|
'My god, oh my god' 'six hundred men'. Gives me chills every time, loving terrific.
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2015 22:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:04 |
|
|
Hogge Wild posted:Yeah, I remember that part and had the same experience. Didn't like the series much anyway. I stopped reading it at Lord Hornblower. Imo after reading Aubrey/Maturin it's better to go cold turkey than read Hornblower. I enjoyed Hornblower (I admittedly read them before P O'B) and in fact I still think the single-ship actions are at least as well written. But there's no question that Forester can't match the authentic period feel of Aubrey and Maturin's interactions. Fundamentally different books really, Hornblower is straightforward adventure stories where the heor wins through, albeit in a very neurotic way, A-M are an extended novel of manners where the characters just happen to have amazing adventures.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
The Master and Commander film, while not 100% faithful, got so much of the look and the feel of the characters right that it would be very hard to make an extended small-screen version that lived up. Such a drat shame they didn't make more of those movies.Duckbag posted:I seem to recall some of the action in the earliest Hornblower books being pretty drat stupid, actually. I remember one of the stories, "The Spanish Galleys," involved him taking a ship with like four guys and a "daring" plan that didn't make any sense. The galley's huge crew just sits around like scenery while the initial fighting is going on and then they meekly surrenders for no good reason. At several points, the Spanish could have just shot him, but they didn't because that would have put Forrester out of a job. The Hornblower books are usually much better than that, but you have to accept that some of Hornblower's brilliant plans only succeed because his opponents are complete morons. Hornblower is still a fun character though. My favorite book is the one where he's on trial for trying to kill his captain and we're never entirely sure if he pushed him down that hatch or not he totally did. Sorry to keep going with the Hornblower chat. I had a huge argument with my brother about that hatch/captain incident after we'd watched the show version. He did in my opinion, my brother disagreed. Hornblower is all about taking insane risks if according to his neurotic perspective they are the 'right' thing to do. I see where everyone's coming from on the unlikeable side, but you're not supposed to really like everything about him - he's a smart, fairly sensitive but emotionally crippled man who does really well at everything while hating himself - it's known precisely because it's such an unlikely combination (not one which ever occurs in real life, in my experience).
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2015 13:40
|
|
|
Sir, that is an insult! My friends shall wait upon you.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2015 16:53
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcE4RxDWUHk
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2015 19:36
|
|
|
In my experience/layman's knowledge, the southern, Cantonese-speaking Chinese, which is where the Chinese population of Malaysia, Indonesia etc originate from, are significantly shorter than the northern Chinese. I was taught in school it was because white rice, as a staple rather than grain, was less nutritious. Who knows. The point is a 16-stone woman, short or tall, is pretty loving bulky. For the non-Brits among us, that is 224 lbs. Babbington rules. "No, they are all Lesbians sir" " - and I expect they are all parsons daughters, or your cousins in the third degree, like that wench off Ceylon?" . . . "So you see, sir, I am blameless in thought word and deed. Well, word and deed, anyway."
