A New Patrick O’Brian...Anyone?

I've spent a month off-line, but I've kept busy writing articles off-line to post as soon as I was on again. The problem is, most of them are too damn dated to bother posting at this point. For example, I wrote a rather good article on the disintegrating ecomomy, but trying to keep it somewhat up-to-date every damn day proved to be far too much bother. So I quit.

This is an article that contains nothing whatsoever about politics, the ecomomy, or anything else that's likely to need to be updated regularly, so here it comes.

I’ve written this while my Internet connection was down, to be posted as soon as it’s up again...or perhaps as soon as I can get to a computer elsewhere. If you’ve been waiting patiently for my words of wisdom, why? No one besides me is likely to be interested in this. But I’m way tired of politics right now, so while my Internet connection is down I’m going to answer a simple question that no one has asked: "What are you reading lately?"

September 14, 2008

Years ago, more than fifteen but less than twenty years, I became bored.

Really bored, without even a good book to occupy my mind. So I did what I always do when I'm really bored...I went to a bookstore. Up until this point I had read almost nothing but science fiction or fantasy, but to be honest I was pretty damned bored with science fiction and fantasy. It may seem to you that a person could never grow tired of a genre they had loved for so many years, but I had read so damn much that I had gotten almost sick of it. So I was looking over the general fiction section, and I came across Patrick O’Brian.

I had no idea who Patrick O’Brian was. If you don’t know either, a quick lesson: Patrick O’Brian wrote novels about the British Navy during the early nineteenth century. You know; Napoleon and Nelson and all that. (OK, so he wrote other stuff as well, but he’s not really known for much besides his nautical fiction.) There. You now know far more about O’Brian than I did.

I think I just liked the ship on the cover. I had always had a thing for sailing ships, but had never ventured in to the genre called "nautical fiction" and perhaps known more widely as "sea stories." On a whim, I decided to give this book a chance.

It was Master and Commander, the first in a series (I think there were sixteen or so at the time). Since I hadn’t read any O’Brian, or indeed anything like O‘Brian, I didn’t know what to expect.

The first thing that struck me was the prose. O’Brian had a way of writing that was almost Dickensian in its richness. Frankly, that nearly put me off; I come from an era of artless letters where publishers won’t touch anything that reads above a fifth-grade reading level. This stuff required an education; at the very least the ability to read at college level. It was a bit tough to get through at first, being used as I was to literary pablum, but after ten pages I couldn’t put it down.

His prose evoked the early nineteenth century more realistically than any book or movie I have ever encountered, and that includes most of the novels I have read that were written in the nineteenth century. Here’s what I’m talking about:

"The music-room in the Governor’s House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli’s C major quartet. The players, Italians pinned against the far wall by rows and rows of little round gilt chairs, were playing with passionate conviction as they mounted towards the penultimate crescendo, towards the tremendous pause and the deep, liberating final chord. And on the little gilt chairs at least some of the audience were following the rise with equal intensity: there were two in the third row, on the left hand side; and they happened to be sitting next to one another. The listener farther to the left was a man of between twenty and thirty whose big form overflowed his seat, leaving only a streak if gilt wood to be seen here and there. He was wearing his best uniform - the white lapelled blue coat, white waistcoat, breeches and stockings of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, with the silver medal of the Nile in his buttonhole - and the deep white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve beat the time, while his bright blue eyes, staring from what would have been a pink-and-white face if it had not been so deeply tanned, gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin. The high note came, the pause, the resolution; and with the resolution the sailor’s fist swept firmly down upon his knee. He leant back in the chair, extinguishing it entirely, sighed happily and turned towards his neighbor with a smile. The words ‘Very finely played, sir, I believe’ were formed in his gullet if not quite in his mouth when he caught the cold and indeed inimical look and heard the whisper, ‘If you really must beat the measure, sir, let me entreat you to do so in time, and not half a beat ahead.’"

- Master and Commander, opening paragraph

Before I’d read half of that first O’Brian novel, I’d already bought the second.

The novels deal with Jack Aubrey (the naval officer in that first paragraph) and Doctor Steven Maturin (his neighbor at the concert). Before the fifth page they’ve agreed to meet the next morning for a duel; a rough start for one of the most enduring friendships in literature. Over the next twenty books (and a fragment of a twenty-first) they fight Napoleon, the French Navy, the American Navy, assorted pirates, thieves, cannibals, diseases, card cheats, spies, wives (not always theirs), storms, shipwrecks, starvation, scurvy, and the occasional British admiral. The books read like one extremely long novel (I read them that way recently; it took a year) and I enjoyed them thoroughly.

Over the next couple of years I read all of them that had been published. I also read two other sea stories of his that weren’t part of the Aubrey-Maturin series, The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore. As O’Brian was still alive and writing (though over eighty) I eventually caught up with his publishers and was able to buy the last two novels as soon as they came out in hardcover.

Then, in January of 2000, Patrick O’Brian died.

It may have been selfish, but I couldn’t help but wonder who my next "favorite author" was going to be. In truth, I had been looking for some time. Naturally, I first looked to the type of nautical fiction ("sea stories" if you prefer) that I had by then come to love.

(You won’t need to be very astute to notice that nearly all of the novels listed below are adventure stories; that’s my preference and I make no apologies for it. But of all the authors in this article, the one who transcends that level is Patrick O’Brian, who elevated the "sea story" to literature. I think that, perhaps, is what I’ve been looking for, what I’m still looking for. Maybe it’s time I read Moby Dick.)

First, I tried C. S. Forester’s Hornblower stories. When you’re talking about nautical fiction, I think Hornblower is the first name that comes to most people’s minds. I had never read any of them, and my only familiarity with the character was from the old movie with Gregory Peck and the recent television series with Ioan Gryffud. (I liked the TV series.) I picked up a couple of Hornblower books; frankly, they didn’t do much for me and I still can’t fathom what all the fuss is about. The TV shows are better. Hell, that old picture from the 1950’s with Peck was better than the Forester I read, which after O’Brian seemed rather juvenile.

I tried Dudley Pope’s character Nicholas Ramage. The Ramage series ran to nearly as many books as O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin but much lighter reading, much like the Hornblower books. Only more enjoyable, if not more literary. Shorter, too. Still, I was in the mood for something I could read with my brain on stand-by, and I finished and enjoyed the entire series. But Pope as well had recently passed on, and when I’d read the eighteenth there were no more. Onward.

I had much the same reaction to Alexander Kent’s Bolitho novels. Richard Bolitho was supposedly the "action man’s hero" as opposed to O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey being the "thinking man’s hero." If that’s true, I must be a thinking man because I didn’t think much of the two Bolitho books I tried. The series had the advantage of still being written, however; Kent is still cranking them out. I think Richard Bolitho is an Admiral now.

Next I tried reading Captian Fredrick Marryat’s novels; no one main hero, but nautical nevertheless. The interesting thing about Marryat is that he actually was a naval officer during the war against Napoleon; he wrote his first novel while he was fitting out a frigate sometime before 1820. As such, his novels posses a genuine quality that modern writers like O’Brian can only mimic. Still, I found O’Brian’s evocation of early nineteenth century prose more interesting than actual early nineteenth century prose. Moving on...

Next comest James Nelson, an author who is a historian and a sailor and whose novels are as salty as you'd like. I started his Revolution at Sea series (which I believe he’s still writing) but just couldn’t get into it. However, I read his Brethren of the Coast trilogy (think Pirates of the Caribbean rather than Nelson at Trafalgar) and loved every word. His novel The Only Life that Matters was also damned good, dealing with pirates Anne Boney and Mary Reade. Not O’Brian, perhaps, but damned good reading and I look forward to his next novel.

