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Aubrey & Maturin #3
La fragata Surprise
Al mando de la veloz fragata Surprise, el capitán Jack Aubrey y el doctor Stephen Maturin zarpan de Inglaterra con el objetivo de conducir a un embajador británico hasta su destino en las Indias Orientales. Un viaje lleno de peligros y exotismo.
456 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
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4963 people want to read
About the author
Patrick O'Brian
210 books2,423 followersPatrick O'Brian's acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series of historical novels has been described as "a masterpiece" (David Mamet, New York Times), "addictively readable" (Patrick T. Reardon, Chicago Tribune), and "the best historical novels ever written" (Richard Snow, New York Times Book Review), which "should have been on those lists of the greatest novels of the 20th century" (George Will).
Set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, O'Brian's twenty-volume series centers on the enduring friendship between naval officer Jack Aubrey and physician (and spy) Stephen Maturin. The Far Side of the World, the tenth book in the series, was adapted into a 2003 film directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. The film was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture. The books are now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book format.
In addition to the Aubrey-Maturin novels, Patrick O'Brian wrote several books including the novels Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore, as well as biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He translated many works from French into English, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir, the first volume of Jean Lacouture's biography of Charles de Gaulle, and famed fugitive Henri Cherriere's memoir Papillon. O'Brian died in January 2000.
The Aubrey-Maturin Series on Goodreads
Set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, O'Brian's twenty-volume series centers on the enduring friendship between naval officer Jack Aubrey and physician (and spy) Stephen Maturin. The Far Side of the World, the tenth book in the series, was adapted into a 2003 film directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. The film was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture. The books are now available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book format.
In addition to the Aubrey-Maturin novels, Patrick O'Brian wrote several books including the novels Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, and The Unknown Shore, as well as biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso. He translated many works from French into English, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir, the first volume of Jean Lacouture's biography of Charles de Gaulle, and famed fugitive Henri Cherriere's memoir Papillon. O'Brian died in January 2000.
The Aubrey-Maturin Series on Goodreads
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,009 reviews
August 21, 2019
For those of you with whom I have yet to share my passion for the Aubrey/Maturin series, let me remedy that at the start.
This series of books follows the lives of two amis de la guere as they share shipboard and shore leave together over the many years of the Napoleonic Wars. These are novels that are perfect examples of life at the turn of the 19th Century. Though much of the time is spent at sea, that does not eliminate culture (Jack Aubrey plays the violin and Stephen Maturin plays the cello, often together) nor natural philosophy (the collecting of the flora and fauna from distant parts) nor the encounters with peoples of South America, Asia, etc. as their ship roams the seas.
The way in which O’Brian put together a compelling story is masterful. But the plot is only one of the delights. Characterization is deep. Description is intense. (There are several books that I can recommend that were written just to flesh out the references.) The research that goes into each book is substantial and the way in which British society class conflicts as well as urban versus rural differences are used in the plot is quite inventive. Finally, taken as a whole, this string of novels provides deep insight into international issues of the day, British Parliamentary disputes, and naval politics.
Surprise is one of my favorite novels. In it we learn much more of the elusive Maturin. O’Brian does not just rely on dialogue. In addition, there are well-crafted journals and letters to flesh out personalities and relationships. His ability to convey a deep understanding of human nature is a gift. In my second run through these books, I was amazed at how well everything was woven together and how the tiniest elements of personality were allowed to occasionally rise to the top and have their due. This is my third time reading this book (as eagerly done as my spouse reaches again for Jane Austen).
In this book, Jack Aubrey “loses” the substantial prize money that he had so nobly won at the end of the previous book. This is a blow. His command of the frigate Surprise is something of a boon. Jack needs money to marry his love, Sophie Williams. Instead of opportunities to acquire prize money, he is sent to the Indian Ocean to provide protection for the British East India trade ships. What subsequently transpires gives substance to the nickname “Lucky” Jack Aubrey.
Saying O’Brian writes Napoleonic sea tales is like saying Austen writes about the landed gentry or Faulkner writes rural Southern stories or McMurtry writes about small-town Texas. If you enjoy the art of the novel and historical fiction, you might want to give this book a try.
[I will add, what I hope will be, a helpful quotation or two…more to come.]
"So there is to be no battle after all?" said the Chaplain...."They appear to be slanting off at a great pace. Can it be timidity? I have often heard that the French are great cowards."
"No, no, don't you believe it, Mr. White," said Jack (Aubrey). "They have tanned my hide many a time, I can tell you. No, no: Linois is only reculing pour mew sauter, as he would say. You shall not be disappointed; I believe we may promise you a brisk cannonade in the morning. So perhaps you might be well advised to turn in directly and get all the sleep you can. I shall do the same once I have seen the Captains."
"Mr. White looked up at the mizen-peak, where a tricolour streamed out bravely. "It is the French flag, he cried, "No. The Dutch. We are sailing under false colours! Can Such things, be?"
"So are they," said Stephen (Maturin). "They seek to amuse us; we seek to amuse them. The iniquity is evenly divided. It is an accepted convention."
"I believe, sir, this is your first taste of warfare," he (Aubrey) said. "I am afraid you must find it pretty wearisome, with no cabin and no proper meals."
"Oh, I do not mind that in the least sir," cried the Chaplain. "But I must confess that in my ignorance I had expected something more, shall I say, exciting?...You will not misunderstand me if I say, I wonder you can stand the boredom."
"It is use, no doubt. War is nine parts boredom, and we grow used to it in the service. But the last hour makes up for all, believe me. I think you may be assured of some excitement tomorrow, or perhaps even this evening...."
This series of books follows the lives of two amis de la guere as they share shipboard and shore leave together over the many years of the Napoleonic Wars. These are novels that are perfect examples of life at the turn of the 19th Century. Though much of the time is spent at sea, that does not eliminate culture (Jack Aubrey plays the violin and Stephen Maturin plays the cello, often together) nor natural philosophy (the collecting of the flora and fauna from distant parts) nor the encounters with peoples of South America, Asia, etc. as their ship roams the seas.
The way in which O’Brian put together a compelling story is masterful. But the plot is only one of the delights. Characterization is deep. Description is intense. (There are several books that I can recommend that were written just to flesh out the references.) The research that goes into each book is substantial and the way in which British society class conflicts as well as urban versus rural differences are used in the plot is quite inventive. Finally, taken as a whole, this string of novels provides deep insight into international issues of the day, British Parliamentary disputes, and naval politics.
Surprise is one of my favorite novels. In it we learn much more of the elusive Maturin. O’Brian does not just rely on dialogue. In addition, there are well-crafted journals and letters to flesh out personalities and relationships. His ability to convey a deep understanding of human nature is a gift. In my second run through these books, I was amazed at how well everything was woven together and how the tiniest elements of personality were allowed to occasionally rise to the top and have their due. This is my third time reading this book (as eagerly done as my spouse reaches again for Jane Austen).
In this book, Jack Aubrey “loses” the substantial prize money that he had so nobly won at the end of the previous book. This is a blow. His command of the frigate Surprise is something of a boon. Jack needs money to marry his love, Sophie Williams. Instead of opportunities to acquire prize money, he is sent to the Indian Ocean to provide protection for the British East India trade ships. What subsequently transpires gives substance to the nickname “Lucky” Jack Aubrey.
Saying O’Brian writes Napoleonic sea tales is like saying Austen writes about the landed gentry or Faulkner writes rural Southern stories or McMurtry writes about small-town Texas. If you enjoy the art of the novel and historical fiction, you might want to give this book a try.
[I will add, what I hope will be, a helpful quotation or two…more to come.]
"So there is to be no battle after all?" said the Chaplain...."They appear to be slanting off at a great pace. Can it be timidity? I have often heard that the French are great cowards."
"No, no, don't you believe it, Mr. White," said Jack (Aubrey). "They have tanned my hide many a time, I can tell you. No, no: Linois is only reculing pour mew sauter, as he would say. You shall not be disappointed; I believe we may promise you a brisk cannonade in the morning. So perhaps you might be well advised to turn in directly and get all the sleep you can. I shall do the same once I have seen the Captains."
"Mr. White looked up at the mizen-peak, where a tricolour streamed out bravely. "It is the French flag, he cried, "No. The Dutch. We are sailing under false colours! Can Such things, be?"
"So are they," said Stephen (Maturin). "They seek to amuse us; we seek to amuse them. The iniquity is evenly divided. It is an accepted convention."
"I believe, sir, this is your first taste of warfare," he (Aubrey) said. "I am afraid you must find it pretty wearisome, with no cabin and no proper meals."
"Oh, I do not mind that in the least sir," cried the Chaplain. "But I must confess that in my ignorance I had expected something more, shall I say, exciting?...You will not misunderstand me if I say, I wonder you can stand the boredom."
"It is use, no doubt. War is nine parts boredom, and we grow used to it in the service. But the last hour makes up for all, believe me. I think you may be assured of some excitement tomorrow, or perhaps even this evening...."
November 30, 2024
My favorite of the first three novels and perhaps of the entire series! HMS Surprise deftly combines the best aspects of the first two books. Love, friendship and war. Frankly, there's so much going on it's hard to believe O'Brian fits it all in comfortably!
The amazing thing about this book is how it takes you on a ride around the world, touching base in England, the Mediterranean, Africa, South America, India and the South Pacific islands. All of this lush scenery is a joy to behold in O'Brian's capable hands. So much of it describes the natural world that reading HMS Surprise is often like watching an episode of Plant Earth.
This epic series set during the Napoleonic Wars, ostensibly written with Captain Jack Aubrey as the solo heroic figure, can no longer pretend to be anything but a duet. Aubrey's friend, sometimes surgeon and sometimes , Stephen Maturin really comes into his own in HMS Surprise, which includes one of the saddest, most touching scenes, not to mention others both harrowing and heroic. Torture and duels, written with a touch of Impressionism that needs your attention, thrust and parry through out the book in a way that makes you wonder if O'Brian wrote it just to see how much one man can plausibly endure.
O'Brian is knocked on for providing too much information about naval matters, but here he puts it to poignant use. Around page 50 Aubrey is writing to his beloved Sophie back home. Much of what we know today about life at sea and warfare during this period (early 1800s) is what's made available to us through just such letters. They are often vague, elusive or downright bland when it comes to the description of battles. Certainly they could've described the gore and extreme peril the sailors put themselves in, but why worry and expose loved ones to the horrors they might otherwise remain blissfully unaware of? Aubrey pauses in the midst of his chatty letter and reflects upon one of his recent and particularly violent battles - oddly inhuman in it's unusually calm, calculated butchery. Forcing our eyes open Clockwork Orange-style , O'Brian shows a scene few have or should see, and then has Aubrey continue on with his letter, dashing off a colorless, dispassionate summary line about the fight that his loved one might readied swallow none the wiser. So you get the scene and the subterfuge all in one brilliant bit of real life in a fiction full of truths.