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2015 16:59
|
|
|
Murgos posted:It's even better when you realize that Nelson (the subject) designed them and paid for them out of his own pocket. Nelson was remarked by some of his contemporaries (eg the Duke of Wellington) to be almost unbelievably vainglorious and self-obsessed when talking about his public image and reputation, to the extent that it would completely conceal his abilities until someone started to talk about war.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
I read it - interesting enough plot points, but as people said, not truly fleshed out. I definitely respect people's choice to leave it at 20. The news of the flag is just a really good natural ending point. The books are about Aubrey and Maturins' careers and lives, ultimately, not a particular battle or conflict, so it's nice to imagine that's in some ways the end of their middle age and the independent commissions.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2015 17:00
|
|
|
Murgos posted:The reverse of the medal spoiler. Lol at Wray mocking Maturin for being cuckolded when Wray is actually the one being given horns (by Aubrey's protege Babbington). Ah, he does in fact know of his own troubles in that direction (Maturin sees him being carried home drunk, and Wray makes reference to them) but Wray is such a scrub that he doesn't know/care/reflect on the fact.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2015 18:42
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:By my count, Jack Aubrey crashed HM Ships Polychrest, Leopard, Ariel, and Diane. The man's a menace! Polychrest: Badly damaged by shore based batteries during the cutting out of the Fanciulla - and it wasn't even the shot holes, but its second-rate and corrupt construction - the seams opened 'like a flower'. Leopard: Hit an ice island in heavy fog. Ariel: run aground after being embayed; Jack could possibly have weathered that point were it not for his Lieutenant's incompetence/dyslexia in confusing larboard/starboard. Diane: Run on a reef due to the incompetence of the 2nd Lieutenant, who did not reef topsails at nightfall as per his orders. (had he done so, the ship could have been brought off before the onset of an act-of-god hurricane) So there aren't any occasions where it was really something he'd be convicted of by court-martial. Interestingly, we don't see any court-martials after the initial one for losing Sophie in Master & Commander. I know you're joking, but I wanted to show off that I remmber all that without cracking the books. I've definitely read them too much. I suppose it's a consequence of the lengthening of Aubrey's career throughout the extended 1813. I mean, how many successful single-ship actions has he undertaken? Must be more than any of his historical sources.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2017 13:01
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:I'm counting every ship that ran aground while under his command. loving love this. Every time I re-read the books I pick up on some little thing I didn't notice (or didn't think about the implications of) before. Example: in Post Captain, Scrivens, an incompetent footpad (having been a clerk who lost his job and fell on hard times) is taken on as a lackey by Stephen. Whilst celebrating Tom Pullings' promotion to Lt ashore, Stephen sees Scrivens' 'questing head enter the room' and boom, the bailiffs flood in to arrest Jack for debt. It's never mentioned or discussed again, but he sold Jack's location, betraying Stephen's confidence. There's tons of stuff like that which I missed the first time (I was only a teenager when I first read them) I wouldn't really want a TV series. The film, while not 100% perfect - it's not feasible to film two men being quite as reserved and tactful as Aubrey and Maturin are supposed to be, as the gentleman's code of their time demanded - is very, very good. No conventional TV series could exist without alternately simplifying and embroidering the bits that are so apt in the books.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2017 15:13
|
|
|
builds character posted:Get a Fugger. Stephen, recollect yourself!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2017 15:52
|
|
|
Lockback posted:Started this series while I've been waiting for my next job to start, and it's fantastic. I am in the middle of Fortune of War, and it's gratifying that the story basically flow between books as easily as between chapters. The dockyard bloke is someone whose priority is the wellbeing of his stores, and wants to minimise risk of damage or waste by being very conservative with what he issues out. He doesn't want to give Jack this yard which he considers too big for the Sophie, in his opinion it would increase the chance of carrying away, or straining the mast and hull. Jack is much more daring, and is also a very good sailor who is willing to back his opinion. His priority is to make his new command go fast, so it can catch prizes and make his fortune. The implication seems to be that he's right and the semi-landlubber is a fussy old woman. Jack has the carpenter plane down the tips of the yardarm until they show white, then re-hoists it. This fools the dockyard - seeing it has been cut, he perceives it as shorter, although it's nearly exactly the same length. Jack is allowed to keep this massive, top-quality spar and can sail away a bit faster. Score: Jno. Aubrey, Commander of HMS Sloop of War Sophie: 1 Mean-spirited wretch: 0
|
|
#
¿
Oct 1, 2017 20:45
|
|
|
Professor Shark posted:
I also get this when rereading the books. There are echoes throughout of Jack's cycle of wealth and indigence, Stephen's botanising/being refused leave to botanise, and especially in Jacks romantic troubles based on jealousy and Stephen's pursuit of distant or unobtainable women. I don't think it detracts from the emotional impact of the plots, but there definitely is a repeated arc. I think the author just liked the characters too much to simply call their story 'finished' and go write something else. And who can blame him?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2017 20:31
|
|
|
Lockback posted:Agreed, I found Post-Captain to be the hardest book to get through. The naval action at the end was one of the best of the series though, and Post Captain and HMS Surprise are really just 2 parts of that Chapter of Jack's life. HMS Surprise was one of my favorite of the series, so you just kinda get through it. Holy hell, that bit in HMS Surprise when Jack brings Stephen out of Port Mahon. "tell him that if the commandant is not here in 10 minutes, I will kill him on that machine". The extreme tension and horror of the scene is portrayed so well by the terse writing. It just sort of gets across how disjointed, quick and hard to take in the whole episode was for those involved.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2017 15:31
|
|
|
xiansi posted:
While I have no source for comparison re: Maturin, Aubrey's injuries throughout the series, and his recovery/continuation of active service, are plausible for the time. For complete length I think the sheer number is probably beyond any historical example, just as his list of single-ship duel victories is - 20 books to fill, after all! However if you look at biographies of some of the most combat experienced officers of the day (in the French Imperial Army as well as the RN) men commonly were sliced up and went back to full health afterwards. If you survived the initial trauma, blood loss and infection, we are mostly talking about simple puncture wounds after all.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2017 14:36
|
|
|
PerilPastry posted:"Babbington looked wretchedly from one to the other, licked his lips and said, ' I ate your rat, sir. I am very sorry, and I ask your pardon.' "Sure, it would have been a strangely hasty, agitated meal had he eaten it before" said Stephen. (I'm quoting from memory, how close am I?)
