Give you joy of it
Posted by Thomas Nephew on January 23rd, 2004
I regret that I’m about to end a very enjoyable reading experience. Tomorrow, after pausing for a couple of days after finishing “The Hundred Days,” I’ll begin Blue at the Mizzen, the 20th and final book in Patrick O’Brian’s magnum opus about the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars.
I’d started the series several years ago, but set it aside. While otherwise unoccupied this past fall, I decided to go see “Master and Commander,” the movie by Peter Weir, and enjoyed it a lot. The movie intentionally bears little resemblance to the book, the first in the series; instead, Weir assembled a kind of collage of scenes and vignettes from several of the books, focusing of course on the naval “natural” talent Jack Aubrey and the cerebral, tough ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin.
It’s hard to explain what is so captivating about these books, even for someone like me who knows little to nothing about ships, nautical lore, and so forth — a little more than before, but still not all that much. Part of the answer is the genre itself. I’m indebted to Washington Post contributor and Patrick O’Brian fan Ken Ringle for this quote, from Master and Commander:
‘For a philosopher, a student of human nature, what could be better?’ says Stephen of naval life. ‘The subjects of his inquiry shut up together, unable to escape his gaze, their passions heightened by the dangers of war, the hazards of their calling, their isolation from women and their curious but uniform diet. And by the glow of patriotic fervor… A ship must be a most instructive theater for an inquiring mind.’
But the books are more than a seafaring epic. O’Brian, who died in 2000 at the age of 85, was an excellent writer and no mean social historian, giving life to both officers on deck and sailors in the rigging. The stories’ narratives change pace frequently, so that a shipwreck or an engagement with some French privateer is imminent at the end of one chapter, only to be reported by a letter home or a formal report to the Admiralty in the next, or even ignored altogether for a disconcerting page or two.
The language is a joy all its own. “Give you joy of it” was the British way of saying “congratulations” in those days, and it’s such a nice thing to say I may try it out myself sometime soon. Maturin’s habit of using “sure” as a dry, droll “yes, yes” comment — “sure it’s the great ship of the world” — is a reliable pleasure as well.
One of the main satisfactions of these stories is experiencing the friendship of the different, complementary personalities of Aubrey and Maturin. It may be that this is one of the main paths to succeeding with extended narratives, so that we have Spock and Kirk, Holmes and Watson, Maturin and Aubrey.
Yet for all that I’m a devoted Star Trek viewer and Sherlock Holmes reader, O’Brian’s accomplishment is deeper, because the two are more completely realized characters. They’re friends, yet they can be surprised by eachother. In The Commodore, Maturin overhears Aubrey playing his violin alone for once, and realizes his friend is a better musician than he is:
Now, in the warm night, there was no one to be comforted, kept in countenance, no one who could scorn him for virtuosity, and he could let himself go entirely; and as the grave and subtle music wound on and on, Stephen once more contemplated on the apparent contradiction between the big, cheerful, florid sea-officer whom most people liked on sight but who would never have been described as subtle or capable of subtlety by any one of them (except perhaps his surviving opponents in battle) and the intricate, reflective music he was now creating. So utterly unlike his limited vocabulary in words, at times verging on the inarticulate.
‘My hands have now regained the moderate ability they possessed before I was captured,’ observed Maturin, ‘but his have gone on to a point I never thought he could reach: his hands and his mind. I am amazed. In his own way he is the secret man of the world; but I wish his music were happier.’
According to Smithsonian Magazine contributor Cutler Durkee, Aubrey is recognizably based on the British naval legend Thomas Cochrane, who, like Aubrey, had a string of naval victories to his credit, was jailed for unwitting participation in a stock market scam, and continued his career after the Napoleonic wars by aiding South American countries in their bids for independence from Spain.
The Napoleonic wars have been called England’s “Troy Tale.” That could mean a long war replete with heroism, but also one seemingly remote from today’s concerns. But O’Brian gave his books another key dimension, a kind of “liberal hawk” outlook of the 1800s. Napoleonic France looms as a militaristic police state tinged with fanaticism, a foe that must be worn down and defeated, and one that is very nearly too strong for the British. The background of a world historic struggle sustains the plot and lends heft and significance to what would otherwise be simple adventure stories.
But the adventure is the fun part, of course. Tall ships lean and knife through the waters; cannons roar; heavy seas pound and wash across the decks; arctic winds blow; the mission compels; prize-money beckons. You look up; it’s late, but you have to read what happens next. You may be unable to stop until you’ve set down the last book.
Category: Review. Tags: book, historical fiction, selected.
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May 31st, 2009 at 2:33 am
[...] Blog entry by Thomas Nephew – “Give you joy of it” “One of the main satisfactions of these stories is experiencing the friendship of the different, complementary personalities of Aubrey and Maturin. It may be that this is one of the main paths to succeeding with extended narratives, so that we have Spock and Kirk, Holmes and Watson, Maturin and Aubrey. / Yet for all that I’m a devoted Star Trek viewer and Sherlock Holmes reader, O’Brian’s accomplishment is deeper, because the two are more completely realized characters… “ [...]