My review of book two, Post Captain:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My review of book four, The Mauritius Command:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
The amazing thing about this book is how it takes you on a ride around the world, touching base in England, the Mediterranean, Africa, South America, India and the South Pacific islands. All of this lush scenery is a joy to behold in O'Brian's capable hands. So much of it describes the natural world that reading HMS Surprise is often like watching an episode of Plant Earth.
This epic series set during the Napoleonic Wars, ostensibly written with Captain Jack Aubrey as the solo heroic figure, can no longer pretend to be anything but a duet. Aubrey's friend, sometimes surgeon and sometimes , Stephen Maturin really comes into his own in HMS Surprise, which includes one of the saddest, most touching scenes, not to mention others both harrowing and heroic. Torture and duels, written with a touch of Impressionism that needs your attention, thrust and parry through out the book in a way that makes you wonder if O'Brian wrote it just to see how much one man can plausibly endure.
O'Brian is knocked on for providing too much information about naval matters, but here he puts it to poignant use. Around page 50 Aubrey is writing to his beloved Sophie back home. Much of what we know today about life at sea and warfare during this period (early 1800s) is what's made available to us through just such letters. They are often vague, elusive or downright bland when it comes to the description of battles. Certainly they could've described the gore and extreme peril the sailors put themselves in, but why worry and expose loved ones to the horrors they might otherwise remain blissfully unaware of? Aubrey pauses in the midst of his chatty letter and reflects upon one of his recent and particularly violent battles - oddly inhuman in it's unusually calm, calculated butchery. Forcing our eyes open Clockwork Orange-style , O'Brian shows a scene few have or should see, and then has Aubrey continue on with his letter, dashing off a colorless, dispassionate summary line about the fight that his loved one might readied swallow none the wiser. So you get the scene and the subterfuge all in one brilliant bit of real life in a fiction full of truths.
My review of book two, Post Captain:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My review of book four, The Mauritius Command:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
September 16, 2019
“Valuable and ingenious [Stephen] might be, thought Jack, fixing him with his glass, but false he was too, and perjured. He had voluntarily sworn to have no truck with vampires, and here, attached to his bosom, spread over it and enfolded by one arm, was a greenish hairy thing, like a mat - a loathsome great vampire of the most poisonous kind, no doubt. ‘I should never have believed it of him: his sacred oath in the morning watch and now he stuffs the ship with vampires; and God knows what is in that bag. No doubt he was tempted, but surely he might blush for his fall?’
No blush; nothing but a look of idiot delight as he came slowly up the side, hampered by his burden and comforting it in Portuguese as he came.
‘I am happy to see that you were so successful, Dr Maturin,’ he said, looking down into the launch and the canoes, loaded with glowing heaps of oranges and shaddocks, red meat, iguanas, bananas, greenstuff. ‘But I am afraid no vampires can be allowed on board.’
‘This is a sloth,’ said Stephen, smiling at him. ‘A three-toed sloth, the most affectionate, discriminating sloth you can imagine!’ The sloth turned its round head, fixed its eyes on Jack, uttered a despairing wail, and buried its face again in Stephen’s shoulder, tightening its grip to the strangling-point.”
Honestly, all you need to know about this book is this: first, we get so much more Stephen Maturin angst/sadness/character-building struggle (honestly, the poor man goes through A LOT in this one, and I just want someone to give him a hug), plus more marriage-plotting shenanigans with both Jack and Stephen. Also Stephen brings a sloth on board, and it’s afraid of Jack at first, but then he gets the sloth drunk and they become friends, prompting Stephen to exclaim that Jack has “debauched my sloth!”
Quality stuff, from start to finish.
No blush; nothing but a look of idiot delight as he came slowly up the side, hampered by his burden and comforting it in Portuguese as he came.
‘I am happy to see that you were so successful, Dr Maturin,’ he said, looking down into the launch and the canoes, loaded with glowing heaps of oranges and shaddocks, red meat, iguanas, bananas, greenstuff. ‘But I am afraid no vampires can be allowed on board.’
‘This is a sloth,’ said Stephen, smiling at him. ‘A three-toed sloth, the most affectionate, discriminating sloth you can imagine!’ The sloth turned its round head, fixed its eyes on Jack, uttered a despairing wail, and buried its face again in Stephen’s shoulder, tightening its grip to the strangling-point.”
Honestly, all you need to know about this book is this: first, we get so much more Stephen Maturin angst/sadness/character-building struggle (honestly, the poor man goes through A LOT in this one, and I just want someone to give him a hug), plus more marriage-plotting shenanigans with both Jack and Stephen. Also Stephen brings a sloth on board, and it’s afraid of Jack at first, but then he gets the sloth drunk and they become friends, prompting Stephen to exclaim that Jack has “debauched my sloth!”
Quality stuff, from start to finish.
October 11, 2022
Not that I had tired of Maturin as a too-perfect savant, incredibly wise, subtle, and generous – physician among floggers, philosopher among the canting, counselor-critic to confused lovers - but I thought it was about time he did something human, all too human, something stupid like killing a man over a woman who’s all wrong for him. He cornered her married sugar daddy, provoked him to insult, and shot him down in a duel. (Poor Canning, I liked him, and I wonder if, as the series stretched on, O’Brian regretted killing off such an interesting character so early. I’m convinced that Maturin descends, on his Spanish mother’s side, from sage and stealthy conversos, which might have given them much to discuss.) Does this form a pattern – does Maturin shoot it out with all rivals for Diana Villiers? Her latest lover is an American planter, a type touchy in matters of honor. Could happen. Reading Post Captain, the previous novel, I wondered at the apparent contrast of Maturin and my other favorite historical-fictional character, set down in the same period - Conan Doyle’s endearingly vain and boastful Brigadier Gerard of the Hussars of Conflans, exemplar of the furia francese in a First Empire style, the thickest head and the stoutest heart in all La Grande Armée. Turns out they aren’t so different. Maturin may sound in my head like Michael Gambon reading the letters of Henry James, but he’s still “a man of blood,” as the Marine lieutenant Macdonald observed after a practice bout. Blood and folly. Anyway, this is a fun series. The prose is a tight texture of jokes, jargon, raillery, commands, and aphorisms in small sapiential gardens.
January 16, 2019
Presagivo un allegro con brio, e difatti allegro con brio è stato. Briosamente fresco e avvincente nella sua semplicità di libro di avventure. Con il terzo libro della serie la soddisfazione di lettura raggiunge picchi ancor maggiori dei due precedenti: talmente soddisfacente che sarò a disagio nel voler procedere con le puntate successive, nel timore che l'allungarsi della minestra comporti un comprensibile calo della sapidità (ora scrivo così, ma in realtà ieri sera ho già messo nella wl di IBS il quarto volume della serie...).
Fino a qui, O'Brian è stato un intrattenitore eccellente: elegante nella prosa e anche nella gestione del romanzo storico con la scelta di non voler per forza buttare sulla ribalta personaggi famosi; esperto di Storia e di Royal Navy ma mai pedante; con una precisissima alternanza di pathos e ironia, andanti e allegri; con personaggi avvincenti ma non macchiettistici né iperbolici e ai quali ci si affeziona subito, una trama che sta tutta avvolta intorno al suo nòcciolo duro senza mai partire per tangenti inutili; i dettagli e gli aspetti che nel secondo volume mi erano parsi come forzature qui vengono smorzati e diluiti nel completarsi della storia. I primi tre libri sono come un avocado: un rotondo, corposo, gustoso frutto maturo. L'anno nuovo promette bene.
May 1, 2020
Thus to the Eastern wealth through storms we go;
But now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more:
A constant trade-wind will securely blow,
And gently lay us on the spicy shore.
HMS Surprise is the name of the latest command of Captain Jack Aubrey, a frigate with a ragtag crew sent on a solitary mission to the Indian Ocean. The book debuts with a messy affair involving Doctor StephenMaturin who is betrayed by his own side and tortured by the French in Minorca and the usual financial troubles for Jack that are standing in the way of his marriage to the lovely Sophie. All these shore troubles are cast away as the ship takes to the high seas, and the prose of Patrick O'Brian soars to poetic heights unlike any of the earlier accounts of voyages in the Mediterranean and the Channel, making the book my favorite so far in the series. The terrifying images of a storm in the low latitudes of the Southern Atlantic are even stronger that the account of a naval engagement later in the book between a French squadron and a convoy if Indiamen merchant ships coordinated by Jack Aubrey. The quiet sailing moments between the storms and the actions, either in the glowing phosphorescence of a moonless night under the Southern Cross or in the blinding sun of the tropical Java Sea will remain longer in my memory than the actual plot of this episode:
At this speed the frigate's bow-wave rose high, washing the lee head-rails with an unearthly blue-green light and sending phosphorescent drops over them, even more brilliant than the wake that tore out straight behind them, a ruled line three miles long gleaming like a flow of metal.
---
They were poised high above the surface of the sea; and all that was visible of the distant, narrow deck through the topsails and courses seemed peopled with dolls, foreshortened dolls that moved with disproportionate strides, their feet reaching too far in front and too far behind. 'Superb,' he said again. 'How vast the sea has become! How Luminous!'
Jack Laughed to see his evident pleasure, his bright and attentive wondering eye, and said, 'Look for'ard.'
The frigate had no headsails set, the wind being aft, and the taut lines of the forestays plunged slanting down in a clean, satisfying geometry; below them the ship's head with its curving rails, and then the long questing bowsprit, reaching far out into the infinity of the ocean: with a steady, measured, living rhythm her bows plunged into the dark blue water, splitting it, shouldering it aside in dazzling foam.
---
On and on she sailed, in warmer seas but void, as though they alone had survived Deucalion's flood; as though all land had vanished from the earth; and once again the ship's routine dislocated time and temporal reality so that this progress was an endless dream, even a circular dream, contained within an unbroken horizon and punctuated only by the sound of guns thundering daily in preparation for an enemy whose real existence it was impossible to conceive.
It should have been tedious, week after week of solitary, uneventful crossing of empty seas, but instead it felt full of wonder, liberating in the basic struggle between man and ocean, relieved in part by flashes of humour involving a Brazilian sloth and a darker incident where the doctor is marooned on an empty rock without water or shelter.
On the personal level, Jack is mostly stagnant, isolated in his commanding role and with few occasions for shoreward misdeeds. It is Stephen who pays a heavy emotional price as he tries to absorb the cultural differences of Indian life in Bombay or Calcutta where he befriends a local girl. Then there's the added complication of meeting his old flame Diana Villiers, now the mistress of a British merchant. Their self-destructive relationship is as dramatic and explosive as a meeting of warships on the ocean, yet another proof that O'Brian is as good at characterization as he is at describing the sails and maneuvers of a frigate.
I had touched on the sailing, on the naval action, on the romance. What is left is doctor Stephen's journal, combining naturalist observations with moral philosophy, friendship with politics and even musings on the human condition:
Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family, and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch. Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison.
All of the above constitute reason enough for me to continue with the series as a high priority. I'm even beginning not only to understand, but to enjoy and find poetry in such obscure exclamations as this:
Mr Pullings, all hands to make sail. Maintopgallants'l, stuns'ls and royal; and scandalise the foretops'l yard!
But now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more:
A constant trade-wind will securely blow,
And gently lay us on the spicy shore.
HMS Surprise is the name of the latest command of Captain Jack Aubrey, a frigate with a ragtag crew sent on a solitary mission to the Indian Ocean. The book debuts with a messy affair involving Doctor StephenMaturin who is betrayed by his own side and tortured by the French in Minorca and the usual financial troubles for Jack that are standing in the way of his marriage to the lovely Sophie. All these shore troubles are cast away as the ship takes to the high seas, and the prose of Patrick O'Brian soars to poetic heights unlike any of the earlier accounts of voyages in the Mediterranean and the Channel, making the book my favorite so far in the series. The terrifying images of a storm in the low latitudes of the Southern Atlantic are even stronger that the account of a naval engagement later in the book between a French squadron and a convoy if Indiamen merchant ships coordinated by Jack Aubrey. The quiet sailing moments between the storms and the actions, either in the glowing phosphorescence of a moonless night under the Southern Cross or in the blinding sun of the tropical Java Sea will remain longer in my memory than the actual plot of this episode:
At this speed the frigate's bow-wave rose high, washing the lee head-rails with an unearthly blue-green light and sending phosphorescent drops over them, even more brilliant than the wake that tore out straight behind them, a ruled line three miles long gleaming like a flow of metal.
---
They were poised high above the surface of the sea; and all that was visible of the distant, narrow deck through the topsails and courses seemed peopled with dolls, foreshortened dolls that moved with disproportionate strides, their feet reaching too far in front and too far behind. 'Superb,' he said again. 'How vast the sea has become! How Luminous!'
Jack Laughed to see his evident pleasure, his bright and attentive wondering eye, and said, 'Look for'ard.'
The frigate had no headsails set, the wind being aft, and the taut lines of the forestays plunged slanting down in a clean, satisfying geometry; below them the ship's head with its curving rails, and then the long questing bowsprit, reaching far out into the infinity of the ocean: with a steady, measured, living rhythm her bows plunged into the dark blue water, splitting it, shouldering it aside in dazzling foam.
---
On and on she sailed, in warmer seas but void, as though they alone had survived Deucalion's flood; as though all land had vanished from the earth; and once again the ship's routine dislocated time and temporal reality so that this progress was an endless dream, even a circular dream, contained within an unbroken horizon and punctuated only by the sound of guns thundering daily in preparation for an enemy whose real existence it was impossible to conceive.
It should have been tedious, week after week of solitary, uneventful crossing of empty seas, but instead it felt full of wonder, liberating in the basic struggle between man and ocean, relieved in part by flashes of humour involving a Brazilian sloth and a darker incident where the doctor is marooned on an empty rock without water or shelter.
On the personal level, Jack is mostly stagnant, isolated in his commanding role and with few occasions for shoreward misdeeds. It is Stephen who pays a heavy emotional price as he tries to absorb the cultural differences of Indian life in Bombay or Calcutta where he befriends a local girl. Then there's the added complication of meeting his old flame Diana Villiers, now the mistress of a British merchant. Their self-destructive relationship is as dramatic and explosive as a meeting of warships on the ocean, yet another proof that O'Brian is as good at characterization as he is at describing the sails and maneuvers of a frigate.
I had touched on the sailing, on the naval action, on the romance. What is left is doctor Stephen's journal, combining naturalist observations with moral philosophy, friendship with politics and even musings on the human condition:
Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family, and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch. Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison.
All of the above constitute reason enough for me to continue with the series as a high priority. I'm even beginning not only to understand, but to enjoy and find poetry in such obscure exclamations as this:
Mr Pullings, all hands to make sail. Maintopgallants'l, stuns'ls and royal; and scandalise the foretops'l yard!
August 15, 2016
“Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human...”
― Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise
“Jack, you have debauched my sloth.”
― Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise
So, I am now three books into the Aubrey/Maturin series and the books are only getting better. Master and Commander and Post Captain were 459 to 527 pages respectively, and I wouldn't fault a page. However, now it seems O'Brian has trimmed and edited these books down to the sub-400 page range and they seem to spirit along nicely.
In its way, this beginning of this series reminds me a bit of the beginning of Alan Furst's Night Soldiers series. The first two are bulkier than the rest, but then the authors settle down and find their groove. Both Furst and O'Brian, by book three in their series, have worked out that they can write thousands of more pages with the setting, characters, and action they have in their heads and by book three they both have their pace.
Major concern going forward: I think the relationship between Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin is amazing, and one of the graces of the English language. I'm not sure, however, how long my attention can be plucked by expansion of the duet to include Diana and Sophie. They will either kill me, thrill me, or bore me eventually. But how do I love these men and their affection for women, science, music, people, nature, etc. It really is a giant love note to that Napoleonic age. I'm also not sure how much of the nautical lingo will eventually seep into my brain. Perhaps, by the time I'm finishing up book 20, I will understand most of what is happening during a naval engagement. Like a teenager just finishing Spanish 1, I can understand bits and pieces. Just enough of this language is uncovered to make me dangerous and hesitant to even describe what just happened. But I am hooked.
― Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise
“Jack, you have debauched my sloth.”
― Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise
So, I am now three books into the Aubrey/Maturin series and the books are only getting better. Master and Commander and Post Captain were 459 to 527 pages respectively, and I wouldn't fault a page. However, now it seems O'Brian has trimmed and edited these books down to the sub-400 page range and they seem to spirit along nicely.
In its way, this beginning of this series reminds me a bit of the beginning of Alan Furst's Night Soldiers series. The first two are bulkier than the rest, but then the authors settle down and find their groove. Both Furst and O'Brian, by book three in their series, have worked out that they can write thousands of more pages with the setting, characters, and action they have in their heads and by book three they both have their pace.
Major concern going forward: I think the relationship between Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin is amazing, and one of the graces of the English language. I'm not sure, however, how long my attention can be plucked by expansion of the duet to include Diana and Sophie. They will either kill me, thrill me, or bore me eventually. But how do I love these men and their affection for women, science, music, people, nature, etc. It really is a giant love note to that Napoleonic age. I'm also not sure how much of the nautical lingo will eventually seep into my brain. Perhaps, by the time I'm finishing up book 20, I will understand most of what is happening during a naval engagement. Like a teenager just finishing Spanish 1, I can understand bits and pieces. Just enough of this language is uncovered to make me dangerous and hesitant to even describe what just happened. But I am hooked.
December 26, 2022
3 – 3.5 stars
As the rating attests I enjoyed this book, but I am not sure if I will ever be one of the rabid legion of fans enamoured of Patrick O’Brian’s work. I certainly enjoyed this book much more than I did Master and Commander which, quite frankly, I found opaque and uninteresting. I also skipped over the second book in the series since Aubrey and Maturin on land worrying about their love lives didn’t really seem like the next best point to re-try getting into the series. For some reason I can’t quite fathom I’ve always felt a little guilty about not liking the first book and there’s something deep down in me that really wants to like this series. There is, after all, quite a bit to love: two well-drawn main characters who complement and contrast each other very nicely in both their skills and demeanor, a detailed (one might say perhaps a bit too detailed) glimpse into the minds and manners of Napoleonic Europe (with obviously a decided concentration on naval procedures and jargon), and enough adventure and excitement to generally keep things interesting. Of course, there are slow points and between naval engagements or chases, duels, and moments of intense physical or emotional intensity the calm can be somewhat soporific. I suppose this is a nice parallel to the sea voyages that comprise the bulk of the narrative: moments of intense action and apprehension leavened with days and days of routine and boredom. That’s not quite fair, I guess, I certainly didn’t find myself yawning too much during this book, but it is true that events often move at a sedate pace for the lion’s share of the pages.
As the story opens we find ourselves thrust into the midst of a meeting of politicians and naval muckety-mucks the result of which will be a major disappointment for Captain Jack Aubrey and a significant impediment to the health and possible continuance of Dr. Stephen Maturin’s life. Loose lips sink ships, and they also put His Majesty’s spies into tight corners. After some period scene setting with Jack’s fiancée Sophie and an initial adventure involving torture, rescue and escape the upshot is that Jack and Stephen are back at sea, nominally for the purpose of ferrying an envoy from Britain to the East Indies. From here we are treated to the requisite scenes of naval life, Stephen’s obsession with natural philosophy and both scientific and cultural observation, forays into the culture of the Indian subcontinent, and woman troubles for both Jack and Stephen. Add to that a duel, the weathering of some truly monumental forces of nature, and a surprise naval engagement and you’ve pretty much got everything you ought to expect from an Aubrey-Maturin novel.
The long and the short of it is that I enjoyed this novel quite a bit, certainly enough to more or less efface the bad taste I had after reading the first one. I definitely plan on continuing to follow Jack and Stephen’s further adventures, though I have not yet been converted to the level of hardcore fandom. One note: I alternated between listening to the Patrick Tull narrated audio version of the book and reading my electronic version. Overall I enjoyed Tull’s performance (it really can’t be called anything short of that), though his pauses and occasionally prolonged drawl did make me stumble from time to time.
