Patrick O'Brian

Now that the Napoleonic Wars are over, frigate captain Jack Aubrey faces desertion, near sinking, and brawls with British sailors--all before he reaches his next destination, Chile--where he will help the fledgling country break free of Spain and takes on some notable passengers. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

Blue at the Mizzen (Vol. Book 20) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

Gavin

There you have it. One last slightly forced set of actions (Jack growing desperate, not O’Brian), one last set of terrible wounds, one last set of thirsty zoological expeditions, and out.

You feel that O’Brian could have kept it up for another 10 books without absurdity, even though he had to bend time slightly to make Napoleon last 14 books. There is admittedly nowhere for J&S to develop - they are already as open and close as such men could be. Jack withdraws during yet another antarctic horror here, saying nothing, getting no focal time, and there is no relational jeopardy; we and Stephen know it’s temporary.

—


   ‘Please tell the Senhor that I have never eaten better porco in my life,' said Jack, holding up a bare white bone. Jack had a variety of little imbecilities, but none irritated Stephen more than his way of tossing in the odd word or two of a foreign language.


[Of Americans]: “Well, may it prosper them,' said Jack. 'Though they are little better than republicans and democrats, may it prosper them.”


“You are doing very well,' said Stephen in that rather loud, distinct voice that even quite intelligent medical men use to their foreign patients, 'and if Mr. Hanson will call a shipmate to make sure you do not fall, you may go up on deck for a while, now that the ship is so still”


A certain cloud hung over the ship. It disappeared after grog and an enormous supper of fresh seal steaks: and stupidly I did not attend to the proportion of those who were affected and those (mostly countrymen and accustomed to killing as a matter of course from childhood) who were not; yet I did notice, since we were in the same boat, that Hanson and his particular friend Daniel did what little they could to hide their distress in our many bloody voyages to and fro, with the skuas screaming just over our heads.



The sea, if it teaches nothing else, does at least compel a submission to the inevitable which resembles patience. And all those concerned contained themselves with a decent appearance of that virtue through the clear hours of approach.


[on authority]: Inside there were four large chests of silver and a moderate chest of gold: curiously enough they were only closed with a hasp, and on seeing their contents a soldier who had been in the Surprise said they had all risked their lives to gain this wealth and that in his opinion it should be shared out equally at once: now, now, equally and at once. His opinion was supported by several men there, but O'Higgins said, 'A fig for your opinion,' and shot him dead.


[nerds, FRS]: ‘A parcel of excited young women screeching aloud and agitating their persons and limbs is enough to make one retire to a monastery. Our Fellows did not present a very elevating spectacle.'
'I did notice some of the Spaniards looking rather grave, and I did regret the last bowl of punch. Yet on the other hand, ours is an eminently respectable society: the Proceedings are known all over the learned world, and the men of the Isaac Newton, however bibulous on occasion, carry recommendations to the government, foreign office and universities of whatever country they visit. I do assure you, Stephen, that our connexion with them, with the Society as a whole in its most sober and learned mood, is a singular advantage to us.'
'My dear, I am entirely in agreement with you, no other Fellow more: yet even so, I could wish they would not laugh; or at the least, if they are truly amused, that they would laugh like men rather than eunuchs’




—

If you haven’t read about the real model for Jack you’re in for a treat.

—

The ending is abrupt and glad, like all his endings. It wasn’t meant to be one but there’s some indication he had no interest in ending it anyway. From book 14:

   'As for an end,' said Martin, 'are endings really so very important? Sterne did quite well without one; and often an unfinished picture is all the more interesting for the bare canvas. I remember Bourville's definition of a novel as a work in which life flows in abundance, swirling without a pause: or as you might say without an end, an organized end. And there is at least one Mozart quartet that stops without the slightest ceremony: most satisfying when you get used to it.

Blue at the Mizzen (Vol. Book 20) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

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