didn't know you cared about boxing." It's the very last thing, the last little bit of Jack that Stephen can't understand. And IMHO it's presented like, what is knowable is fully known, and what remains is not for Stephen at all. He has come to the limit of the land, and had gazed at what lies beyond, unreachable, before he turns away. The last little bit of mystery, the last pulse of a love that's become inert. It's like an old marriage where one person has taken the other extremely for granted and realizes it possibly too little too late; not something that can be acted on -- merely bittersweetly appreciated.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



I don't mean to over-object to a single word, but Stephen is never actually poor. He is indifferent to money. He broadcasts "shabby", but, aside from his enormous pile of gold that he nearly bumbles away, he has his estate in Spain, which he downplays all the time but turns out to be substantial; he was always rich. Furthermore, despite his bastard status, AFAIK his claim on his inheritance is never troubled -- unlike Jack, who lives in fear during his early career that he will not inherit from his jerkwad father who has remarried scandalously, and he's also harming Jack's career and ruining his family name in politics to boot. Jack's career would not happen without Stephen's repeated use of connections; he'd likely be just some rando earless captain of a merchantman.

quote:

So at least here I think you have to cut the guy a little slack for looking at himself in the mirror and looking at his daughter and doing the same with Jack and his multiple children and being just a teeny bit defensive and overprotective.

Stephen disregarded Jack's kids from day one, though, before he even had his own.

I think the deal is that Stephen is kind of like a grumpy uncle at first. He finds common familial life pretty boring, especially other people's. He thinks he doesn't really want it, which is part of his pursuit of special, non-domestic Diana, but he kind of wants it all along, hence his insistence that they be properly married. I think he starts to change with the arrival of his daughter. Also, I think a really important episode happens in The Wine-Dark Sea. I think the destruction of Martin and Stephen's friendship is fascinating and incredibly well written. A big part of it is that Martin has become boringly self-absorbed and domestic, and is not paying total attention to Stephen, and Stephen hates it. Now things that were tolerated become intolerable, and Stephen projects alllll over the place, and all the negatives come out until Stephen can finally boot Martin out of his life entirely blaming him entirely for everything while nothing is Stephen's fault at all. O'Brian LOVES extremely dry undercutting, and, like, I think people who would defend Stephen from criticisms are actually selling O'Brian short as a writer.

So perhaps by this reading, becoming a dad then a single dad transforms him, and he awakens to his own desire to become a patriarch, finally adding the potto lady to his orbit to match his daughter, Clarissa, Padeen and Thursday and Behemoth Emily and Sarah. Like Jack, he's kind of an absentee patriarch, and those characters kind of just become filed away and inert, but that's sea life I suppose. I also personally find head-of-family Stephen to be kind of aloof and fussy, and e.g. his attitude towards Padeen is kind of a horrorshow of master/servant attitude with incredible power matched with almost zero felt responsibility, where shocking control over a servant's entire life is viewed through the lens of the master seeming kind and generous for giving them anything at all -- but that's another kettle of fish. All in all I find that Stephen does not exactly grow, spiritually in the process of coming into his own, but, like Martin -- maybe like most men -- he kind of shrinks into the role.

My main complaint is that Stephen's quest to become a patriarch is kind of wholly focused on Stephen, and wholly consumes the narrative. Yes, Jack's progress is a major focus of earlier books, but during those times we get a mixture of Jack and Stephen and Stephen is deeply involved in the process. When it's Stephen's turn, there is only Stephen. Stephen kinda stops caring about other things, and there's essentially no other voice, no other view. And I don't really like it, because a whole point of these characters is that alone, they are much less than they are together. Maturin triumphant, flaws unameliorated, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Anyway I'll shut up about this for now!

Sax Solo fucked around with this message at 12:27 on May 28, 2020

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.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



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

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Xander77 posted:

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.

I just read it. It's pretty good! Though it's also fairly laddish, I guess is the word.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



They did an all right job. There's not really any sailing maneuver stuff, IMO Bettany is some character that really isn't Stephen Maturin, and the jingoistic undercurrent is garbage ... but what's there is really good for what it is; many things are done well.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



When I first read the books, my mental casting for Bonden was Prime Suspect era Craig Fairbrass. Big and tough, but a little soft and dopey too.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Even Jack's maximum 17 stone, 238 lbs, is not that overweight for a fit dude over 6'+. It's like Channing Tatum at prime movie weight +50 lbs. Jack's not really fat as much is Stephen is caustic and PoB English.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



freebooter posted:

What the novels leave us with, and what emerges more fitfully from this film, as if in shafts of sunlight, is the growing realization that, although our existence is indisputably safer, softer, cleaner, and more dependable than the lives led by Captain Aubrey and his men, theirs were in some immeasurable way better—richer in possibility, and more regularly entrancing to the eye and spirit alike. As Stephen says of the Iliad, “The book is full of death, but oh so living.” Just so; if you died on board the Surprise, it would not be for want of having lived.