As the rating attests I enjoyed this book, but I am not sure if I will ever be one of the rabid legion of fans enamoured of Patrick O’Brian’s work. I certainly enjoyed this book much more than I did Master and Commander which, quite frankly, I found opaque and uninteresting. I also skipped over the second book in the series since Aubrey and Maturin on land worrying about their love lives didn’t really seem like the next best point to re-try getting into the series. For some reason I can’t quite fathom I’ve always felt a little guilty about not liking the first book and there’s something deep down in me that really wants to like this series. There is, after all, quite a bit to love: two well-drawn main characters who complement and contrast each other very nicely in both their skills and demeanor, a detailed (one might say perhaps a bit too detailed) glimpse into the minds and manners of Napoleonic Europe (with obviously a decided concentration on naval procedures and jargon), and enough adventure and excitement to generally keep things interesting. Of course, there are slow points and between naval engagements or chases, duels, and moments of intense physical or emotional intensity the calm can be somewhat soporific. I suppose this is a nice parallel to the sea voyages that comprise the bulk of the narrative: moments of intense action and apprehension leavened with days and days of routine and boredom. That’s not quite fair, I guess, I certainly didn’t find myself yawning too much during this book, but it is true that events often move at a sedate pace for the lion’s share of the pages.
As the story opens we find ourselves thrust into the midst of a meeting of politicians and naval muckety-mucks the result of which will be a major disappointment for Captain Jack Aubrey and a significant impediment to the health and possible continuance of Dr. Stephen Maturin’s life. Loose lips sink ships, and they also put His Majesty’s spies into tight corners. After some period scene setting with Jack’s fiancée Sophie and an initial adventure involving torture, rescue and escape the upshot is that Jack and Stephen are back at sea, nominally for the purpose of ferrying an envoy from Britain to the East Indies. From here we are treated to the requisite scenes of naval life, Stephen’s obsession with natural philosophy and both scientific and cultural observation, forays into the culture of the Indian subcontinent, and woman troubles for both Jack and Stephen. Add to that a duel, the weathering of some truly monumental forces of nature, and a surprise naval engagement and you’ve pretty much got everything you ought to expect from an Aubrey-Maturin novel.
The long and the short of it is that I enjoyed this novel quite a bit, certainly enough to more or less efface the bad taste I had after reading the first one. I definitely plan on continuing to follow Jack and Stephen’s further adventures, though I have not yet been converted to the level of hardcore fandom. One note: I alternated between listening to the Patrick Tull narrated audio version of the book and reading my electronic version. Overall I enjoyed Tull’s performance (it really can’t be called anything short of that), though his pauses and occasionally prolonged drawl did make me stumble from time to time.
July 18, 2020
I have notes, but in essence: Wow. Definitely new to me, and I will be reading/re-reading more of these. What a book. What a writer!
The most impressive part, for me, is total immersion in what seaboard life -- OK, HUMAN life -- was like in the early 19th C. How fragile it was! Sherwood Smith: read hers on her favorite parts, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The little orphan girl in Bombay that Stephen was considering buying. He did buy her some silver bangles, her heart's desire.
I'm soliciting friend recos for your favorites. You may be certain I'll be consulting Sherwood Smith, and Rich Horton.
Of this book, my old friend Rich Horton has written:
"In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary."
Well, "me too." I presume I missed it years ago, when whatever library we were using failed to provide a copy. Now, we have limited reserve service, from in-county libraries only, and this was the first to appear. It's a winner!
The most impressive part, for me, is total immersion in what seaboard life -- OK, HUMAN life -- was like in the early 19th C. How fragile it was! Sherwood Smith: read hers on her favorite parts, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The little orphan girl in Bombay that Stephen was considering buying. He did buy her some silver bangles, her heart's desire.
I'm soliciting friend recos for your favorites. You may be certain I'll be consulting Sherwood Smith, and Rich Horton.
Of this book, my old friend Rich Horton has written:
"In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary."
Well, "me too." I presume I missed it years ago, when whatever library we were using failed to provide a copy. Now, we have limited reserve service, from in-county libraries only, and this was the first to appear. It's a winner!
November 18, 2022
Each book in this series is a perfect narrative: immersing the reader in 18th century naval warfare, the art of sailing, life in the British Navy, the class-structured society, and all the primitive superstitions of medicine, food, clothing, housing, and life in this time. Each novel covers a serious story and could be read independently, but the story is really the next phase of Captain Aubrey's career, e.g. what happened to him during his 33rd and 34th year. As such, it is really engaging to read the series in order from the beginning. I am so delighted to have several more books yet to come.
April 3, 2017
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
July 4, 2018
I reach a point in any series longer than a trilogy where reading about the same characters and the types of situations they get into no longer does much for me. It's lost the freshness and excitement of the beginning and fallen into a rut, even if specific events are happening that haven't occurred before. I was looking forward to this book after really enjoying the second book and seeing all the reviewers calling this one their favorite, but unfortunately this was the book where I realized the series has been played out for me.
Most of this book is a long sea voyage, aimed toward what seems to be Cambodia. Captain Aubrey is tasked with delivering a government envoy, and for some reason seems to make a leisurely sail of it: they even stop in Rio on the way to sailing around Africa (given the amount of research that has clearly gone into these, I presume that was common?) and seem to be taking a lot longer to make the trip than other available forms of transportation, given that they receive rather up-to-date letters from home all along the way. Toward the end, bafflingly, Was diplomacy really handled this way? It makes the entire plot feel like a giant McGuffin.
Plot quibbles aside though, I'm just not into that into these books anymore. They still haven't given any significant development to anyone else on the ship; the only people other than Aubrey and Maturin who receive much at all are their love interests, who play a small role in this book. The principals' relationship was very complex and still developing in the first two books, but here it doesn't feel like there's much more for the author to do but retread old ground. And, finding the plot and characters less exciting than in the past, I found myself with less patience for being unable to picture much of what's going on (not sharing the author's fascination with Napoleonic Wars era ships and guns), and for the writing style that sometimes requires re-reading a paragraph several times to understand what's happening (due to unstated assumptions and norms and the author's habit of omitting key facts).
It isn't necessarily a bad book: the protagonists still have their complexities, the author's extensive research is still clear and provides a certain degree of immersion, etc. Nevertheless, I've hit my limit with this series.
Most of this book is a long sea voyage, aimed toward what seems to be Cambodia. Captain Aubrey is tasked with delivering a government envoy, and for some reason seems to make a leisurely sail of it: they even stop in Rio on the way to sailing around Africa (given the amount of research that has clearly gone into these, I presume that was common?) and seem to be taking a lot longer to make the trip than other available forms of transportation, given that they receive rather up-to-date letters from home all along the way. Toward the end, bafflingly, Was diplomacy really handled this way? It makes the entire plot feel like a giant McGuffin.
Plot quibbles aside though, I'm just not into that into these books anymore. They still haven't given any significant development to anyone else on the ship; the only people other than Aubrey and Maturin who receive much at all are their love interests, who play a small role in this book. The principals' relationship was very complex and still developing in the first two books, but here it doesn't feel like there's much more for the author to do but retread old ground. And, finding the plot and characters less exciting than in the past, I found myself with less patience for being unable to picture much of what's going on (not sharing the author's fascination with Napoleonic Wars era ships and guns), and for the writing style that sometimes requires re-reading a paragraph several times to understand what's happening (due to unstated assumptions and norms and the author's habit of omitting key facts).
It isn't necessarily a bad book: the protagonists still have their complexities, the author's extensive research is still clear and provides a certain degree of immersion, etc. Nevertheless, I've hit my limit with this series.
May 18, 2012
I like listening to this book better than reading it, I think. This one is steeped in the emotional lives of Jack and Stephen. It's the first that really starts showing us how deeply these men feel about each other and the others they care about, and hearing it rather than reading it adds a level of intimacy that increases the novel's emotional satisfaction.
It opens with Stephen's torture at the hands of the French, and Jack's daring rescue. Captain Jack cares for his wounded friend with a tenderness that belies his massive frame, and he can't help but be rattled by the state in which he finds Stephen.
HMS Surprise continues in this vein, moving from emotional moment to emotional moment. Jack loves Sophie Williams, but cannot marry her because he is arrested for debt and Mrs. Williams wants a rich man for her daughter, not just a rank or name. It cuts Jack to the quick.
Stephen loves Diana Villiers (Sophie's cousin), but she has run off with Canning, a much liked Jewish merchant with interests in Diana's birth home -- India. Stephen also comes to love a little street urchin named Dill, and he eventually loses both Diana (for now) and Dill (forever). And he kills Canning in a rather spooky dual, where Stephen, even with his torture-warped hands and a bullet in his chest, manages to end the dual with the death of his rival. Death and heartache are Stephen's lot.
And then Jack and Diana, and Bonden and Killick and all the Sophies (the crewmen of Jack's first ship), are in a deep state of dread that Stephen will not make it through the infection left behind by his surgery (which he himself performed) -- and the love that they all feel for the too intense, rather ugly, brilliantly talented doctor is revealed.
Listening to Simon Vance bring this to life increases the intimacy for the reader/listener, making this a rare case when the audio book increased my enjoyment. I wonder if this will happen again? There're still 18 books to listen to. Perhaps it will.
It opens with Stephen's torture at the hands of the French, and Jack's daring rescue. Captain Jack cares for his wounded friend with a tenderness that belies his massive frame, and he can't help but be rattled by the state in which he finds Stephen.
HMS Surprise continues in this vein, moving from emotional moment to emotional moment. Jack loves Sophie Williams, but cannot marry her because he is arrested for debt and Mrs. Williams wants a rich man for her daughter, not just a rank or name. It cuts Jack to the quick.
Stephen loves Diana Villiers (Sophie's cousin), but she has run off with Canning, a much liked Jewish merchant with interests in Diana's birth home -- India. Stephen also comes to love a little street urchin named Dill, and he eventually loses both Diana (for now) and Dill (forever). And he kills Canning in a rather spooky dual, where Stephen, even with his torture-warped hands and a bullet in his chest, manages to end the dual with the death of his rival. Death and heartache are Stephen's lot.
And then Jack and Diana, and Bonden and Killick and all the Sophies (the crewmen of Jack's first ship), are in a deep state of dread that Stephen will not make it through the infection left behind by his surgery (which he himself performed) -- and the love that they all feel for the too intense, rather ugly, brilliantly talented doctor is revealed.
Listening to Simon Vance bring this to life increases the intimacy for the reader/listener, making this a rare case when the audio book increased my enjoyment. I wonder if this will happen again? There're still 18 books to listen to. Perhaps it will.
December 16, 2021
Read this book in 2008, and its the 3rd volume of the delightful "Aubrey & Maturin" series.
In this adventure we'll find Aubrey and Maturin in the Indian Ocean, and near the sighs a dn smells of the Indian subcontinent.
While on the defensive against an enemy with overwhelming local superiority, they are on the hunt for their French enemies at sea, sent there by Napoleon to attack the China Fleet, and a possibility to make Aubrey very rich.
What is to come is an intriguing and marvellous seafaring adventure, in which Aubrey and Maturin and the rest of the crew are doing everything in their power to beat the French at sea, and make the way free for the British to sail the seas unmolested, and all this is brought to us by the author in a most authentic and compelling fashion.
Highly recommended, for this is another awesome addition to this awesome seafaring series, and that's why I like to call this episode: "A Magnificent Aubrey & Maturin Adventure"!
In this adventure we'll find Aubrey and Maturin in the Indian Ocean, and near the sighs a dn smells of the Indian subcontinent.
While on the defensive against an enemy with overwhelming local superiority, they are on the hunt for their French enemies at sea, sent there by Napoleon to attack the China Fleet, and a possibility to make Aubrey very rich.
What is to come is an intriguing and marvellous seafaring adventure, in which Aubrey and Maturin and the rest of the crew are doing everything in their power to beat the French at sea, and make the way free for the British to sail the seas unmolested, and all this is brought to us by the author in a most authentic and compelling fashion.
Highly recommended, for this is another awesome addition to this awesome seafaring series, and that's why I like to call this episode: "A Magnificent Aubrey & Maturin Adventure"!
March 7, 2019
I loved this book. The development of the two central characters, and their trials and tribulations in matters of both love and war, are as convincing as the world in which they live.
The descriptions of naval battles, especially the one towards the end of the book, are terrific, edge-of-the-seat reading. I think I read somewhere that O'Brian based at least some of the battles on real ones fought during the Napoleonic wars, and they are extraordinarily vivid. They are three-dimensional and have the feeling of melancholy in the aftermath of battle because of dead and injured shipmates, as well as the pleasure of success.
I am all agog to read the next volume, but want to space them out and savour the experience. Definitely a five-star read for me.
The descriptions of naval battles, especially the one towards the end of the book, are terrific, edge-of-the-seat reading. I think I read somewhere that O'Brian based at least some of the battles on real ones fought during the Napoleonic wars, and they are extraordinarily vivid. They are three-dimensional and have the feeling of melancholy in the aftermath of battle because of dead and injured shipmates, as well as the pleasure of success.
I am all agog to read the next volume, but want to space them out and savour the experience. Definitely a five-star read for me.
September 17, 2020
It's my second time through H.M.S. 'Surprise', and I am surprised to discover that I am ever so slightly disappointed. The narrative of H.M.S. 'Surprise' felt a little uneven this time through, and despite a breathless second act and an emotional denouement, I put it back on my shelf a little disappointed.
This disappointment feels strange, though, because there is so much that I love in the story. The opening debate over the Spanish gold -- prize money won at the end of Post Captain -- is a fascinating peripheral episode, and an important expansion of Sir Joseph Blaine. Stephen's reunion with Diana in Bombay is as it should be, and Patrick O'Brian's evocation of India is impressive and rather sad when it touches on the death of Stephen's guide, Dil (a death Stephen is inadvertently responsible for, having given her the silver bangles that led to her murder). One of my favourite fictional naval actions, Captain Jack Aubrey's defense of the East India Company's China Fleet through subterfuge and ballsiness, runs for nearly the entirety of the story's second act, and it stands out as one of the best battles in a series that spans twenty-one books. And the story ends with Maturin dueling with Canning at twenty paces. Stephen takes a ball in the chest, then kills Canning with a ball in the heart, but best of all, Maturin removes the ball from under his ribs in a steely surgical scene with help from Mr. M'Alister (his assistant) and Jack (which remains one of the best scenes pillaged by Peter Weir for his adaptation of Master and Commander). Yet for all that, I still feel disappointed.
The reason must be the doldrums of the first act. While I usually enjoy the pseudo-Regency romance of Aubrey-Maturin, while I usually love the day to day relationships of the Surprises, I found my attention drifting this time through. I dunno. Maybe it's just my mood. Maybe it's that I am reading Ulysses at the same time. I can't be sure what it is really.
But me being disappointed with H.M.S. 'Surprise' and giving it three stars isn't a clear reflection of how I feel about the book. For me the entire series -- all twenty and a half books -- are worthy of five stars. So H.M.S. 'Surprise' stands in judgment only alongside its kin, not literature at large. It's three stars, but any O'Brian book, even H.M.S. 'Surprise' still comes before most books on my to-read shelf when I need something late in the night.
This disappointment feels strange, though, because there is so much that I love in the story. The opening debate over the Spanish gold -- prize money won at the end of Post Captain -- is a fascinating peripheral episode, and an important expansion of Sir Joseph Blaine. Stephen's reunion with Diana in Bombay is as it should be, and Patrick O'Brian's evocation of India is impressive and rather sad when it touches on the death of Stephen's guide, Dil (a death Stephen is inadvertently responsible for, having given her the silver bangles that led to her murder). One of my favourite fictional naval actions, Captain Jack Aubrey's defense of the East India Company's China Fleet through subterfuge and ballsiness, runs for nearly the entirety of the story's second act, and it stands out as one of the best battles in a series that spans twenty-one books. And the story ends with Maturin dueling with Canning at twenty paces. Stephen takes a ball in the chest, then kills Canning with a ball in the heart, but best of all, Maturin removes the ball from under his ribs in a steely surgical scene with help from Mr. M'Alister (his assistant) and Jack (which remains one of the best scenes pillaged by Peter Weir for his adaptation of Master and Commander). Yet for all that, I still feel disappointed.
The reason must be the doldrums of the first act. While I usually enjoy the pseudo-Regency romance of Aubrey-Maturin, while I usually love the day to day relationships of the Surprises, I found my attention drifting this time through. I dunno. Maybe it's just my mood. Maybe it's that I am reading Ulysses at the same time. I can't be sure what it is really.
But me being disappointed with H.M.S. 'Surprise' and giving it three stars isn't a clear reflection of how I feel about the book. For me the entire series -- all twenty and a half books -- are worthy of five stars. So H.M.S. 'Surprise' stands in judgment only alongside its kin, not literature at large. It's three stars, but any O'Brian book, even H.M.S. 'Surprise' still comes before most books on my to-read shelf when I need something late in the night.
October 10, 2025
Unlike the previous two books in the series H.M.S Surprise is more about life at sea, a seemingly boring occurrence that O'Brian transforms to be thoroughly engrossing. The seriousness of a Sunday inspection of crew's tidiness, the ephemeral ferociousness of a white squall, the return of exotic animals aboard the ship, and the monstrous nature of the south Atlantic under a storm (how Jack and his crew weather this is just as riveting as the best battles the author has written, thus far, in the series) are some of the plot elements that enliven the story. Drama is aplenty as well with hardships and happiness striking the two men asymmetrically. However, this enables deeper exploration into their personalities - Jack refusing to have his ship towed after it sustained serious damage as a result of an incident tells much about him and his style of command - and their friendship to strengthen, exemplified by Jack inviting Stephen to the foretop, which provides him with a whole new perspective of the ship, the sea, and possibly even the world, after a heartbreaking event in India. High seas drama is also present in the form of two naval engagements, which comprise a single battle with a French squadron, with the climax featuring uncertainties stemming from a convoy of East Indiaman, surprising maneuvers, and broadside after broadside. It's a great book to read in autumn, in my opinion. Perhaps the "just-right" temperatures somehow capture the tone of cautious optimism with spells of sullenness and exultation that characterize the book and the entire series, I hear.
5/5
5/5
September 11, 2017
Ha-emnh, ecco a voi la mia "ponderata" recensione della terza puntata della serie di Aubrey & Maturin:
October 2, 2025
HMS Surprise is the third in the Aubrey/Maturin novels. In this novel Jack is commissioned with taking an ambassador to India.
The journey involves heading to South America (to pick up the ambassador I think) then a very dodgy passage in the South Atlantic and to the Indian sub-continent where The Surprise needs a near complete re-fit which leaves the whole crew with time on their hands.
Of course Maturin is in his element, heading out to see, study and (often) return with, the local wildlife. That is until he learns of Diana Villiers residency in the city. Diana is the mistress of another man but that particular man is a busy man so she's happy to keep Maturin around to amuse herself- along with several other men who are richer and more influential than Maturin.
I enjoyed this episode as it gives a nice mix of minor skirmishes, lots of interesting sea voyages and some home/love life - although truth be told, Maturin's slavish adoration of a woman who would only care more for him if he were rich and important is really quite sickening. I'd like to shake some sense into him. But he'll never learn.
It is interesting to follow Jack's advances and knockbacks during the novel plus the descriptions of wildlife and life at sea are always illuminating.
Onto The Mauritius Command. O'Brian sure was prolific.
The journey involves heading to South America (to pick up the ambassador I think) then a very dodgy passage in the South Atlantic and to the Indian sub-continent where The Surprise needs a near complete re-fit which leaves the whole crew with time on their hands.
Of course Maturin is in his element, heading out to see, study and (often) return with, the local wildlife. That is until he learns of Diana Villiers residency in the city. Diana is the mistress of another man but that particular man is a busy man so she's happy to keep Maturin around to amuse herself- along with several other men who are richer and more influential than Maturin.
I enjoyed this episode as it gives a nice mix of minor skirmishes, lots of interesting sea voyages and some home/love life - although truth be told, Maturin's slavish adoration of a woman who would only care more for him if he were rich and important is really quite sickening. I'd like to shake some sense into him. But he'll never learn.
It is interesting to follow Jack's advances and knockbacks during the novel plus the descriptions of wildlife and life at sea are always illuminating.
Onto The Mauritius Command. O'Brian sure was prolific.
June 3, 2012
In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary. Still, I'm glad to add my words. These stories concern Jack Aubrey, a ship captain in the English Navy at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and his great friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish-Catalan doctor and spy who in the first book joins Jack's crew as ship doctor.
As H. M. S. Surpries opens, political machinations cost Jack his prize money (earned in the previous book0, and Stephen's cover in Spain is blown. As a result, and also because Stephen is scheming to see his lover Diana again (who has been taken by her keeper Richard Canning to India), Jack takes command of the aged frigate H.M.S. Surprise, and is sent to Cambodia (stopping in India) to deliver the new British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong.
Thus the setup for a long, wonderful, account of the voyage to the Orient and back. The pleasures of this book are remarkably varied: high comedy, such as the famous drunken sloth incident; high adventure, as the men of the Surprise battle not only the South Atlantic at its fiercest, but also the French; and bitter disappointment and even tragedy, in Stephen's seesaw relationship with Diana, as well as Stephen's involvement with a young Indian girl.
