Patrick O'brian books

[tnert]

Scott's response to Ian's recent thread prompted me to do search for a discussion of O'brian versus Forrester and others. Unless I missed something, this has not substantially been hashed out. My experience was exactly opposite from Scott's. I was hooked from the first paragraph of Master and Commander and relished the series plus the novels. Craving more of the same I picked up Forrester and found them dull. I read a couple and lost interest. I'm saving the O'brian books for a re-read sometime in the future, though I'm sorely tempted to start them all again soon. Other suggestions for great nautical reads?

[seafox61]

Dan Parkinson wrote 4 revolutionary war naval novels starting with the "fox and the faith" I like them a great deal better than Mr O'brians books. foresters best book was the african queen.

alaxander Kent and douglas freeman are the same fellow and I like his novels much beter than Obrian also.
since the Obrian novels are so popular I wonder what I am missing?

jeffery

[Carlsboats]

Another vote for O'Brien. If you just want to see the plot move along, go with Hornblower. But if you want a real look at life in the sailing navy, and get to meet a wonderful cast of characters, O'Brien's your man. The 20 books are really one sprawling novel, plus a very good history of everything from ship handling to shipboard surgery.

[Hughman]

O'Brian is a good read, especially considering he didn't (to my recollection) have any sea experiance.
Try the works of Richard Woodman, a British seaman, and James Nelson, former sailing master of HMS Rose.

..and the ur-writer of the genre- Francis Marryat

[ 03-29-2003, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: Hughman ]

[John Bell]

I've got the full set of O'Brian here on the shelf along with maybe three Forresters. I read the entire O'Brian canon in about eight months time and am continually fighting temptation to re-read them. Guess what gets my vote? Forrester is good enough, but Hornblower seems very two dimensional compared to Jack and Stephen.

[pjwalsh]

I like the depth of the characterizations in O'Brian's writing, and the subtle jokes. Forrester is pretty good but I only have two Hornblower books on my shelf and all the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Another writer in the historical maritime genre, often overlooked is Kenneth Roberts. He wrote a four book series: "Arundel", Rabble in Arms", "The Lively Lady", and "Captain Caution", That I enjoyed quite a lot.

[Scott Rosen]

The reason I started the O'Brian books three different times, is because of comments like these. It seems as if almost everyone loves those books. I just found them a struggle to get into. Maybe the fourth time will the the charm. ;)

[Dave Hadfield]

They do indeed take some getting in-to.

I read in his biography that he was ill for a long time as a teen ager, and had access to a trunk full of publications from the late 1700's. I think he learned his sense of that time and place from that episode. He writes of that time using the words and attitudes and morals and values of that time and makes few concessions to this time at all.

The way it strikes me is that he doesn't just set a story in 1800, he re-creates that whole society, and to fully enter the books, you have to learn the ways of that world.

The rhythm of the words, the phrasing, the long, long sentences subdivided by endless semi-colons, the old-fashioned grammar and verbal references -- they all take a bit of getting used to. You have to really want to step back into that time and see things as they did.

Once you do, the payoff is wonderful and rich.

I too enjoy Hornblower, and re-read them from time to time, but it simply doesn't have the depth of O'Brian. And Kent, Pope and the others just don't cut it, for me, after those two.

Like any art, I guess it's quite a personal thing.

[Rocky]

I couldn't stop asking myself how the hell O'Brian knew all this stuff.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

He sometimes gets it wrong!

Another vote for Richard Woodman, a friend of mine who owns a 27ft wooden gaff cutter. His Nathaniel Drinkwater series is perhaps a tad more realistic than some others, he does not miss out on the brutality. A problem for many readers on this board may be his choice of period - the Revolutionary War. But try it.

[Paul Denison]

Scott, if you have a commute to work try the Books on Tape, it may go better for you.

[Tonyr]

Pjwalsh, nobody reads Kenneth Roberts any more, except you and me, apparently! I think he is splendid, especially in his readiness to gore a few politically correct sacred cows. For example, he manages to make Benedict Arnold into a pretty sympathetic character (after the war he ended up in New Brunswick, incidentally, and made himself no more popular here than in the US!).

Another theme he tackled, quite bravely, was the Revolution from the point of the view of the loosers (we call them here, the Loyalists, of course). His "Oliver Wiswell" novel is based very loosely on the real life story of Jonathan Odell, a Loyalist and the first Provincial Secretary of New Brunswick. For a staunch U.S. patriot like Roberts, that's a pretty imaginative effort.

Of his works, Rabble In Arms remains my favorite.

Tony.

[seafox61]

Tonyr
I agree on rabble in arms. Arnold was a hero, but he got mixed up with the wrong woman and she runit him.

has any one read Parkinson? his westerns are even better I love them in about this order
1 Clamity trail
2 Dust on the wind
3 Westerning
4 the slanted colt
5 the way to wyoming

The humor is incredable to subtal their are shades of the supernatural in 2,3,&5.

His naval fiction also has the humor and you can sometimes sprain a rib on it
jeffery

[Tom Galyen]

Gentlemen,

I too enjoy O'Brien's writing, however if you want a good read try Captian Frederick Marryat's book "The Privateersman". You will be surprised. He was by the way a Frigate captain of the period. He wrote several other books including one I believe called "Mr. Midshipman Simple". This one was so popular that the King of England invited him to dinner, and when the doorman asked who he was he simply said to tell the King that "Mr. Midshipman Simple had arrived."