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2017 11:35
|
|
|
Lockback posted:In Reverse of the Medal did O'Brian really mess up Babbington's name and have to correct it in the next book? That's pretty funny. Where? I don't remember that.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2017 20:27
|
|
|
Lockback posted:http://wiki.hmssurprise.org/phase3/index.php/William_Babbington Haha, I remember the masked ball thing, I did not catch that it was (or maybe was) covering for a previous mistake.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2017 22:55
|
|
|
withak posted:There is a hand in a jar at some point, but I don't think it is on of these hands. Essentially, yes - Stephen is obliged to warn Jack of a prospective mutiny, and Jack is half dead of blood loss by the time the crisis and an ensuing action are dealt with. It seems they just resumed the patient-doctor relationship, and subsequently their friendship.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2017 18:42
|
|
|
yaffle posted:My favorite is a multi-ship action in a small bay in the med, I can't remember which book, possibly Treason's Harbor? It has a lovely description of the Surprise "Throwing out sail after sail" as she come to the rescue of another ship, which unfortunately explodes. It is the end of Treason’s Harbour, the ship is the Pollux.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2018 15:17
|
|
|
Jo Joestar posted:I'm re-reading The Mauritius Command, and I'm fairly sure I hate the unnamed French captains in this book as much as any named character. They're just such utter scrubs. Striking one's colours, and then raising them again and sailing off!? Shameful.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2018 22:10
|
|
|
Sax Solo posted: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. I think this is a rather harsh interpretation! Martin does alienate Stephen while going through that whole bit of turmoil over Clarissa Oakes (and long confinement at sea, in company which is mostly uninteresting to him) but there remains what Stephen refers to as a 'strong latent affection' between them. Stephen arranges for him to be transported home from South America in a more sedate vessel, and its brushed over that he has left the sea afterwards. I got the impression this was a reconciliation between the two of them, even if it was also a separation. Apart from the characters' own motivations, it seems likely that the author had sort of bottomed out that character. Later in the series, Joseph plays a very similar role as Maturin's confidant and fellow lubber.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2019 22:39
|
|
|
Sax Solo posted: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. Very interesting, shows how complex the characterisation is in these books. I interpret Stephen's remark to Jack as a more usual observation about a clergyman (which admittedly is a bit of why Jack never warms to Martin) and he seems more irritated but sympathetic than simply angry when Martin checks him with addiction. It is a very good point though, we are often told that Stephen is of a vengeful temperament, but it is generally hidden behind his position as a protagonist or the complete odiousness of most of his enemies. "Draw, man, draw, or I shall stick you like a hog!"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2019 18:28
|
|
|
Nuclear War posted:There's a book called "the long ships" which to me captured the feel of being written in the "style of the time" more than a description through modern eyes, much like the Aubrey books a lot. I've read it in English and Swedish I think, and they were both good. That is a great book, and I think it is consciously written in the style of Viking-period sagas. No psychological introspection or detailed focus on feelings, mannerisms and mood (or descriptive writing loaded with similes and metaphors). Things just happen, characters' feelings and motivations are plainly stated up front. Really puts the focus on the narrative, it's an interesting change from most historical fiction. And as you say, the characters absolutely resemble characters written at the time.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2019 00:17
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Yeah it was fortunate that Collingwood really did get booted out of the service and provide a model for Aubrey to go in a different direction the second half of his career. Surely Cochrane?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2019 22:19
|
|
|
Haha, I am 99.99% that's gently poking fun at the spread of rumour and the willingness of the townsfolk to believe the worst. Sort of a theme in several of the books, rumours run fast and are readily believed. Other examples would be Maturin spoken of as 'Attila come again' after getting into that brawl/duel in Australia, or being represented after a gentle reproof from Jack as 'having his pudding taken away and eaten in front of his eyes, as punishment for taking satiric'.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2019 14:42
|
|
|
So, fighting over a chest is definitely just a punch-up with the opponents facing each other separated by a sea-chest. I'm not sure if they were standing/kneeling/seated, or secured in any way. But I gather it was partly to restrict their ability to fight (no kicking, limited grappling) to methods and effects which were considered acceptable. Also just for lack of space. You have to have this fight to settle a dispute in a small space, possibly without being noticed by your officers. So the two square up and get it done relatively quickly. But I believe the most important reason is a function of violence as a social display. Men don't just fight because they are angry or aggrieved. They are doing it to retain their status and deter others from accosting them. So by facing each other within fighting distance and staying there until one is incapacitated they are showing courage and steadfastness, to their shipmates as well as their adversary. This might be a bit analogous to how fights are provoked and carried out in prison. yaffle posted:I believe it is a fistfight, but seated on either end of a chest facing each other. I remember somewhere in the books a crewman failing to report for duty because he had fought somebody over a chest and couldn't stand anymore (maybe they had fought with improvised weapon of some sort?). Now I think you're referring to a bit when Stephen is treating two seamen who have injured each other playing at 'loggerheads', which are iron balls on long iron handles, used to heat pitch without carrying open flames back and forth. In that case the two had been play-fighting and miscalculated, but seamen could fight a proper bout (similar in intent to duelling or the fighting over a chest discussed above) if they had a score to settle. This is the origin of the modern phrase 'at loggerheads with' someone.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2019 21:34
|
|
|
Raskolnikov2089 posted:The writers specifically addressed this. They referenced an article from the Deadwood newspaper at the time talking about how much shocking foul language there was, but the writers realized using period accurate language wouldn't convey the shock, so they updated the curse words so that they would have the same impact for a modern audience that drat and hell would have to a 19th century Deadwood resident. I think the actual phrase used was that the authentic bad language of the time would have sounded like Yosemite Sam! 'What in tarnation' etc and would have sounded ridiculous, where in the period it would have been signalled bad, rough and dangerous.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2020 11:13
|
|
|
Nuclear War posted:Sometimes i forget that our heroes in this series aren't actually always great people such as in book 18 when Stephen perfectly willing to fight a duel and kill or be killed by the marine captain because he didn't want Stephen to cut open his dog for the sake of a hand he wanted to keep dissecting Now I disagree with this. Maturin isn't motivated by disagreement over the dog, he's acting because Hobden calls him a bastard. That's unforgivable to any gentleman raised in his code of conduct, and Maturin is especially sensitive to it because he actually is illegitimate. You can say he's glad of a release for the grief afflicting him at the time, which certainly affects his temper, but he's not acting unreasonably by the standards of the day. In fact, I would say the fact he happily reconciles with Hobden upon receiving a written apology (considered a bit less worthy than a spoken apology, especially one spoken in front of witnesses) is proof he's not a bloodthirsty duellist. Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I hadn't ever thought about, but I think there's something in that. Stephen's violence is usually intensely personal and directed against a specific human being. His anger is pretty universal at various systems etc. he hates, but even there, it is people (Bonaparte, Wray, Ledward, etc) that get him most worked up. Jack by contrast doesn't ever seem to want to hurt his enemies as individuals-with a few exceptions, he mostly likes and gets on well with the people he is trying to blow out of the water. He's just doing his job which is to sink and frustrate the King's enemies, or answer the contrary at his peril. Even when Jack has to order a sailor flogged he finds no enjoyment in it, where Stephen (who hates a flogging) seems to delight in murdering his enemies. Lockback posted:Stephen just LOVES to stab people. It's a funny duality where Stephen seems adverse to battle and war in general but loves a duel, whereas Aubrey seems to relish a battle (though, not afterward) and in social situations is mostly a teddy bear. We are told a couple times that Maturin is 'saturnine' or 'revengeful' and Aubrey is not. I agree that's part of their way of looking at the world. It's important to note though that neither of them has a 21st-century view of the intrinsic value of human life or a by-default negative view of violence. It's one of the things I really love about O'Brian's writing, the characters are actually 18-19th century characters, not modern people in tail-coats. This is really evident in how reserved they are even with each other, the rules of gentlemen really mean some things cannot be said, even though they are so close. Re Ledward and Wray, I always saw it as an example of Maturin's dispassionate approach to killing (it was necessary for his craft and he isn't too fussed either way) coupled with his enthusiasm for anatomy. Once he's knocked them on the head, L&W really are just specimens to him.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2020 19:48
|
|
|
Class Warcraft posted:Acknowlding in advance that it's been a bit since I've read the first couple books but: speaking of duels, in one of the first couple books Jack and Stephen almost duel over Diana - what ever happens there? I think they go ashore to the town where it will be held, but the Polychrest is ordered to sea before the duel can take place. While at sea Maturin informs Jack of an incipient mutiny, presumably out of a feeling it is the right thing to do despite their strained relationship. In the aftermath of the Fanciulla action, where Jack is very dangerously wounded, and Maturin treats him, it's either tacitly written off or an off-screen reconciliation occurs.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2020 20:32
|
|
|
Sax Solo posted: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. Holy poo poo dude. I think that's a pretty harsh reading of it. I agree that the POV focuses a lot on Stephen in the later cycles. 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. Maturin is introspective but I think his relationship with Aubrey remains just as affectionate. There are points which demonstrate this even very late in the series, such as his delivery of Jack's elevation to flag rank. I mean the fact he loves his daughter more than Aubrey's is hardly blameworthy.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2020 10:51
|
|
|
Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Which book was it where Jack is a little aghast at Stephen cleaning out the Marine officer at cards? That scene came back to my head and made me smile. Post Captain I think, Stephen returns from a (mostly off-screen) bit of covert action in the Med, rejoins Polychrest, and this young RM subaltern is a douche, so he sits down, plays seriously and smashes him up. Jack is quite concerned that the ship may get a reputation for gaming, 'on top of everything else'.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2020 16:06
|
|
|
Lockback posted:I disagree, and think it's more about Jack's position and the plotline, not how it's written or how the author feels. The most charitable passage towards Jack comes when Stephen listens to him play without Jack's knowledge and that comes late in the series. God drat is that scene beautiful. I agree, and that's the exact scene which sprang to my mind. I think Stephen reflects to himself that Jack is 'the secret man of the world' in some ways. I would still say they are uncommonly close friends. I mean, even of my closest friends, there are aspects of their life which are closed to me, things that are private. Jack can discuss lots of things with Stephen, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot more to him which is too personal. Sax Solo posted:I feel that passage, where Stephen is in awe of Jack's violin playing -- while charitable -- confirms the alienation from Jack. So yeah, I think that while Stephen feels very deeply about it, it doesn't mean they are alienated. Just that there are still things about them which can surprise the other. I mean, the same passage states that Jack probably restrains his own virtuosity when playing, because he gets some other sort of joy from playing with Stephen, on his level.