The pleasures of this book, however, are not restricted to a fine plot. The ongoing development of the characters of Jack and Stephen, and of their complex and fully described friendship, is a major achievement. In addition, the many minor characters are fascinating: the envoy Mr. Stanhope, Stephen's Indian friend, the various ship's officers and men, other ship captains, and so on. And O'Brian's depiction of the building of an effective crew, the relationship of captain to officers to men, is another fascinating detail, and something he revisits from book to book, as Jack encounters different crews in different circumstances. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion.
Jack and Stephen are heroic in certain aspects of their characters, but they are both multi-faceted characters, with terrible flaws and endearing crotchets in addition to their accomplishments. And they truly come across to this reader as characters of their time, and not 20th Century people cast back into the past. Even Stephen's very contemporary racial and religious attitudes are well-motivated by his background, and expressed in language which reeks wonderfully of his time: "Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, if anyone can speak of a heterogeneous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way."
I recommend all these books highly. It was with great difficulty the first time through the series that I restrained myself, upon finishing each book, from immediately starting in on the next one.
As H. M. S. Surpries opens, political machinations cost Jack his prize money (earned in the previous book0, and Stephen's cover in Spain is blown. As a result, and also because Stephen is scheming to see his lover Diana again (who has been taken by her keeper Richard Canning to India), Jack takes command of the aged frigate H.M.S. Surprise, and is sent to Cambodia (stopping in India) to deliver the new British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong.
Thus the setup for a long, wonderful, account of the voyage to the Orient and back. The pleasures of this book are remarkably varied: high comedy, such as the famous drunken sloth incident; high adventure, as the men of the Surprise battle not only the South Atlantic at its fiercest, but also the French; and bitter disappointment and even tragedy, in Stephen's seesaw relationship with Diana, as well as Stephen's involvement with a young Indian girl.
The pleasures of this book, however, are not restricted to a fine plot. The ongoing development of the characters of Jack and Stephen, and of their complex and fully described friendship, is a major achievement. In addition, the many minor characters are fascinating: the envoy Mr. Stanhope, Stephen's Indian friend, the various ship's officers and men, other ship captains, and so on. And O'Brian's depiction of the building of an effective crew, the relationship of captain to officers to men, is another fascinating detail, and something he revisits from book to book, as Jack encounters different crews in different circumstances. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion.
Jack and Stephen are heroic in certain aspects of their characters, but they are both multi-faceted characters, with terrible flaws and endearing crotchets in addition to their accomplishments. And they truly come across to this reader as characters of their time, and not 20th Century people cast back into the past. Even Stephen's very contemporary racial and religious attitudes are well-motivated by his background, and expressed in language which reeks wonderfully of his time: "Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, if anyone can speak of a heterogeneous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way."
I recommend all these books highly. It was with great difficulty the first time through the series that I restrained myself, upon finishing each book, from immediately starting in on the next one.
December 20, 2013
Quite possibly the finest of the entire 20-volume Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, partly because the character of Stephen Maturin is so ruthlessly exposed. First, his attachment to Diana Villiers comes to a head. Second, his utter devastation after the death of Dil. And, finally, his duel with Canning and self-surgery afterwards. Top that with the Surprise's brilliant action against Linois to save the China Fleet and Aubrey's reattachment to Sophie, and you have a truly wondrous work.
Oh, and there is a debauched sloth.
Oh, and there is a debauched sloth.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2019
I love stories about seafaring voyages and everything to do with the ocean has long fascinated me. I find just the word "voyage" to be utterly enrapturing, as it conjures in my mind the Robert Louis Stevenson novels I so enjoyed in my youth along with the promise of the unknown.
Despite this love of the ocean and the allure that sea tales hold for me, I am a total novice when it comes to naval terms. Anyone who has read even a page of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series knows that naval terms are liberally sprinkled throughout, and as my edition of this book held no glossary or index of these terms — which would have been immensely helpful — I too often feel myself adrift without a paddle reading this series. Initially, I would look up the terms on Wikipedia but when you're talking about 20+ various sails and bits of rigging, in addition to fragments of odd 19th-century sailor speak, it proved too great a task for my patience and memory to bear.
So it is that I now just go with it. Mizzen topmast? Studdingsail? Something aboard a ship that catches the wind, I reckon! Still, when reading these books, I find that coming across such terms so frequently has the tendency to wreck my concentration to the point that I'll end up reading paragraphs over again and making painfully slow progress. I've had this book listed as "reading" for the past three or four months, after all.
But I have now solved the problem. I've discovered that listening to the audiobook WHILE reading the text makes the world of Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin appear so much clearer and immerses me a much greater deal more into the story. It helps that Patrick Tull narrates these tales like a sailor himself, and having him pronounce the various naval terms is wonderfully illuminating.
As for the story itself, I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I enjoyed book two, Post Captain, but anything O'Brian writes still stands head and shoulders over 99% of what gets put out today. I can't help but shake my head in wonder at O'Brian's unbelievable breadth of knowledge when it comes to the Royal Navy. His knowledge of the era and the characters that existed within it is so exact that you really do vanish inside the story.
While I do savor a good sea battle, what most appeals to me about this series is the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin and the beautiful way they play off each other. "H.M.S. Surprise" isn't quite as Jane Austen-y as "Post Captain" was, and this may have been one of the reasons I preferred the latter, but it excels in its character depictions.
There are some deeply moving moments here, such as the relationship between Stephen Maturin and a young Indian girl he briefly employs who meets a sadly fatal end. And there is, of course, Stephen's continued pursuit of the complex, oftentimes infuriating Diana Villiers who, I reckon, many male readers will find themselves relating to someone they might have once known in life.
This a rip-roaring read and a near-perfect depiction of a bygone era. I look forward to plunging through the rest of the series.
Despite this love of the ocean and the allure that sea tales hold for me, I am a total novice when it comes to naval terms. Anyone who has read even a page of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series knows that naval terms are liberally sprinkled throughout, and as my edition of this book held no glossary or index of these terms — which would have been immensely helpful — I too often feel myself adrift without a paddle reading this series. Initially, I would look up the terms on Wikipedia but when you're talking about 20+ various sails and bits of rigging, in addition to fragments of odd 19th-century sailor speak, it proved too great a task for my patience and memory to bear.
So it is that I now just go with it. Mizzen topmast? Studdingsail? Something aboard a ship that catches the wind, I reckon! Still, when reading these books, I find that coming across such terms so frequently has the tendency to wreck my concentration to the point that I'll end up reading paragraphs over again and making painfully slow progress. I've had this book listed as "reading" for the past three or four months, after all.
But I have now solved the problem. I've discovered that listening to the audiobook WHILE reading the text makes the world of Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin appear so much clearer and immerses me a much greater deal more into the story. It helps that Patrick Tull narrates these tales like a sailor himself, and having him pronounce the various naval terms is wonderfully illuminating.
As for the story itself, I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I enjoyed book two, Post Captain, but anything O'Brian writes still stands head and shoulders over 99% of what gets put out today. I can't help but shake my head in wonder at O'Brian's unbelievable breadth of knowledge when it comes to the Royal Navy. His knowledge of the era and the characters that existed within it is so exact that you really do vanish inside the story.
While I do savor a good sea battle, what most appeals to me about this series is the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin and the beautiful way they play off each other. "H.M.S. Surprise" isn't quite as Jane Austen-y as "Post Captain" was, and this may have been one of the reasons I preferred the latter, but it excels in its character depictions.
There are some deeply moving moments here, such as the relationship between Stephen Maturin and a young Indian girl he briefly employs who meets a sadly fatal end. And there is, of course, Stephen's continued pursuit of the complex, oftentimes infuriating Diana Villiers who, I reckon, many male readers will find themselves relating to someone they might have once known in life.
This a rip-roaring read and a near-perfect depiction of a bygone era. I look forward to plunging through the rest of the series.
May 6, 2024
Not as good as the first 2 in the series. All the action is in the last 25%. Most of the book is a bit boring. The naval battle is innovative, as Jack seeks to protect an English convoy from a French fleet of man-of-war ships.
February 12, 2010
I envision O'Brian writing languidly day and night among a midden of dusty, open, clothbound primary-source naval literature, a fire greedily stoked, and a single-bulb desklamp under which he pensively hunts and cross references ancient medical and nautical terms. O'Brian's at his best when his mind is at sea.
Unfortunately, once again, Patrick O'Brian restrains his wonderful gift of describing nautical action, and instead develops the relationship between Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin. In part 3 of 22 of the Aubrey/Maturin series, O'Brian limply limns a rather boring story in H.M.S. Surprise. There is a tantalizing chapter of blue-seas naval exchange between Aubrey and the unprotected East China fleet and the stalking French Admiral Linois. But, it's only a glancing blow, and both fleets sail away repairing sails and broadsides. There's another chapter about a wicked south sea storm that rages around the Cape of Good Hope that's beautifully, vividly written, but then it's over.
O'Brian has no modern peer that portrays naval life in such lilting, but direct imagery. His knowledge of everything shipwright is encyclopedic, from taffrail to foretop jibsail, from keel to pendant, and every ratline, course, knot, davit, strake, block, and bulwark inbetween. He also has a mastery of early 18th century words and expressions.
I don't understand why, after several thousand reviews, O'Brians' stories achieve a 4+ star rating for each of his novels. Beautifully written, yes; but active, pageturning, no!! If O'Brian unleashed his active voice for even a quarter of the story, he'd have me singing his praises and joining book clubs. Instead, his stories of love and relationship, though interesting and realistic in timepiece language, deaden the action for me, and can only warrant 3 stars.
I'm taking a break reading the Aubrey/Maturin series, and hoping that part 4, sometime in the offing, will reward me with a 4-5 star story in these 400+ page books. They each take dozens of hours to read, and the return is not what I wish.
Good quotes:
The sun beat down from its noon-day height upon Bombay, imposing a silence upon that teeming city, so that even in the deepest bazaars the steady beat of the surf could be heard--the panting of the Indian Ocean, dull ochre under a sky too hot to be blue, a sky waiting for the south-west monsoon and at the same moment far, far to the westward, far over Africa and beyond, it heaved up to the horizon and sent a fiery dart to strike the limp royals and topgallants of the 'Surprise' as she lay becalmed on the oily swell a little north of the line and some thirty degrees west of Greenwich. (p. 98)
Jack stepped on to the western rail and looked down into the water. It was so clear that he could see the light passing under the frigate's keel: her hull projected a purple underwater shadow westwards, sharp head and stern but vague beneath because of her trailing skirts of weeds--a heavy growth in spite of her new copper, for they had been a great while south of the tropic. No ominous lurking shape, however; only a school of shining little fishes and a few swimming crabs. "Come on, then," he said, diving in.