Another series you might try is the Brethern of the Coast series by James L. Nelson. Lots of blood and gore, but simplistic plots. Intresting if your into pirate novels.

For those into luggers you may want to try James Fenimore Coopers "The Wing and Wing". He did spend some time at sea and did write several sea novels. The introduction to my paperback version of this says that he actually invented the sea novel with his 1824 novel "The Pilot". It also says that by the time he died in 1851 he had written more sea novels than he did his "pioneer" books. He is a tough read though. I forced my way through "Last of the Mohicans" because I was an extra in the Michael Mann version of the movie starring Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye.

Hope this gives you some inspiration.

Tom G.

A boat in the water is normal. Water in a boat is not.

[John B]

I read every Hornblower novel when I was about 11 to 13 or so.The books were old then and I've re read a few since .They are a slower read but they have their own charm. I think The difference in the authors has something to do with the times they were written.O'Brien has a more contemporary approach for a more relaxed audience.
I just can't imagine 'Hornblower' having a man with a drug dependency issue as a central character. It wouldn't have got published ,full stop. When exactly were they written? anyone know?
'50's?
Anyway, that's my take on it. I think CS Forester would have been 'racier' if he was writing them in 1985 or 90.

[Tonyr]

Tom Gaylen, wasn't that Midshipman Easy? I don't have access to any reference to check.

Tony.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Winston Churchill read the first of the Hornblower novels, "The Happy Return", aboard the battleship HMS 'Prince of Wales', en route across the Atlantic for his first meeting with FD Roosevelt. He found it "admirable; vastly entertaining" and it took his mind off the war. We know this because he said so in his history of WW2. So, there's a pretty solid recommendation!

I like Forrester's characterisation. Hornblower is a well rounded character- very ambitious, socially ill at ease, shy, saddled with a hopelessly unsuitable wife whom he married for all the wrong reasons, conscious of his lack of education, and, whilst he may not have a drug problem, remember that he makes his living during the Peace of Amiens by playing whist - i.e. as a professional gambler!

[John M]

I would recommend the Bolitho series by Alexander Kent. The books take Bolitho from seaman to Admiral to Lord. Very entertaining. I liked them better than O'Brian and as well as Forrester.

John M

[Dave Hadfield]

Andrew, I happened to be re-reading "Ship of the Line" as this thread came up. I really enjoy these books.

But as for characters, while HH is admirably drawn, don't you think that the others are a bit thin? One-sided? Bush, his partner through almost all of the books, rarely has his thoughts portrayed. Even in Lieutenant Hornblower RN, when Bush is the protagonist (as a plot device), the portrayal is not intimate or particularly convincing. Often in the other books he's more caricature than character. Brown is the same. So's his first wife. Barbara gets a little more depth, but even when she risks his career to save the bandsman, her thoughts and actions are only disclosed in a few words as the hurricane blows its worst. The Count and Marie.... the other officers.... the german doctor.... the Prince.... the Scottish diver.... they are all sketched in a few strokes.

They're believable -- I read the books and re-read them, but it seems to me there was room for more storytelling.

O'Brian's books are not this way at all. In the first book, M and C, Dillon gets almost as much space as Aubrey in terms of thoughts and feelings, even though he dies and disappears. That pattern goes on. The writer's focus rests on more people, more often than in HH. More meat on the bones.

That's how it strikes me, anyway.

[Kevin Zembower]

I've tried on two separate occasions to read the O'Brian books. To me, he spends too much time talking about non-sea-related material, that puts me to sleep. I've tried opening the books to random pages and find more often than not some long discourse about something I'm not remotely interested in.

I vote for HH.

Not a wooden boat at all, but I really enjoyed the novels of the modern US Navy by David Poyner. I didn't have the patience to work it out, but I believe that his novel "The Circle" can actually be worked out on a plotting board accurately. I also enjoyed "The Med."

My 2 cents. Thank goodness there's more than one sea novelist.

-Kevin Zembower

[Ken Hall]

I like Forester and O'Brian both; each has his charm.

Regarding characterization in Hornblower, I recently read a critical essay that touched on the topic. According to the author, Forester intentionally developed Hornblower as a kind of 20th-century person (horror of flogging, bathe every day, etc.) so that the reader could identify more readily. Bush, then, became a stand-in for the "traditional" Royal Navy attitude of the early 19th Century. On a strictly personal note, the thing that bothered me most about Forester's handling of Bush was that he ultimately killed him "off camera," so to speak. I thought he deserved better.

O'Brian uses humor more than Forester, but both have their moments.

Apart from the Aubrey/Maturin books, O'Brian's The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore are both good. He wrote those before the Aubrey/Maturin books, and they're set in Anson's circumnavigation.

[Meerkat]

I got started in my teens with Forester and loved them. As an adult, I've read, love and own a full set of O'Brian. I think Hornblower is aimed towards more of a juvenille audience then is Aubery (this may reflect that juvenilles today are as, or more, sophisticated and worldy then where their parents though ;) ).

I'd love to read Kent from midshipman to m'lord, but, at least until recently, they where very expensive on the US market. I think they're now being published in the states though.

I did initially have some trouble with O'Brian's exploration of the life and times beyond the narrow interests of a professional seaman, but in the end, I have come to enjoy the insight into those times and the character richness that was added.

[ 04-02-2003, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Meerkat ]