To me this is like.. the Big Lie of individualism, or romanticism, or something. It's a fine thing to believe, sure.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Also, I think O'Brian is not trying to romanticize things much himself. Well, he is, but he is also has no illusions, and I think his attitude is like, "Let us look at this one Goldilocks captain who almost never whips his men, but they love him anyway, on a ship neither too big nor too small, far from the disgusting corrupt societies of land, and maybe we can imagine some romantic beauty and wonder of the age, with these two special friends playing music together by the glorious sweep of stern windows." It's a delicate picture and I think POB is aware of it as a pleasing fiction, and he surrounds it with hard facts and skepticism, which makes it stronger.

The movie's portrayal is not as subtle or fleshed out, but most historical movies are such garbage anyway; compared to Gladiator it's a masterpiece.


vvvvv I agree that Crowe was a better Maximus than a Jack, in the way that Mel Gibson was an acceptable Hamlet, but would be even better as a roll of toilet paper.

Sax Solo fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Aug 19, 2020

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Here's a thread with some great pictures of some guy's fantastic model of the Surprise showing some boat storage and newfangled quarter-davits in action:
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/5146-hms-surprise-by-navis-factorem-finished-175/page/9/

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



(That ships' wheel gif was still hosed so I fixed it up, lol ... Can't wait to be wrong, or to be right and still the wiki fuckers out-stubborn me.)

e: it seems the person who made the image has been permabanned from wikipedia for trying to get paid, so maybe it'll stick.

Sax Solo fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 10, 2021

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



If you've read the books the movie is a must see even if you won't particularly like it. Can't imagine not seeing it. The best thing to do is to read the books again afterwards to cleanse your brain.

Like, the movie's all right, it has some good things! It has a kind of "Rah rah our boys at sea" tone to the ending which is kind of terrible and a painful clash with POB's cynicism. Coming out in 2003 with the buildup to war in Iraq there was a bit of contextual stink to it that probably can't be felt now. Otherwise though the choice of HOW to end it is very good.

I do think Jack and Stephen have most of their character removed. Movie Aubrey is too much a daddy who is always right, and Movie Stephen is too much merely a silly geek. They're pretty bland. But idk, they do the weevil and dog watch things maybe that's enough for ppl.

There isn't really any sailing in it sadly. The Waakzaamheid battle is not in it.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Also interesting how they played the Jonah/Hollum arc straight when it's a such a clusterfuck (or clustercuck I guess) in the book.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Lockback posted:

Crowe was too well built and generally dashing for Aubrey but in general I thought the energy he brought more than pulled it off.

I think Crowe did a good job but he didn't seem like Jack from the books to me. Aubrey gets dashing for free from his uniform and exploits, and he's a big physical guy. He seems to have a lot of success with women despite having no game whatsoever. Women like him and want to take him for a spin knowing he'll be off to sea soon. I tend to think pudgy Channing Tatum could play pretty well.

For Stephen, idk, you could probably ugly down James McAvoy enough. Or grab any weedy ugly guy like Burn Gorman off the rack.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Also, O'Brian is an excellent writer. Every other sentence is like an acrobatics routine. It's just a joy to read.

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



The whole topic is a fun display of clashing social assumptions, where on the one hand you assume that any woman who was alone with a man for more than a few moments was probably loving, or rather a detached idea of 'scandal' arises from the situation... On the other hand there is gentlemanly conduct, where it is incredibly uncouth and insulting to act as if anyone is ever doing anything untoward, especially when it comes to the conduct of and kindness to women. And so O'Brien can create a big cloud about it where characters can talk both like it's nothing and like it's everything, and part of the confusion is bc Stephen is grappling with the situation on these terms too.

The book doesn't even cover until after the fact how Jack is lingering around port in the Polychrest being a kind of lovely captain because he's always sneaking off to see Diana, and it might be the blatancy of that which drives Stephen to challenge him. It's too clear to everyone, and the world of gentlemanly make-believe is unsustainable.

Another element at play, maybe, is that Stephen is continually nuking his sex drive with drugs. IIRC, even after he's married to Diana, it's not until he tones down the laudanum that he's actually like regularly amorous, though I'm not sure how much this applies in the Post Captain days.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Sax Solo
Feb 18, 2011



Yeah it's my favorite of the books I think. Some people criticize it of being derivative of Austen. I don't think it is, and to the extent it may be -- well, I like Austen too!

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply