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Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard
"O'Brian was only 15 when [ Caesar ] was published, but he already possessed an instinct for deft plotting and uncomplicated narrative."― New York Times A stark tale encompassing the cruelty and beauty of the natural world, and a clear demonstration of the storytelling gift that would later flower in the Aubrey/Maturin series. When he was fourteen years old and beset by chronic ill health, Patrick O'Brian began creating his first fictional character. "I did it in my bedroom, and a little when I should have been doing my homework," he confessed in a note on the original dust-jacket. Caesar tells the picaresque, enchanting, and quite bloodthirsty story of a creature whose father is a giant panda and whose mother is a snow leopard. Through the eyes and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture and taming. Caesar was published in 1930, three months after O'Brian's fifteenth birthday, but the dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian readers savor in the Aubrey/Maturin series is already in evidence. The book combines Stephen Maturin's fascination and encyclopedic knowledge of natural history with the narrative charm of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book . It was published in England and the United States, and in translation in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Japan. Reviews hailed the author as the "boy-Thoreau."
100 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1930
4 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
About the author
Patrick O'Brian
207 books2,408 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 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 21, 2017
Bottom line first: It is hard to recommend this to anyone not a Patrick O’Brian fan. While he wrote it as a child there is much in the way of animals fighting, killing and eating each other. Reading it helps to emphasize that even as a very young writer one of his skills was in the telling stories of things remote from his, or the reader’s life making the details seem very authentic. But it is not a good choice for the young and may not have enough depth for a reader not a fan of the author.
The story goes that a very young Patrick O’ Brian age various listed as 12-15, was ill and wrote Caesar as an entertainment for himself. He had an interest in botany and had been given a copy of Mr Wood’s Natural History. The topic of wild life was on his mind. Much of this from the Mr O’Brian’s Preface to my hardback edition.
Caesar the narrator of the story is a Panda Leopard. There is no such beast but it suited the child to create one. Over the next 94 pages is a fairly tightly written and consistent story of the experiences of a powerful carnivore living in the wild and for a time as a pet of a human.
Much of the story follows the need of a large animal to hunt and eat as well as the life and sudden death of various animals and family members.
Disney’s Bambi, this is not. The business of killing and eating is rarely gory or esp graphic but there is rarely more than a page or two not devoted to these topics.
The resulting product is not suitable bed time reading for the very young and likely to be repetitious for readers old enough for exposure to so much casual bloodshed. It might serve as a challenge for a budding writer to see if they can keep to a narrative going for this many pages. It would be overreaching to state that this book might have a wide audience.
I am a long time Patrick O’Brian Fan. I have read all of his Aubrey–Maturin books more than once and more than a few of his other books. . Caesar is something of an oddball curiosity. Many fans will enjoy the chance to see the writer as a very young man.
The story goes that a very young Patrick O’ Brian age various listed as 12-15, was ill and wrote Caesar as an entertainment for himself. He had an interest in botany and had been given a copy of Mr Wood’s Natural History. The topic of wild life was on his mind. Much of this from the Mr O’Brian’s Preface to my hardback edition.
Caesar the narrator of the story is a Panda Leopard. There is no such beast but it suited the child to create one. Over the next 94 pages is a fairly tightly written and consistent story of the experiences of a powerful carnivore living in the wild and for a time as a pet of a human.
Much of the story follows the need of a large animal to hunt and eat as well as the life and sudden death of various animals and family members.
Disney’s Bambi, this is not. The business of killing and eating is rarely gory or esp graphic but there is rarely more than a page or two not devoted to these topics.
The resulting product is not suitable bed time reading for the very young and likely to be repetitious for readers old enough for exposure to so much casual bloodshed. It might serve as a challenge for a budding writer to see if they can keep to a narrative going for this many pages. It would be overreaching to state that this book might have a wide audience.
I am a long time Patrick O’Brian Fan. I have read all of his Aubrey–Maturin books more than once and more than a few of his other books. . Caesar is something of an oddball curiosity. Many fans will enjoy the chance to see the writer as a very young man.
June 5, 2007
I feel weird critiquing this, as it's something O'Brian wrote when he was 12 and which was first published, under his birth name (Richard Patrick Russ), when he was 15. Because, wow, for a 12-year-old it's remarkably good—already you can see the smooth beauty of his prose. It's also, for a story with an animal (specifically, a panda-leopard—more on that in a minute) as its protagonist and narrator, refreshingly unsentimental and even quite brutal—Caesar's mother and siblings are quickly dispatched by various harsh acts of nature, and Caesar spends a lot of time calmly killing other creatures of the world. It also has moments of being emotionally affecting; when Caesar is captured and "tamed" by humans, I was really quite desperate for him to kill everyone and escape. Yet the tone remains flat and the narrative doesn't amount to much; it goes out on sort of a "huh" note, if you know what I mean. Plus, the aspect that I kept waiting to see explored—that Caesar is a panda-leopard, an essentially fanciful creature whose father is a panda and whose mother is a snow leopard—is never touched on at all! In the end, this is much more interesting in light of O'Brian's later work than on any merits of its own. (Though he did write remarkably well for a 12-year-old!)
March 30, 2019
This book sounded odd, so I picked it up and was surprised by how much I liked it. It's a quiet sort of adventure that packs a lot into a small number of pages. I will be reading more by this author despite the fact his books aren't the kind of thing I would normally go for.
March 16, 2024
I have to admit this is great writing for a 14 year old kid! I liked the story and some of the leopard's observations show that the author had a great literary and intelectual sensitivity at this yound age. However, I wish the writing had been improved. Perhaps some editing and re-writing could greatly benefit the story, making it more pleasant to read. I would also suggest revising some of the low-key racism present in the book. I don't think that using his years of experience as a successful writer to improve this book would take anything away from the story written by his 14 year old self: quite the opposite, it would make his work more worthwhile, giving this story the attention it deserves.
July 26, 2018
Hard to believe this is written by a 15 year old partick O'Brian. So beautiful.
September 30, 2020
I feel like he is turning into a obedient dog.
April 26, 2024
O'Brian's Life #1
Cracking yarn from a very young O'Brian - very engaging and kept your interest through the entirety of the novel, it was quite short, but a great read.
Cracking yarn from a very young O'Brian - very engaging and kept your interest through the entirety of the novel, it was quite short, but a great read.
July 17, 2009
Patrick O'Brian, (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000; born as Richard Patrick Russ) was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centered on the friendship of English Naval Captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin.
This is Patrick O’Brian’s first novel written at the age of 12 and with the help of his father published three years later in 1930. Then, after being long out of print, Caesar was republished in 2000; which is when I purchased my copy while in England and lucky to get one of the first editions.
Suffering from chronic ill health, Patrick O'Brian set about creating a fictional character: the offspring of a male giant panda and a female snow leopard. 'I did it mostly in my bedroom, and a little when I should have been doing homework,' he confessed in a note on his first book's dust jacket. During the time of his illness, Patrick was given a 19th century journal on the Natural Wonders of the World complete with illustrations and picture plates; and a doctor suggesting he go near some salt walter as it would help his poor health. Patrick learned how to sail.
It's a child's story, but provides glimpses into a style of writing, of wry wit that carries on into O’Brian’s other books. One would enjoy this book for the sheer pleasure of reading a well-told tale with an encyclopedic knowledge of natural history with the narrative charm of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. For the fact O’Brian wrote this at a very young age, the behaviour of each of the animals within including the humans is astonishingly accurate.
The first sentence of the first page grabs the reader and it never lets go. Try this:
“First you must understand that I am a panda-leopard. My father was a giant panda and my mother a snow-leopard.”
And four sentences further down the page:
“The first thing to make any great impression on my mind was the killing of my sister.”
The dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian's readers savour today is already in evidence. Caesar furiously mauls two shepherds, then suddenly laments, with utter sangfroid, 'I dimly felt sorry that I had needlessly killed these two useless things, for though I was hungry I could not bring myself to eat these smelly men.'
Mid way into the 94 pages there is a brief passage about Caesar with his new human master and meeting his children:
“A few days later my master took me into the garden again, where I saw his two young children, which were quite like him, only very small. They smelt the same. I was very proud that he should trust me so much and determined not to hurt them, for evidently he liked them, though they would have made a tender and juicy meal.”
Knowing he is a predator is forever on Caesar’s mind. There are constant reminders of this in his complaints about the food he receives from his human master: “The meat was hardly eatable, it smelt strongly of man and had hardly any blood in it.”
Caesar tells his own story, from birth to death. The story is filled with graphic accounts of Caesar's killing other animals and eating them, the bloodier the better—in an all very matter-of-fact manner. Through the eyes, emotions and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture after numerous forays upon a village’s herds, placed into a cage and tamed. Caesar is infused with many human characteristics as he is captured and accepts his master's control. He comes to the point where his love for his master overcomes his reason. Caesar questions this, but comes back to the fact he does love his master and wouldn't think of disobeying or hurting him. He worries about his master when they are separated during a storm; he takes a "wife", becomes a father and dies defending her and their cubs against a wolf pack.
The book fully documents the wildness of a predator in its habitat: its vicious brutality, and its laws. How in nature, death plays its part as an everyday thing.
This is Patrick O’Brian’s first novel written at the age of 12 and with the help of his father published three years later in 1930. Then, after being long out of print, Caesar was republished in 2000; which is when I purchased my copy while in England and lucky to get one of the first editions.
Suffering from chronic ill health, Patrick O'Brian set about creating a fictional character: the offspring of a male giant panda and a female snow leopard. 'I did it mostly in my bedroom, and a little when I should have been doing homework,' he confessed in a note on his first book's dust jacket. During the time of his illness, Patrick was given a 19th century journal on the Natural Wonders of the World complete with illustrations and picture plates; and a doctor suggesting he go near some salt walter as it would help his poor health. Patrick learned how to sail.
It's a child's story, but provides glimpses into a style of writing, of wry wit that carries on into O’Brian’s other books. One would enjoy this book for the sheer pleasure of reading a well-told tale with an encyclopedic knowledge of natural history with the narrative charm of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. For the fact O’Brian wrote this at a very young age, the behaviour of each of the animals within including the humans is astonishingly accurate.
The first sentence of the first page grabs the reader and it never lets go. Try this:
“First you must understand that I am a panda-leopard. My father was a giant panda and my mother a snow-leopard.”
And four sentences further down the page:
“The first thing to make any great impression on my mind was the killing of my sister.”
The dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian's readers savour today is already in evidence. Caesar furiously mauls two shepherds, then suddenly laments, with utter sangfroid, 'I dimly felt sorry that I had needlessly killed these two useless things, for though I was hungry I could not bring myself to eat these smelly men.'
Mid way into the 94 pages there is a brief passage about Caesar with his new human master and meeting his children:
“A few days later my master took me into the garden again, where I saw his two young children, which were quite like him, only very small. They smelt the same. I was very proud that he should trust me so much and determined not to hurt them, for evidently he liked them, though they would have made a tender and juicy meal.”
Knowing he is a predator is forever on Caesar’s mind. There are constant reminders of this in his complaints about the food he receives from his human master: “The meat was hardly eatable, it smelt strongly of man and had hardly any blood in it.”
Caesar tells his own story, from birth to death. The story is filled with graphic accounts of Caesar's killing other animals and eating them, the bloodier the better—in an all very matter-of-fact manner. Through the eyes, emotions and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture after numerous forays upon a village’s herds, placed into a cage and tamed. Caesar is infused with many human characteristics as he is captured and accepts his master's control. He comes to the point where his love for his master overcomes his reason. Caesar questions this, but comes back to the fact he does love his master and wouldn't think of disobeying or hurting him. He worries about his master when they are separated during a storm; he takes a "wife", becomes a father and dies defending her and their cubs against a wolf pack.
The book fully documents the wildness of a predator in its habitat: its vicious brutality, and its laws. How in nature, death plays its part as an everyday thing.