Next I come to Dewey Lambdin’s Alan Lewrie series (no, I am not making these author's names up). If Jack Aubrey is truly the "thinking man’s hero" and Richard Bolitho is the "action man’s hero" then Alan Lewrie must be the "fornicator’s hero" because he seems prepared to jump on anything with a pulse. I actually gave up on this series after the first novel (The King’s Coat) because I had no respect or sympathy for the character. A few years later McBooks re-released the second Alan Lewrie book (The French Admiral), and I decide to give it a try. It was, quite frankly, one of the best novels I had ever read and since then I have enjoyed the entire series. I was even able to reread the first book with new appreciation. I eagerly read each book as it’s published (they’re still being written) and I enjoy them thoroughly. But I still can’t say much for Lewrie’s morals.

What all of these authors failed to give me was the literary fix I was craving after so much O’Brian. It occurred to me that perhaps I should look outside of nautical fiction, but short of reading Jane Austin I had no idea where to turn. And I hate Jane Austin. (Besides, I don’t think she’d know a crossjack from a crowbar.)

H. P. Lovecraft filled this need for a while; you can’t get much more literate than Lovecraft, despite his habit of not writing dialog. Even though Lovecraft is a horror writer, and I dislike that whole genre, I read quite a bit of him for a while. In the end, however, he was a man of his era, a time when racism was institutionally accepted and the strong racist undercurrents in much of Lovecraft’s work ultimately put me off. So it was back to the sea (in a literary sense) for me.

The closest I’ve come to the rich descriptive prose and memorable characters of Patrick O’Brian is Julian Stockwin’s Kidd series. Thomas Kidd starts out a young apprentice wigmaker "pressed" (read "shanghaied") into the Royal Navy, where he discovers a knack for the seafaring life and over the course of nine (so far; I’ve read seven) novels rises to command of a warship. As unlikely as that sounds, it happened quite often before the Royal Navy started requiring its officers to be gentlemen, during the later years of the war with Napoleon. The prose is sharp, the storytelling very well done and the characters are richly drawn and, in spite of how unlikely they may sound to us, totally authentic. I can’t wait for the most recent novel, The Admiral’s Daughter, to be available hereabouts.

But even I get tired of the maritime printed word, so I tried mysteries, and found something I liked; Lindsey Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco series of mysteries is set in ancient Rome, featuring Roman "private informer" Marcus Didius Falco. I had read the first one of these, Silver Pigs, back when it was first published in the early 1980’s and had really liked it, but not being a great mystery fan I never knew that there were more of them. By the time I rediscovered Davis she had written half a dozen more Falco novels, so I reread Silver Pigs and read the rest of the series as fast as I could get my hands on them. The books are basically hard-boiled detective fiction set in ancient Rome; as one critic put it, "Sam Spade in a ratty toga." I would have said Philip Marlowe in sandals, myself. She’s still writing this series, but all too slowly for my taste. By my calculations, she should be about up to the eruption of Vesuvius by now.

I should also mention Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, even though I started reading them about the same time I started reading O’Brian. (For a while I was alternating one O’Brian with one Cornwell.) Cornwell's Richard Sharpe is a tough former street urchin who, in the army, saves the life of the Duke of Wellington (or rather the man who would one day be the Duke of Wellington) and as a reward is made an officer. This, too, was unlikely but did happen more often than you might think; but unlike most such "jumped up sergeants" Sharpe rose to higher rank (most of them ended their days no more than lieutenants). Interestingly, after taking then-Lt. Sharpe from the French invasion of Portugal all the way through Waterloo as a Lt. Colonel (and beyond into civilian life, but I didn’t care for that book much; Sharpe’s Devil it was called) he went back before the beginning and started Sharpe out as a private in India, taking a few books to get him up to saving Arthur Wellesly’s life (the man who would be Wellington), then started writing books that "filled in the gaps" between the earlier novels. He’s still at it; this is another author whose works I buy as soon as I see them. (I should also mention that he’s written a lot of novels that have nothing to do with Sharpe. All that I’ve read have been damn good reads; historical fiction set from the building of Stonehenge through the American Civil War. He is truly a master of historical fiction.) Oh, and by the way, there's an excellent BBC TV series based on the Sharpe novels, well worth checking out. It was this TV series that hooked me on Sharpe in the first place.

And while I’m on the subject of historical fiction that doesn’t go to sea, I should also mention John Wilcox’ Simon Fonthill novels. This is a relatively new series set in Africa and India/Afghanistan (so far) and features an officer who comes through the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift (the Zulu War in 1879) and decides, as a result, that he’s through with the bloody Army. But the bloody Army isn’t through with him, and the books (four of them so far; I’ve read three) follow him through the outskirts of the British Empire during its last years of expansion. Interesting characters and a period much ignored in literature; well worth reading.

But still I come back to nautical fiction (I hate using the term "sea stories"). Once I got on this kick, that was pretty much it for me and science fiction/fantasy; where it was once nearly all I read, I doubt I’ve read as many as five science fiction novels in the last seven years. It’s just not my cup of tea any more. I blame O’Brian; if not for him this yearning for nautical authors specifically, and better authors in general, would certainly have never come to pass. But as things are, with a few exceptions I’ll still take a good book full of gunpowder smoke and tarred hemp to nearly anything else.

Which, oddly, brings me to what I’m reading now. The title? I’ll get to that. First the premise: it’s set in the early nineteenth century, during the war with Napoleon, and the hero is the captain of a British frigate. All very O’Brian-esque so far, right? But in this world both sides in the conflict are using dragons to give nineteenth century warfare a vertical component. Imagine if Jack Aubrey had been Jack Aubrey but Stephen Maturin had been a flying dragon the size of a locomotive. I’m only about fifty pages into it but so far, so good; the author, Naomi Novik, is an acknowledged O’Brian fan (Jane Austin too, but we’ll let that pass) and it has something of the ring of authenticity that O’Brian’s work always had. It’s a series, and so far has run to five or six books with (hopefully) more to come. The first book is called His Majesty’s Dragon and the series is called Temeraire (the name of the dragon). To early to tell, of course, but I have high hopes that this series will become one I like. We’ll see.

Odd that my current fondness for nautical fiction has brought me around again to science fiction/fantasy. Then again, there’s this story I’ve been thinking about writing, with a steam-powered wooden spaceship...

The Blues Viking

(Oh and one more point of interest. O’Brian based his fictional naval hero, Jack Aubrey, on the real life Lord Thomas Cochrane. As it happens, C. S. Forrester did the same thing when creating Horiatio Hornblower. In fact, nearly every naval hero of fiction set in the early nineteenth century is based in whole or part on Cochrane. And Captain Frederick Marryat, while still a midshipman, actually served under Cochrane. He’s a fascinating character and worth reading about. -BV)

And just to give you all something to read...

This is by no means a complete list of all the nautical fiction (and other stuff) I’ve read, just the authors mentioned in the article. A complete list would be far too long and I had to end the article sometime. Enjoy.

Patrick O’Brian: Books available from W. W. Norton.

C. S. Forrester, Dudley Pope, Alexander Kent, Captain Frederick Marryat, Dewey Lambdin and Julian Stockwin: Books available from McBooks (I love McBooks; they publish a lot of nautical fiction).

H. P. Lovecraft: His novels and stories have been around for a long time and are available from various publishers; try searching amazon.com.

Bernard Cornwell: His early Sharpe novels were published by Penguin and are still available on bookshelves under that publisher, but are being reissued by Signet. His later Sharp novels and other books are available from Harper and its subsidiaries. (Oh, and don't worry about reading them in order; he certainly didn't write them in order.)

Lindsey Davis: Books available from St. Martin’s Minotaur.

Naomi Novik: Books available from Del Rey.

John Wilcox: Books available from Headline.

You should be able to find any or all of these at amazon.com


The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.