John's Great Big Read - 100 classic books in 156 weeks...

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Sorry Kate, but I did end up jumping ship. But I gave it a good try - 235 pages in fact. Less a novel than a manual for building replica 18th century men-of-war in your own back yard. All that detail of gun blocks, sails, rigging, and ropes. In a sense the perfect book to bring on the nod for a good night sleep. Apparently, O'Brian is the master and commander of the historical novel. He is certainly the master of the apostrophe - t'gallants, fo'c'sle. However, beyond or below the impenetrable detail of all things nautical there is the story between Captain Aubrey and the good doctor Maturin. And following in the tradition of many a good sea faring partnering - Ishmael and Queequeg, Billy Budd (who was a foretopman for God's sake) and Captain Vere, the Skipper and Gilligan. Within the first few pages there is a claim about no man should be killed for the odd bout of buggery, and then we have Maturin and Aubrey playing bagatelles on the viola together. And what are we to make of Captain Aubrey's preference to putting 'by the head'. In the end this book sailed me right into my own doldrums. All in all I wanted more swash buckling, parrots and piracy and less of the a'stroph'.