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Kapitanovo omizje
Ko Williama Ebbsa, do sedaj poveljnika škripajoče tovorne ladje, naredijo za kapitana luksuzne čezoceanke, hitro odkrije, da morje nosi veliko nevarnosti ... Verjetno je najbolj nevarna prva večerja, tesno za tem ji sledi nevarnost, da bi se v njegovi sobi znašla ženska. Potem je tu še neprijetna prisotnost največjega delničarja ladjarske družbe, padec potnika čez krov in izsiljevanje.
Kapetanovo omizje je zgodba o navtičnih nerodnostih in prigodah, polna žgečkljivega humorja.
Kapetanovo omizje je zgodba o navtičnih nerodnostih in prigodah, polna žgečkljivega humorja.
- GenresFiction
232 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1954
42 people want to read
About the author
Richard Gordon
275 books43 followersRichard Gordon is the pen name used by Gordon Ostlere (born Gordon Stanley Ostlere on September 15, 1921), an English surgeon and anaesthetist. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written several novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and the subsequent film, television and stage adaptations. His The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993, and he followed this with The Alarming History of Sex.
Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students(1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953). In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anesthesiologist in the movie Doctor in the House.
The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.
The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were often written by other well-known British comic performers.
Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students(1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953). In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anesthesiologist in the movie Doctor in the House.
The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.
The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were often written by other well-known British comic performers.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 25, 2017
I was in need for some light refreshment after rather heavy reading for the past two weeks; and I was lucky enough to pick this slim volume up at a sale here in Mumbai (where they sell books by weight - a hundred rupees to the kilo!). Richard Gordon is the author of the famous "Doctor" series, and I thought would be perfectly suited to perk me up.
What I like about British humour is how subtle and sarcastic it is. There is no slapstick here, but just ordinary human beings caught in somewhat extraordinary situations. The humour comes from understating the momentous and grossly exaggerating the trivial, and doing so in a deadpan voice. Richard Gordon is no different from the other classical humorists in this regard.
Captain William Ebbs, M.B.E, expecting to be fired from his job captaining Pole Star company's line freighter the Martin Luther for some plain speaking, is pleasantly surprised to find himself promoted to the captaincy of the passenger liner Charlemagne. It has been Ebbs's dream to be in charge of one since his cadet days: he is confident of being able to handle his duties because, as he tells time and again, all the ships are same: "They float on water, they contain machinery, they feed you and sleep you. It is only the people inside them who differ."
However, Ebb's confidence seems to be a bit misplaced as he has to contend with a womanising idler of a Chief Officer, a Purser who makes a tidy sum by stealing the ship's supplies, a shareholder of the shipping company who is determined to make life hell for his co-passengers and the captain, a multitude of unruly children, and amorous women who seem determined to corner him, even in his bedroom. The captain bears this all with true fortitude until an open gaffe on the part of the thieving Purser threatens to finish his career for ever and put him in jail: but in true Wodehousian tradition, he is saved from the gallows at the last moment in a sudden hilarious twist of fate.
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As comedies go, this is only mildly funny and a bit dated in its caricaturing. I'm sure I would have been doubled up with laughter had I been reading this a couple of decades ago - but today, it awakes only a smile and at times, a smirk. However, the language is from a time when people considered a fine turn of the phrase as important as the content of a story, and dialogue was not full of "those words usually heard in the lower type of barroom" (to borrow from Wodehouse). Consider how the author describes the philandering First Officer Shawe-Wilson in a few deft strokes:
This is only a sample; the novel is sprinkled with such gems throughout. I started underlining the sentences which caught my fancy, but then quit it as I found that I'd fill up a lot of pages with lines!
But what Gordon has in craft, he loses in content. His story is rather predictable: the situations are a bit hackneyed: and his stereotypes jar after a while. Not a hilarious book by any means, but thoroughly readable and the ideal pick-me-up on the day after a literary binge, when you wake up with an intellectual hangover.
What I like about British humour is how subtle and sarcastic it is. There is no slapstick here, but just ordinary human beings caught in somewhat extraordinary situations. The humour comes from understating the momentous and grossly exaggerating the trivial, and doing so in a deadpan voice. Richard Gordon is no different from the other classical humorists in this regard.
Captain William Ebbs, M.B.E, expecting to be fired from his job captaining Pole Star company's line freighter the Martin Luther for some plain speaking, is pleasantly surprised to find himself promoted to the captaincy of the passenger liner Charlemagne. It has been Ebbs's dream to be in charge of one since his cadet days: he is confident of being able to handle his duties because, as he tells time and again, all the ships are same: "They float on water, they contain machinery, they feed you and sleep you. It is only the people inside them who differ."
However, Ebb's confidence seems to be a bit misplaced as he has to contend with a womanising idler of a Chief Officer, a Purser who makes a tidy sum by stealing the ship's supplies, a shareholder of the shipping company who is determined to make life hell for his co-passengers and the captain, a multitude of unruly children, and amorous women who seem determined to corner him, even in his bedroom. The captain bears this all with true fortitude until an open gaffe on the part of the thieving Purser threatens to finish his career for ever and put him in jail: but in true Wodehousian tradition, he is saved from the gallows at the last moment in a sudden hilarious twist of fate.
------------------------------------
As comedies go, this is only mildly funny and a bit dated in its caricaturing. I'm sure I would have been doubled up with laughter had I been reading this a couple of decades ago - but today, it awakes only a smile and at times, a smirk. However, the language is from a time when people considered a fine turn of the phrase as important as the content of a story, and dialogue was not full of "those words usually heard in the lower type of barroom" (to borrow from Wodehouse). Consider how the author describes the philandering First Officer Shawe-Wilson in a few deft strokes:
Shawe-Wilson's cabin, unusually tidy through his absence, was a smaller and more nautical apartment than Ebbs's, for the only entertaining of passengers therein was clandestine and usually conducted with the light out.
...every morning he took himself as a French chef accepts a raw lettuce, to be suitably oiled and dressed before presentation to the public.
Shawe-Wilson was the sort of man who could never mentally undress a girl without simultaneously valuing her clothes.
This is only a sample; the novel is sprinkled with such gems throughout. I started underlining the sentences which caught my fancy, but then quit it as I found that I'd fill up a lot of pages with lines!
But what Gordon has in craft, he loses in content. His story is rather predictable: the situations are a bit hackneyed: and his stereotypes jar after a while. Not a hilarious book by any means, but thoroughly readable and the ideal pick-me-up on the day after a literary binge, when you wake up with an intellectual hangover.
June 18, 2019
I really enjoyed this tale of Captain William Ebbs, who suddenly finds himself promoted from being captain of a sad old freighter in constant need of repairs to being Captain of a passenger ship, the Charlemagne. He starts out the voyage quite confident that moving socialites across the ocean from England to Australia will be a breeze compared to keeping the creaky old Martin Luther afloat.
However, the inexperienced Captain Ebbs underestimates the escapades his passengers and crew might get up to on the high seas. The story doesn't go into great detail, but there are a number of sexual activities uncovered by the prim and proper Captain Ebbs. He learns that some of his crew too willing to oblige the too willing females on board and one night he's forced to take refuge on the bridge himself to escape an amorous female passenger.
It's not super-funny, more like a sixties sit-com, but how he gets everyone to Australia without a mutiny and avoiding a few major scandals makes for an interesting a tale.
However, the inexperienced Captain Ebbs underestimates the escapades his passengers and crew might get up to on the high seas. The story doesn't go into great detail, but there are a number of sexual activities uncovered by the prim and proper Captain Ebbs. He learns that some of his crew too willing to oblige the too willing females on board and one night he's forced to take refuge on the bridge himself to escape an amorous female passenger.
It's not super-funny, more like a sixties sit-com, but how he gets everyone to Australia without a mutiny and avoiding a few major scandals makes for an interesting a tale.
May 29, 2025
This book like the Doctor books is similar in style but it's set on bored a ship and ship like QE 2 in days when going on holiday was like 1920s murder mystery. Dancing and drinking cocktails and falling in love. Set behind the passengers on the crew straight out of a Carry on move .
March 28, 2021
An easy read which is very funny in some parts
September 12, 2021
Interesting
June 26, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in March 2000.
Richard Gordon's big success was his Doctor series, most famously Doctor in the House. His first attempt to write a non-medical story was The Captain's Table, which I picked up after enjoying the Doctor books in my early teens. It is the story of William Ebbs, for many years captain of a freighter suddenly appointed to the command of his employer's flagship liner. His first cruise, from London to Sydney, is marked by a series of mishaps including quarreling missionaries, attempted seductions, blackmail and the children's party.
Unfortunately, The Captain's Table is dated and unfunny, none of the characters being more than lazy stereotypes. The Doctor series is much better, being based (at least initially) on Gordon's own experiences as a medical student (though I suspect that these too would now seem somewhat dated).
Richard Gordon's big success was his Doctor series, most famously Doctor in the House. His first attempt to write a non-medical story was The Captain's Table, which I picked up after enjoying the Doctor books in my early teens. It is the story of William Ebbs, for many years captain of a freighter suddenly appointed to the command of his employer's flagship liner. His first cruise, from London to Sydney, is marked by a series of mishaps including quarreling missionaries, attempted seductions, blackmail and the children's party.
Unfortunately, The Captain's Table is dated and unfunny, none of the characters being more than lazy stereotypes. The Doctor series is much better, being based (at least initially) on Gordon's own experiences as a medical student (though I suspect that these too would now seem somewhat dated).
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews