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I've read the entire series through twice now, and certain books more than twice. I've puzzled out some of the more confusing scenes and subplots if anyone has questions as they read through the novels (granted I never understood the cricket scene until I read this thread). My favorite book is Desolation Island. I also really enjoyed the Mauritius Command. I am always jealous of anyone starting out for the first time. I absolutely love historical fiction and no one comes even close to O'Brian...though purely in terms of depth, authenticity and character McMurtry is probably second best imo.
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Aug 20, 2011 20:36
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CarterUSM posted:True dat. Six Frigates is excellent. On the subject of the RN, though, I also recommend this: To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World My father-in-law got me this (To Rule the Waves) for xmas a couple years ago, and it was a great read. One thing I really like about the novels is how Maturin is among many other things, a foil for the reader who also doesn't know anything about sailing/sails/ropes/sailing jargon/sea battles/the weather gauge. "Stephen, if I tell you, will you attend?" Also found this awesome diagram
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Dec 4, 2011 00:40
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CroatianAlzheimers posted:Yeah, I just started Desolation Island and I forgot how much I enjoyed this one. She is the worst, and by that I mean the best, because O'Brian creates this snappish, shrewish, churlish, deeply stupid, ignorant presumptuous and deeply classist/prejudiced old woman that everyone must tolerate because she is family and they are landowning, Parliamentarian-class Navy and British, and thus must remain stoic calm and superior. Given this catch 22, O'Brian can have her do any horrible thing he wishes (he must have found this amusing), and only Stephen gets to put her in her place, although the way Stephen talks about her to other people is hilarious also.
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Feb 17, 2017 05:11
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Sarern posted:Just finished my first read-through of these books with Blue at the Mizzen today. I think I'll leave the unfinished one for a few years down the road, as other goons have suggested. The Norton hardcover edition, I believe out of print now, is probably the "easiest" to acquire second hand if you live in north America. The Harper Collins was the bookstore softcover standard for the last decade or so, and there are also the smaller, pulp style paperback editions that I have never seen brand new. I have about half the series in the norton and half Harper Collins, and the latter (softcover) tend to fall apart after a half dozen reads. I check every used bookstore in every city I go to and it has taken me about sixteen years to replace half my softcover with used hardcover editions. I also have several books on my Kindle app for travel reading and its super comfortable to read on my phone. I think there was a short-lived Folio edition.
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Feb 24, 2022 03:17
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:Also I can't believe I didn't suggest the obvious. Jane Austen. Can't second this enough. Austen is a delight to read, except I had to get older and gayer to realize this.
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Jan 20, 2023 03:07
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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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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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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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Lockback posted:In post captain isn't Stephen far from wealthy? Even Jack is closer to "comfortable with prospects" than necessarily wealthy. Thanks, the wikipedia page on Cochrane is worth the read. No Stephen is not wealthy in Post Captain if I recall correctly.
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May 16, 2023 03:13
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Nuclear War posted:Im doing a reread and just wanted to say that Tom Pullings is the best person (not character) in the books, and Diana is the worst person (not character). that is all You need to consider the situation Diana was in so as to not to so harshly judge her. First of all, she never owed Stephen anything. He is a bastard, an addict, on the surface a naval surgeon with few direct connections to the casual observer through most of the series (of course we know of his noble familial connections, his experience as a physician and treatment of British nobility, his excellent work in espionage, his friendship with Aubrey, and while she did too, to the casual observer he is the Napoleonic-era version of a loser to the upper class and aristocracy, and while it is never explained to my recollection, I believe Diana must have been born into an aristocratic family - while many may have been aware of his treatment of the nobility as a physician, as a physician he cannot broadcast this himself, so it is only evident to the reader and general society as observation and gossip). Stephen was also mostly broke in the first few years of trying to court her. We don't know anything about Diana's past, but she seems to have no family in the "present" of the canon. As a single young woman she normally would have her parents, father, possibly brothers all who would have taken care of her financially and otherwise as she made her way to a successful marriage. She would have a dowry. If her family had died, the inheritance and property likely would have gone to the closest male relative and she would have seen nothing - although I don't know how dowries work if the parents die. She may have been married before we are introduced to her, and should her hypothetical husband have