|
|
#
¿
May 26, 2020 20:20
|
|
|
First of all, Sax Solo, I do find this really interesting. I don't particularly agree with some of your judgments of Stephen's character or his relationships with Jack, Martin, Padeen or his family members, but they are all things which are open to debate/interpretation. Shows just how deep these books can go!Sax Solo posted: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. I think this touches on a really interesting point: both Stephen and Jack wax and wane in riches/influence/position as the plot needs them to. I genuinely think some of it reflects the actual complexity of wealth. As some people have already pointed out, Stephen is sleeping rough when they meet and steals away some of his first dinner with Aubrey in order to have something to eat for breakfast the next day! Yet he has an estate, and even if it is in poor repair and rents are meagre and unreachable, he is in effect a nobleman. Both characters are landed gentry. So while they are often cash poor (or indebted) they are still very privileged. Jack isn't actually ever going to be a nobody - people of his station sometimes did wreck their careers and die in what's described as penury, but that's still not how a poor person of that time lived! An example would be a young person of upper-middle-class background today. If they gently caress up their education/job/life, they aren't driven to homelessness, they go and stay with their parents. They have a support network they can fall back on. So when Jack & Stephen commiserate with each other at some points about how desperately poor they are, they can be assumed to really mean it from their viewpoint - but it doesn't have the same edge of desperation which it would to, say, that master's mate in the final books (Daniel?) whose bookseller father was driven to poverty and who had to join the Navy on the lower decks for the bounty. To him, the bounty was enough to clear his father's debts, it was real money. Jack and Stephen view '£200 a year' as being, if not poverty, pretty close to it. The double standard between living as a gentleman, vs living as a commoner, was very real. The other part of the wealth-rollercoaster, is that I think it can be hard for a (modern) audience to sympathise with these immensely wealthy protagonists. We like to see them get rich and can revel in it with them for a bit. It feels pleasurable to read a description of characters we like going out and shopping for luxury goods, buying top quality items etc. But it gets cloying after a while and there are a lot of obstacles the author can't put in their way unless they're at least a bit poor. So boom, deus ex machina and they're poor again (by gentleman standards).
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2020 16:01
|
|
|
Notahippie posted:There's two big shifts in his character between M&C and Post Captain. His relative wealth/inheritance in Spain* and the fact that he's suddenly an intelligence agent for the British Government where in M&C there's no hint of it an in fact he explicitly says that he's completely done with politics of all stripes. My take has always been that these changes are less a reflection of changes in his thinking as a person, and instead they're changes that O'Brien made when he decided to turn a one-off book into a series. I think the two changes give him a lot more plot hooks to develop and O'Brien inserted them for authorial strategy reasons rather than natural character development. Lockback posted:I thought that had to do with Irish Independence, he didn't get into spying for the British until later, but my recollection is a bit hazy. 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? I agree that it was an aspect O'Brian definitely expanded on when writing Post Captain, but it's definitely built in from the beginning. The going ashore in Catalonia thing is a bit more nebulous (it's played for laughs that Aubrey assumed he was going for a romantic tryst, and is shocked when Maturin just describes going about attending social gatherings) and I am inclined to say it was just Stephen going and catching up with local acquaintances. But from the very first, Stephen is an ex-United-Irishman and therefore fully read into all the covert activity which he does so much of later. He demonstrates experience with password recognition signs with Dillon and his dissembling on meeting Dillon (affecting not to know him) seems like purely social dishonesty, but actually does have its roots in necessary secrecy. Dude's a member of 2 proscribed political organisations when Jack meets him, and at least one of those is explicit from the first book.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2020 21:32
|
|
|
freebooter posted:J Strange & Norrell is one of the best books of the last 20 years. 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.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 5, 2020 09:38
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2020 12:48
|
|
|
So I think the movie is actually pretty great. The attention to detail in set, script, little acting bits in the background and so on is a cut above almost any historical film I can think of. I think some of the characters do come off differently to the books, but in Maturin's case I think that can be attributed to them simply not having the time to go into his love life, intelligence work etc. I agree Bonden is miscast badly. Interestingly I don't even envision him as a particularly big guy, and certainly not a brutal or thuggish looking one. Maybe slightly bigger than average, but giving an impression of latent strength and solidity. There is a certain look or carriage you see for example in (good) army NCOs or naval petty officers, they just give the impression they will deal with absolutely anything as it comes up. Now Awkward Davies, who is sort of in the film in the background, he could be Vinnie Jones.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2020 23:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:04 |
|
|
Raskolnikov2089 posted:Harte's interesting, because you find out later he gave a considerable sum of money every year to rescue christians from slavery.. No one is ever black and white with O'Brian. I love that (it's shortly before the spoiler mentioned above). It's not necessarily considered redemption of a thoroughly dislikable character, but I think Jack's slight surprise, because he had known him for years without ever knowing him to do a noble thing, is a great touch.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2020 09:24
|
|