January 1, 2015
Since Patrick O’Brien spent a lot of time in every sailing novel in recounting the naturalistic explorations of Maturin, it shouldn’t be a surprise that his first novel (written while a sick teenager) features a story told from the perspective of a wild animal. Caesar is the story of a “panda-leopard.” The creature himself, offspring of a panda and a snow leopard, is impossible, but the narrative itself features a reasonably accurate idea of a wild leopard mix from pup to sire. In between, readers see how females teach their offspring to hunt and swim, as well as vicariously experiencing the so-called circle of life.
For a short book, Caesar has a lot of action scenes. It is fascinating to experience battles between the leopard and wild boars, elephants, and goats from the point of view of the leopard. First, you get to experience the exhilaration of the chase and then, you get to experience the horror of capture. Next, you discover the immobilizing of being domesticated and then, a re-emergence of the wild. Although most domesticated animals actually have trouble returning the wild, Caesar returns in an interesting and reasonably plausible way. And, even the conclusion of the story seems plausible.
To be honest, I picked up this book because it was next to the Aubrey books and I was curious. I was pleasantly surprised at how well-written it was. In fact, the pacing seems better than some of the early Aubrey books. It’s really worth a read.
For a short book, Caesar has a lot of action scenes. It is fascinating to experience battles between the leopard and wild boars, elephants, and goats from the point of view of the leopard. First, you get to experience the exhilaration of the chase and then, you get to experience the horror of capture. Next, you discover the immobilizing of being domesticated and then, a re-emergence of the wild. Although most domesticated animals actually have trouble returning the wild, Caesar returns in an interesting and reasonably plausible way. And, even the conclusion of the story seems plausible.
To be honest, I picked up this book because it was next to the Aubrey books and I was curious. I was pleasantly surprised at how well-written it was. In fact, the pacing seems better than some of the early Aubrey books. It’s really worth a read.
November 8, 2008
Martin did one of his first book reports on this book. It may have been the first works of fiction he ever read all the way through, Written by O'Brian when he was quite young 12 or 13? it is a good book of some length for boys who don't go for the typical fantasy adventure or sci fi story. The elements that make it readable are all employed in O'Brian's later books -conflict, adventure, sacrifice, relationships that change and grown and allow characters to influence one another. The imagined world of an imagined creature coming alive on the page is what makes it a page turner, even for a young reader.
Read
February 19, 2009This was great for taking my mind off of the business-end of writing and honing back down on how it's supposed to be fun. An adventure story written by a fourteen-year-old starring a protag who is half-panda and half-leopard is perfect for that. I could object that Caesar's feeding habits are pretty much entirely leopard-influenced without much input from the panda side, but what would be the point?
Anyway, this is deeper than it has any right to be, and the ending is quite moving. In Caesar's last thoughts, O'Brian suggests that love may be more valuable than freedom, and captivity a small price to pay for it. Not a sentiment I would normally cherish, but here it was true and justified.
Anyway, this is deeper than it has any right to be, and the ending is quite moving. In Caesar's last thoughts, O'Brian suggests that love may be more valuable than freedom, and captivity a small price to pay for it. Not a sentiment I would normally cherish, but here it was true and justified.
June 30, 2009
This story is really engaging, with a good dose of realism thrown in.
Patrick O'Brian wrote this when he was 12, purposely to entertain himself. At that age, he's already a keen observer of the nature. The places seem real; every action comes naturally, never out of place. For example, since Caesar is a wild animal, of course he would be violent and savage, and O'Brian made sure of that.
Patrick O'Brian wrote this when he was 12, purposely to entertain himself. At that age, he's already a keen observer of the nature. The places seem real; every action comes naturally, never out of place. For example, since Caesar is a wild animal, of course he would be violent and savage, and O'Brian made sure of that.
October 20, 2008
Written by PO'B when he was fourteen. It's strangely pleasantly written for so young a boy. Boyish and juvenile and a bit flaunting with his knowledge but very nicely written. I'm not at all surprised he grew up to be the person he eventually became.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews