I've grown rather weary of my recent run of what sadly has turned out to be books that did not greatly appeal to me. So, what's the use of having a wall of books, if not to read an old favorite? Or two? And that's the course I'm steering this time around. We start this journey in old favorites with the fourth and fifth book of a favorite series, since I believe I've read the third one since I starting this series of posts. No matter, since I've read these books at least three times already.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian A
As I stated in the lede, this is the fourth book of the series. I happened to have picked up this book at a library sale - a first American printing edition - around the time that the Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin series caught fire, sometime in the late 1980's. I don't remember how I discovered that the series was being reissued, but starting in 1988 I have vol 11 and the nine volumes that followed in hardcover, again in first American printings, all the previous one save for this one in trade paperbacks. Needles to say, I was a big fan, as what my father, who collected them as well.
I also have C S Forester's Horatio Hornblower series as well, but for my money, Patrick O'Brian's tales stand head and shoulders over Forester's because O'Brian's stories are so much better written, in my opinion, and written with a broader view of the world than Forester's. Not that Forester's are badly written, it is just that O'Brian has his own way with words that I greatly appreciate. He creates the time period in the way he tells the story, without making it a chore to read, as well as offering many thoughts and observations on human nature.
Well, if I haven't said anything specific about this story, it is only because it being the fourth book in the series, this is not the book to start with, as I did. The Aubrey-Maturin series is one of my favorite top six series of all time, and high on that short list as well. It is a series I strongly recommend, as it is far more than a series about the British Navy in the Napoleonic wars. It takes the reader from the Mediterranean Sea to the France and the Channel, to Calcutta, to the Baltic, to the far side of the world, the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and Boston during the War of 1812, centered around the small world of a ship, but far from confined to ships and combat.
In this story Captain Aubrey, just scraping by on half pay without a ship, is sent to Cape Town and appointed a Commadore, a sort of temporary admiral, to lead a squadron of frigates to put a stopper on the activities of a squadron of French frigates operating out of the Indian Ocean Mauritius Islands, off the east coast of Africa. O'Brian introduces his fictional characters into a carefully researched real life episode where nothing important in the book describing the campaign is invented. You basically get the historical campaign with only the names changed.
My only negative comment is on me; as I have written elsewhere in this series, I have a hard time following action, in this case the maneuvering of ships and such. I have to believe, that I once was able to follow things more closely than I do these days. I've gotten too old and too inpatient, I guess. As always, on me.
Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian A
This story takes place a year or so after the previous book. Captain Audrey's fortunes have been restored from his share of the ships captured in the Mauritius campaign. Plus, he had been give a shore job as a reward. At the start of this story, he is given an old ship in the line, the "horrible old Leopard" and ordered to sail to Australia to deal with problems regarding Captain Bligh, or rather the problems Bligh is having as governor of New South Wales.
Meanwhile Dr Maturin is having a tough time; he finds himself addicted to laudanum (a tincture of opium) after being dumped, once again, by the woman he desperately loves and is making mistakes in this both roles as a doctor and intelligence agent. To give him time to recover his spirits and perhaps usefulness, he sails with Audrey aboard the Leopard along with a female spy being transported to Australia rather than hanged, with the idea that perhaps Maturin can extract some useful information about her connections with the French, and Americans.
This story is a return to the usual form of stories O'Brian writes for Jack Aubrey; he is on a solo mission in some distant part of the world, allowing O'Brian to write a tale that focuses more on people and places, as well as the life of the sailors and ships of that period, rather than the headline events of the naval aspects of the Napoleonic wars. This a story of a long journey, with the usual trouble, strife, and desperate adventures common in these stories.
O'Brian is a much more literary writer, compared to the many other writers of this type of story in this era, Including Forester. He explores a variety of characters in all of his books, and writes with humor, an ear for period dialog, and a eye for details and settings. I think these stories can be enjoyed for many reasons unconnected with naval warfare.
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