died, she may have not been entitled to any inheritance, or her dowry could have become his, and then the entirety of that wealth and estate could have been left to the closest male relative and left her penniless and homeless. But clearly in the novels no family, no familial male protectors, and yet born into high society, and we are only left to guess at her past, however no ex-husband or male sibling or father are ever mentioned and I believe we are left to infer that she is a headstrong, intelligent, savvy and even a bit cut-throat young woman who navigates an extremely difficult situation with cunning and zeal. In order to maintain her status, continue the lifestyle and maintain the social connections she was born into, she had no choice but to accept the protection of wealthy men whose wealth was often the only thing that kept themselves in the upper social circles (being an American or a Jew would have been definitely problematic); this also allowed the aristocracy to overlook or ignore her status as a mistress to them - she was in their "protection" as if an honorary sister or daughter, when everyone knew what was actually happening and it remained unspoken. It was not until she became independently wealthy and Stephen became independently wealthy that she could finally consider him as a suitor, and honestly his lifelong obsession over her without ever consideration of another lover or wife is what we might in modern terms consider a tad problematic. We could say that she should have married beneath her status and lived life happily as the wife of a tailor or something but in the era of the novels, to go from caste to caste would have been completely unheard of. She would have faced a world of gossip and judgement as she went from wealthy protector to wealthy protector within her caste, but ultimately she is still accepted amongst aristocratic society because she is able to function with that world's infrastructure - fashion, the accompaniment of a man accepted by that society with the trappings of familial and patriarchal protection, and all of the acceptable things that his money would represent as functional in that world: servants, carriages, large city and country houses, parties, fetes and balls, etc. I might be not totally accurate so if anyone wishes to correct or elaborate, please do so. A lot of this comes from reading critical commentary on the novels as well as reading Jane Austen. But yeah, I love Diana, she is absolutely brilliant and extremely complex, very nearly a third protagonist. Pullings is one-dimensional by comparison. I like him, and I was so happy when he hoisted his flag, but the officers O'Brian singles out and gives a bit of attention to only have a single secondary dimension to them, unlike Diana who has a world of complexity and character attributed to her, far more so than Jack's wife who is a bit of a wet blanket by comparison. Babbington (women), Reade (beloved), Mowett (poetry) and Pullings (Jack's protege) all only really have that one additional dimension to their personality. Honestly Sophie's mother is a more complex character than Pullings. e: So is Joseph Banks. The officers whom Jack loves are mostly just dei ex machinae who help Jack pull off remarkable capers as we follow his career through the novels. We do get closer glimpses of what Sophie and Diana are thinking, but we have only Jack and Stephen for first person thinking in a third person perspective (diary and serial letter to Sophie). This dual protagonist, first person cheat with very focused observation on serially recrurring characters is a feat I doubt any other serial novelist has ever paid off. It is a reason why I do not understand why people are so obsessed with Bonden and Killick. They are totally one-dimensional. Killick is comic effect; Bonden is deus ex machina. That's it; they never develop or change nor are we ever a witness into their secret world of thinking. The closest thing we get to the latter outside of the dual protagonists of Jack and Stephen are the women they are closest to in their personal lives. Huggybear fucked around with this message at 04:27 on May 28, 2023 |
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May 28, 2023 04:13
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Napoleon Nelson posted:In addition to what SimonSays pointed out, Diana very much has family at the start of the series, in the form of the Williams family. Mrs. Williams houses Diana and expresses a willingness to provide her with more if Diana will clear the field for Sophie. I forgot a couple of minor details but essentially my point was that she should not be hated for her choices, of which she had very little. Mrs. Williams is one of the most loathsome individuals in the series and no one could blame Diana for fleeing that sole representation of protection.
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May 28, 2023 20:41
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Sax Solo posted:But yeah, as has been said, in general A/M is not exactly a wealth of deep characterization. Except for Stephen, who is pretty deep. (I don't include Jack because he's still fairly simple, and on top of that, I think over time we mostly see him filtered through Stephen.) Are you joking? The minor characters can be one-dimensional, but Diana gets a lot of praise for her dashing behavior and unwillingness to feel shame and definitely is not one-dimensional in her capacity to exploit the aristocracy she is forced to make amends to exist in. Jack is not simple whatsoever. His letters to Sophie, his behavior at sea and in battle, the observations made about his growth in mathematics and astronomy and contributions to both fields, not to mention as he becomes a competent landsman after his many legal battles...and yes I am not forgetting his incompetence in parliament. But his uncanny seamanship, leadership, political acumen at sea, his competence as a musician, his correspondence, the way he can host a dinner and resolve issues among officers and crew, his ability to sail, gun and command his ship...what novels are you reading?
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May 30, 2023 02:27
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Sax Solo posted:None of these are growth in a literary character sense, imho. After the first book with James Dillon around, Jack's papist-hating pretty much 1-1 corresponds to Stephen fat-shaming him and I don't think it's personal growth so much as a lack of Irish lieutenants to get pissed off about it. He is never challenged by accepting his son; he's easily able to display a warm, full acceptance of him. This is to Jack's credit, and it's the same thing that allows him to disarm and befriend Stephen in the first book. It's part of what makes Jack lovable and great -- but still IMHO not the kind of growth you are talking about. TBH I think it backs up my points more than yours. (And then the son kinda fucks off and doesn't matter.) Jack's journey on slavery goes from, "idk I'm a Tory" to like, "Phew slave ships are awful! What bad naval practices -- I guess slavery is pretty bad after all! Still, not gonna lie, would be nice to have a slave around the house, heheh." The shallowness of his change is explicit, and a kind of cynical comedy. (You could say, though, it reflects the POV of a friend who loves someone despite a lack of respect for them along some axes, and would note and remember such utterances and consider them telling...) There is truth to this, Jack is as if a fully fleshed Athena when we meet him and are continuously reminded of sailing and battle exploits that precede the novels which clearly made him the very capable commander of the Sophie...but at the same time, Post Captain is an incredibly important book in the canon. Jack is almost done in by both his rivalry with his best friend/surgeon, and almost experiences a mutiny on an absolutely ridiculous ship. In the ensuing novels he does learn from his mistakes and misfortune, his poor choices in romantic dalliances, his disrating...he is repeatedly severely wounded and recovers, almost has his marriage end and makes political blunders that he has to accept. This is a quick summary as I am supposed to be at work. Stephen throughout the novels muses and marvels at Jack's intellectual and creative growth, while also observing constants like his strength, his prowess and keenness in battle - all of which he is incapable of. Similarly, Jack muses upon Stephen's academic intellect, his prowess as a physician, in espionage, and so on. Almost as if there were two protagonists who were incredibly close friends and incredibly different people  Drunkboxer posted:The deeper I get into this series the more impressed I am with the film adaptation. Almost every book I’ve read so far has at least a line lifted from it in the film, you can tell it was a labor of love on the part of the filmmakers. I don't understand why people like the film. It is as miscast and as misrepresentative of inner world of the novels as I could imagine a film based on a very well written novel deeply invested in the inner world of its protagonists to be. The sets were fantastic, the acting and characterisation were abysmal. And hamfistedly leveraging plotlines from three separate novels in an extremely expensive film completely shattered any plausibility for a sequel, not that I'd want to see one with those characters. Bonden: a hobbit? Forsooth. Huggybear fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 7, 2023 |
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Jun 7, 2023 19:16
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buffalo all day posted:not gonna quote the post about the movie being bad (including that…the acting is bad???wtf), just know that it’s the worst take I’ve seen today and I read fantasy football twitter Oh I didn't realize you were the Grand Arbiter of Takes on on fantasy football twitter and therefore your opinion is automatically superior to mine. Congratulations, you seem both arrogant and, to borrow one of Stephen's favorite descriptors, "deeply stupid" at the same time. He had zero patience for people like that, interestingly. Have you ever had your nose wrung by a diminutive, yellowish, Irish-Catalanian bastard physician? That said, I used to be a member of the Aubrey/Maturin facebook group and it's mostly boomers posting terrible sloth memes, so maybe that's more your perspective If you want a good example of a masterpiece that is an excellent take on an excellent novel, look no further than the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice. If you want a hamfisted take on the same novel, look no further than the Kiera Knightley version of the same. If you don't understand why, study film theory, watch better cinema, or even read Jane Austen as it will deepen your appreciation for the nuance and sophistication of O'Brian's style and eye for conversational detail, and how this is completely ignored in the movie; and, how it could have been. Good for you that you liked the movie, I loving adore the kung fu genre but in no way am I going around pronouncing my absolute favorite, Ip Man, a "masterpiece" - there are gradients of objective quality in cinema, and action movies rarely transcend "an engaging distraction" even if the movie is dear to my heart for various subjective and sentimental reasons. e: Yes, Bonden would have to have been exceptionally strong - he is often steering the ships in storms which would require immense strength, along with lifting the doctor up the rigging, the boxing match...which is, as I mentioned, another reason the movie is terrible, it is utterly miscast. Aside from Russell Crowe's complete mishandling of Aubrey's character, Paul Bettany reduces Stephen to a peevish adolescent, and even at his normal size Billy Boyd looks like he's five years old. Honestly it seems like the director, casting director and cast only read the script and not the novels themselves, and the script writer was an idiot for reasons I have already clarified. Huggybear fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Jun 8, 2023 |
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Jun 8, 2023 03:08
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