The sea was warmer than the air, but there was refreshment in the rush of bubbles along his skin, the water tearing through his hair, the clean salt taste in his mouth. Looking up he saw the silvery undersurface, the 'Surprise's' hull hanging down through it and the clean copper near her water-line reflecting an extraordinary violet into the sea: then a white explosion as Stephen shattered the mirror, plunging bottom foremost from the gangway, twenty feet above. (p. 100)
"The nymphs in green? Delightful girls."
"It is clear you have been a great while at sea, to call those sandy-haired coarse-featured pimply short-necked thick-fingered vulgar-minded lubricious blockheads by such a name. Nymphs, forsooth. If they were nymphs, they must have had their being in a tolerably rank and stagnant pool: the wench on my left had an ill breath, and turning for relief I found her sister had a worse: and the upper garment of neither was free from reproach. Worse lay below, I make no doubt. 'La, sister,' cries the one to the other, breathing across me--vile teeth: and 'La, sister,' cries the other. I have no notion of two sisters wearing the same clothes, the same flaunting meretricious gawds, the same torture Gorgon curls low over their brutish criminal foreheads; it bespeaks a superfetation of vulgarity, both innate and studiously acquired. And when I think that their teeming loins will people the East...Pray pour me out another cup of coffee. Confident brutes." (p. 278)
New words: glabrous, pederasty, meretricious, nonpareil, imposthumate, purulent, extravasation, nugatory, sennit, bombinate, stridulate, lustration, mephitic, lubricious, superfetation, vaticination
Unfortunately, once again, Patrick O'Brian restrains his wonderful gift of describing nautical action, and instead develops the relationship between Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin. In part 3 of 22 of the Aubrey/Maturin series, O'Brian limply limns a rather boring story in H.M.S. Surprise. There is a tantalizing chapter of blue-seas naval exchange between Aubrey and the unprotected East China fleet and the stalking French Admiral Linois. But, it's only a glancing blow, and both fleets sail away repairing sails and broadsides. There's another chapter about a wicked south sea storm that rages around the Cape of Good Hope that's beautifully, vividly written, but then it's over.
O'Brian has no modern peer that portrays naval life in such lilting, but direct imagery. His knowledge of everything shipwright is encyclopedic, from taffrail to foretop jibsail, from keel to pendant, and every ratline, course, knot, davit, strake, block, and bulwark inbetween. He also has a mastery of early 18th century words and expressions.
I don't understand why, after several thousand reviews, O'Brians' stories achieve a 4+ star rating for each of his novels. Beautifully written, yes; but active, pageturning, no!! If O'Brian unleashed his active voice for even a quarter of the story, he'd have me singing his praises and joining book clubs. Instead, his stories of love and relationship, though interesting and realistic in timepiece language, deaden the action for me, and can only warrant 3 stars.
I'm taking a break reading the Aubrey/Maturin series, and hoping that part 4, sometime in the offing, will reward me with a 4-5 star story in these 400+ page books. They each take dozens of hours to read, and the return is not what I wish.
Good quotes:
The sun beat down from its noon-day height upon Bombay, imposing a silence upon that teeming city, so that even in the deepest bazaars the steady beat of the surf could be heard--the panting of the Indian Ocean, dull ochre under a sky too hot to be blue, a sky waiting for the south-west monsoon and at the same moment far, far to the westward, far over Africa and beyond, it heaved up to the horizon and sent a fiery dart to strike the limp royals and topgallants of the 'Surprise' as she lay becalmed on the oily swell a little north of the line and some thirty degrees west of Greenwich. (p. 98)
Jack stepped on to the western rail and looked down into the water. It was so clear that he could see the light passing under the frigate's keel: her hull projected a purple underwater shadow westwards, sharp head and stern but vague beneath because of her trailing skirts of weeds--a heavy growth in spite of her new copper, for they had been a great while south of the tropic. No ominous lurking shape, however; only a school of shining little fishes and a few swimming crabs. "Come on, then," he said, diving in.
The sea was warmer than the air, but there was refreshment in the rush of bubbles along his skin, the water tearing through his hair, the clean salt taste in his mouth. Looking up he saw the silvery undersurface, the 'Surprise's' hull hanging down through it and the clean copper near her water-line reflecting an extraordinary violet into the sea: then a white explosion as Stephen shattered the mirror, plunging bottom foremost from the gangway, twenty feet above. (p. 100)
"The nymphs in green? Delightful girls."
"It is clear you have been a great while at sea, to call those sandy-haired coarse-featured pimply short-necked thick-fingered vulgar-minded lubricious blockheads by such a name. Nymphs, forsooth. If they were nymphs, they must have had their being in a tolerably rank and stagnant pool: the wench on my left had an ill breath, and turning for relief I found her sister had a worse: and the upper garment of neither was free from reproach. Worse lay below, I make no doubt. 'La, sister,' cries the one to the other, breathing across me--vile teeth: and 'La, sister,' cries the other. I have no notion of two sisters wearing the same clothes, the same flaunting meretricious gawds, the same torture Gorgon curls low over their brutish criminal foreheads; it bespeaks a superfetation of vulgarity, both innate and studiously acquired. And when I think that their teeming loins will people the East...Pray pour me out another cup of coffee. Confident brutes." (p. 278)
New words: glabrous, pederasty, meretricious, nonpareil, imposthumate, purulent, extravasation, nugatory, sennit, bombinate, stridulate, lustration, mephitic, lubricious, superfetation, vaticination
July 5, 2022
H.M.S. Surprise is the third novel in the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. As with other fiction series that I have read and enjoyed, it is at about this point that I decide to stop writing reviews. I suspect that will soon be the case with this series. For one thing, I can only express how much I enjoy a book in so many ways. Based on my experience with the first three books in the series, I do not see myself growing bored with them.
After the somewhat sprawling, meandering nature of Master and Commander and Post Captain, the third installment, while still character-driven, has a more focused plot. The heart of the book is still the relationship between Jack and Stephen. After the tribulations in the second book, their friendship is stronger and deeper, though never without some turbulence or conflict.
The characteristics of O’Brian’s writing remain the same: prose—dialogue especially—steeped in the conventions and eccentricities of the early 18th century mixed with a healthy dose of naval jargon, long descriptive passages and tangents, and somewhat unorthodox grammar and structure. To my mind, there are no substantial differences between this and either of the first two books. That is to that if you did not enjoy any of the previous books, I do not imagine that changing about any of the rest of them.
For me, however, these are probably the best historical fiction novels I have ever read. But to relegate them to the genre of historical fiction—or, even more specifically, as Age of Sail fiction—is to do them an injustice. For all their historical authenticity and their exploration of the world of the early 19th century, the main themes of these books are timeless: friendship, love, nationality, personal identity, wealth and status, to name a few. All these aspects of the human condition are central elements in these books. For that reason, above all others, the Patrick O’Brian books rise above all the other similar series I have read, e.g. Hornblower, Ramage, and Bolitho.
One day I would like to write an essay comparing all four series, which are so alike in their setting and basic characteristics yet read so differently. At least then I would not have to worry about spoilers like I do in reviews. I can only imagine what my fifteen year old self would have thought at the prospect of his future-self anticipating writing an essay in his free time.
After the somewhat sprawling, meandering nature of Master and Commander and Post Captain, the third installment, while still character-driven, has a more focused plot. The heart of the book is still the relationship between Jack and Stephen. After the tribulations in the second book, their friendship is stronger and deeper, though never without some turbulence or conflict.
The characteristics of O’Brian’s writing remain the same: prose—dialogue especially—steeped in the conventions and eccentricities of the early 18th century mixed with a healthy dose of naval jargon, long descriptive passages and tangents, and somewhat unorthodox grammar and structure. To my mind, there are no substantial differences between this and either of the first two books. That is to that if you did not enjoy any of the previous books, I do not imagine that changing about any of the rest of them.
For me, however, these are probably the best historical fiction novels I have ever read. But to relegate them to the genre of historical fiction—or, even more specifically, as Age of Sail fiction—is to do them an injustice. For all their historical authenticity and their exploration of the world of the early 19th century, the main themes of these books are timeless: friendship, love, nationality, personal identity, wealth and status, to name a few. All these aspects of the human condition are central elements in these books. For that reason, above all others, the Patrick O’Brian books rise above all the other similar series I have read, e.g. Hornblower, Ramage, and Bolitho.
One day I would like to write an essay comparing all four series, which are so alike in their setting and basic characteristics yet read so differently. At least then I would not have to worry about spoilers like I do in reviews. I can only imagine what my fifteen year old self would have thought at the prospect of his future-self anticipating writing an essay in his free time.
August 5, 2022
Audiobook. Patrick Tull ably narrates another volume of the maritime adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey of the British Navy and his friend, naturalist/physician/spy Stephen Maturin. I was very surprised to read a review that recommended skipping the first four volumes of this long series. I don’t agree, partly because I’d like this series even longer than it is, and partly because the first four volumes include some of my favorite parts of the story. How can one understand the recurring character, Diana Villiers, and her relationship with Stephen, without seeing her in India? And in this volume, among many other incidents, there is a daring rescue, a deserted island, an animal new to science, and the first introduction of the HMS Surprise. Reread.
Reread 7/30-8/2/22
Reread 7/30-8/2/22
October 7, 2022
Terrifically entertaining bedtime reading and up to the usual extremely-high standards of the series. I wonder if it was originally conceived as rounding out a trilogy, as it does seem to bring many events that have been brewing since the beginning to something like a close. Having read three, it wouldn't surprise me if I go on to read all 20.
I would almost say "flawless," were it not for the bizarre patois that O'Brian puts in the mouths of street urchins in Calcutta, which makes them sound like they learned English from reading Tagore. Really bizarre.
I would almost say "flawless," were it not for the bizarre patois that O'Brian puts in the mouths of street urchins in Calcutta, which makes them sound like they learned English from reading Tagore. Really bizarre.
Read
August 31, 2016The first six chapters of Patrick O’Brian’s H.M.S. Surprise read a lot like Post Captain; they largely carry on the story from that book, the humorous plot threads as well as the poignant.
Jack and Stephen contrast so perfectly. There is no neutral, passionless moment. Jack continues to be central to splendid action scenes; the sea-battle against Linois at the end is breathtakingly vivid and evocative—the moreso as Stephen is playing his cello, a single melodic voice, through the relentlessly accelerating threat of violent action.
There is a significant deepening of the Stephen-as-intelligence-agent subthread; the rescue at Mahon in the early chapters is counterbalanced with the scene with Canning and its consequence at the other end of the book.
As for that intense action at Port Mahon, what is shown, what is left to the imagination—the knife-thrust transitions—and most particularly how and where it ends quicken the pacing to an astonishing degree, which (I find, on my reread) begins to build tension not only through fast action, but on every level.
By chapter seven I began to think that a really good book had become a great book.
Most of this chapter concerns Stephen. It cannot be said that it is from his POV, for O’Brian’s narrator is omniscient, but here we enter Stephen’s Weltanshauung for a protracted time.
Before the partners of the mainmast were renewed he came home with a wreath of marigolds round his bare dusty shoulders, an offering from a company of whores: he hung the wreath on the right-hand knob of his blackwood chair and sat down to his journal.
One sinks deeply into Stephen’s view of the universe, grounded in classical learning, the distinctive eye of the Jesuit-trained thinker, tolerant of all the vagaries of human life save deliberate intention of evil, while constantly wrestling with just how to define what evil really is.
The unruffled acceptance of homosexuality, for example, was, in fact, characteristic of the time, as far as I have found in my reading of period sources; the ability to stand outside a culture and examine its boundaries was just beginning, and is comfortable to the reader now, but does not (at least to me) read as anachronistic because of the language O’Brian uses to describe it: past, both that of the fictive world and when it was written, blend seamlessly with the perceptions and expectations of the contemporary reader, thus smiting time.
But moral considerations were irrelevant to Diana: in her, physical grace and dash took the place of virtue. The whole context was so different that an unchastity odious in another woman had what he could only call a purity in her: another purity: pagan, obviously—a purity from another code altogether.
I tried to find a quote from the brilliant segment where the little girl Dil accompanies Stephen to the parade before the fort, at which he sees Diana again, but I ended up wanting to type up page after page.
That’s a high point. The background, the transitions show the same care, if not the same high pitch of emotional engagement. No minor character is left faceless and still, a mere spear-carrier:
From a distance he was surprised to see a light burning in their house; and he was more surprised, on walking in, to find Bonden there fast asleep: he was leaning over the table with his head on his bandaged arms; and both arms and head were covered with an ashy snow – the innumerable flying creatures that had been drawn to the lamp. A troop of geckoes stood on the table to eat the dazzled moths.
The end of the chapter is nearly unbearable as it brings one brief but profoundly poignant story thread to a close.
After a moment he stood up. [Her] face was infinitely calm; the wavering flame made it seem to smile mysteriously at times, but the steady light showed a face as far from emotion as the sea: contained and utterly detached . . .
. . .Prayers, lustration, chanting, lustration: he laid her on the pyre. Pale flames in the sunlight, the fierce rush of blazing sandalwood, and the column of smoke rising, rising, inclining gently away as the breeze from the sea set in.
“…nunc et in hora mortis nostrae,” he repeated yet again, and felt the lap of water on his foot. He looked up. The people had gone; the pyre was no more than a dark patch with the sea hissing in its embers; and he was alone. The tide was rising fast.
For many, that would be a profoundly effective end to a book, but that is not even the midpoint of this one. It goes on, the stakes rising steadily; the climax is not even the duel with the astonishing self-surgery that was wrenched out of this book to be depicted in the film around the events of a later book in the series.
This is the book that dropped the trapdoor on me, and I could understand why Mary Renault, on her deathbed, wanted to make it long enough to read the next O'Brian.
Jack and Stephen contrast so perfectly. There is no neutral, passionless moment. Jack continues to be central to splendid action scenes; the sea-battle against Linois at the end is breathtakingly vivid and evocative—the moreso as Stephen is playing his cello, a single melodic voice, through the relentlessly accelerating threat of violent action.
There is a significant deepening of the Stephen-as-intelligence-agent subthread; the rescue at Mahon in the early chapters is counterbalanced with the scene with Canning and its consequence at the other end of the book.
As for that intense action at Port Mahon, what is shown, what is left to the imagination—the knife-thrust transitions—and most particularly how and where it ends quicken the pacing to an astonishing degree, which (I find, on my reread) begins to build tension not only through fast action, but on every level.
By chapter seven I began to think that a really good book had become a great book.
Most of this chapter concerns Stephen. It cannot be said that it is from his POV, for O’Brian’s narrator is omniscient, but here we enter Stephen’s Weltanshauung for a protracted time.
Before the partners of the mainmast were renewed he came home with a wreath of marigolds round his bare dusty shoulders, an offering from a company of whores: he hung the wreath on the right-hand knob of his blackwood chair and sat down to his journal.
One sinks deeply into Stephen’s view of the universe, grounded in classical learning, the distinctive eye of the Jesuit-trained thinker, tolerant of all the vagaries of human life save deliberate intention of evil, while constantly wrestling with just how to define what evil really is.
The unruffled acceptance of homosexuality, for example, was, in fact, characteristic of the time, as far as I have found in my reading of period sources; the ability to stand outside a culture and examine its boundaries was just beginning, and is comfortable to the reader now, but does not (at least to me) read as anachronistic because of the language O’Brian uses to describe it: past, both that of the fictive world and when it was written, blend seamlessly with the perceptions and expectations of the contemporary reader, thus smiting time.
But moral considerations were irrelevant to Diana: in her, physical grace and dash took the place of virtue. The whole context was so different that an unchastity odious in another woman had what he could only call a purity in her: another purity: pagan, obviously—a purity from another code altogether.
I tried to find a quote from the brilliant segment where the little girl Dil accompanies Stephen to the parade before the fort, at which he sees Diana again, but I ended up wanting to type up page after page.
That’s a high point. The background, the transitions show the same care, if not the same high pitch of emotional engagement. No minor character is left faceless and still, a mere spear-carrier:
From a distance he was surprised to see a light burning in their house; and he was more surprised, on walking in, to find Bonden there fast asleep: he was leaning over the table with his head on his bandaged arms; and both arms and head were covered with an ashy snow – the innumerable flying creatures that had been drawn to the lamp. A troop of geckoes stood on the table to eat the dazzled moths.
The end of the chapter is nearly unbearable as it brings one brief but profoundly poignant story thread to a close.
After a moment he stood up. [Her] face was infinitely calm; the wavering flame made it seem to smile mysteriously at times, but the steady light showed a face as far from emotion as the sea: contained and utterly detached . . .
. . .Prayers, lustration, chanting, lustration: he laid her on the pyre. Pale flames in the sunlight, the fierce rush of blazing sandalwood, and the column of smoke rising, rising, inclining gently away as the breeze from the sea set in.
“…nunc et in hora mortis nostrae,” he repeated yet again, and felt the lap of water on his foot. He looked up. The people had gone; the pyre was no more than a dark patch with the sea hissing in its embers; and he was alone. The tide was rising fast.
For many, that would be a profoundly effective end to a book, but that is not even the midpoint of this one. It goes on, the stakes rising steadily; the climax is not even the duel with the astonishing self-surgery that was wrenched out of this book to be depicted in the film around the events of a later book in the series.
This is the book that dropped the trapdoor on me, and I could understand why Mary Renault, on her deathbed, wanted to make it long enough to read the next O'Brian.
November 15, 2008
This, the third of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, gave me great pleasure in reading. This came surely in part by again meeting the old, well-loved figures of the previous two books. It's true too that this is my third reading of the series as a whole, so a kind of nostalgia was partly in play. However that was certainly not all there was to it.
This book includes some extremely harrowing as well as uplifting sections, as well as O'Brian's usual streak of humor. We have more of Maturin the secret agent, and more of his pursuit of the beautiful and willful Diana. Aubrey in his turn is still hoping for an early marriage to Miss Williams, with the approval of her grasping mother, who Maturin warmly describes as "the most unromantic beast that ever urged its squat,thick bulk across the face of the protesting earth."
For most of the book time and great distance separate them and what letters that are brought out by the odd ship are few and far between. Indeed, there's plenty of distance in this story where Aubrey travels farther afield than in any of the previous volumes, out to the Indian Ocean on a diplomatic mission, wherein much of the book's charm lies.
O'Brian uses his same eye for detail to describe the exotic locations and people living there as he does to bring to world of his 'wooden walls' to life.
This book includes some extremely harrowing as well as uplifting sections, as well as O'Brian's usual streak of humor. We have more of Maturin the secret agent, and more of his pursuit of the beautiful and willful Diana. Aubrey in his turn is still hoping for an early marriage to Miss Williams, with the approval of her grasping mother, who Maturin warmly describes as "the most unromantic beast that ever urged its squat,thick bulk across the face of the protesting earth."
For most of the book time and great distance separate them and what letters that are brought out by the odd ship are few and far between. Indeed, there's plenty of distance in this story where Aubrey travels farther afield than in any of the previous volumes, out to the Indian Ocean on a diplomatic mission, wherein much of the book's charm lies.
O'Brian uses his same eye for detail to describe the exotic locations and people living there as he does to bring to world of his 'wooden walls' to life.
May 21, 2021
It took me almost a full year to finish this book. I took a lot of breaks while reading it as they're very dense and there's a lot of terminology and turns of phrase I'm not familiar with, so I often found I have to go back and re-read entire passages before I was able to understand... or in some cases I just gave up and hoped the overall narrative would give me the gist of it.
It's funny how often these books are thought of as very action driven war spectacles, so much is focused on Jack's attempts at gaining a fortune so he can marry his sweetheart Sophie, and Stephen's clumsy attempts to woo Diana.
It's actually really cute the way these two noble warriors are written as lovesick teenagers at times.
As a side note I still can't help but picture Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin. Normally I can disassociate live action adaptations when I read the novels, but here the actors are so burned into my brain as these characters I cannot possibly picture anyone else.
It's funny how often these books are thought of as very action driven war spectacles, so much is focused on Jack's attempts at gaining a fortune so he can marry his sweetheart Sophie, and Stephen's clumsy attempts to woo Diana.
It's actually really cute the way these two noble warriors are written as lovesick teenagers at times.
As a side note I still can't help but picture Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin. Normally I can disassociate live action adaptations when I read the novels, but here the actors are so burned into my brain as these characters I cannot possibly picture anyone else.
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