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Title: H.M.S. Surprise by Robert Hardy, Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 0-375-40524-0 Publisher: Bantam Books-Audio Pub. Date: 04 August, 1998 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 2 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.76 (29 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best books of perhaps the best naval series ever
Comment: In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary. Still, I'm glad to add my words. These stories concern Jack Aubrey, a ship captain in the English Navy at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and his great friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish-Catalan doctor and spy who in the first book joins Jack's crew as ship doctor.
As H. M. S. Surpries opens, political machinations cost Jack his prize money (earned in the previous book0, and Stephen's cover in Spain is blown. As a result, and also because Stephen is scheming to see his lover Diana again (who has been taken by her keeper Richard Canning to India), Jack takes command of the aged frigate H.M.S. Surprise, and is sent to Cambodia (stopping in India) to deliver the new British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong.
Thus the setup for a long, wonderful, account of the voyage to the Orient and back. The pleasures of this book are remarkably varied: high comedy, such as the famous drunken sloth incident; high adventure, as the men of the Surprise battle not only the South Atlantic at its fiercest, but also the French; and bitter disappointment and even tragedy, in Stephen's seesaw relationship with Diana, as well as Stephen's involvement with a young Indian girl.
The pleasures of this book, however, are not restricted to a fine plot. The ongoing development of the characters of Jack and Stephen, and of their complex and fully described friendship, is a major achievement. In addition, the many minor characters are fascinating: the envoy Mr. Stanhope, Stephen's Indian friend, the various ship's officers and men, other ship captains, and so on. And O'Brian's depiction of the building of an effective crew, the relationship of captain to officers to men, is another fascinating detail, and something he revisits from book to book, as Jack encounters different crews in different circumstances. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion.
Jack and Stephen are heroic in certain aspects of their characters, but they are both multi-faceted characters, with terrible flaws and endearing crotchets in addition to their accomplishments. And they truly come across to this reader as characters of their time, and not 20th Century people cast back into the past. Even Stephen's very contemporary racial and religious attitudes are well-motivated by his background, and expressed in language which reeks wonderfully of his time: "Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, if anyone can speak of a heterogeneous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way."
I recommend all these books highly. It was with great difficulty the first time through the series that I restrained myself, upon finishing each book, from immediately starting in on the next one.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Voyage of Friendship
Comment: Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy in the midst of the wars against Napoleon, and his particular friend Stephen Maturin, physician, naturalist and intelligence agent, journey from England to India and back in this epic of friendship. Along the way there are battles to be fought, storms to be weathered, and love to be found.
This is also the first book of the twenty-volume "Aubreyad" where we encounter the Surprise, that sleek, swift frigate which transports the two friends through so many other oceans and adventures.
But this is not your Napoleonic technothriller. No, this is a cut above Ramage, Bolitho, even Hornblower. This is literature, and there are observations on relationships between men, women, men and women, men and the sea, and the ultimate questions of the human existence, wrapped up in language wonderfully witty and hilariously humorous. This, and the others in the canon, are not books that will be read once lightly and forgotten. No, you will come back to them time and again for the pure pleasure of the reading and to discover something fresh each time.
Rating: 5
Summary: Awesome seafaring fun. A must read!!
Comment: HMS Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian is the third in the Aubrey/Maturin series of novels about the British Navy during the early 19th Century. This tome starts with Captain Jack Aubrey, now a post captain, temporarily commanding the large frigate HMS Lively while the primary captain is busy with another task. His job as captain is the boring job of running a blockade, and he is bored, broke, and trying to find a way to find enough money to marry his sweetheart, Sophie Williams.
Thanks to some intervention by his good friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, he is given command of HMS Surprise, a small frigate which Jack served on as a young midshippman. Jack is charged with the task of protecting the East-India fleet from destruction and confication by the French.
His job takes him to the great India subcontinent, and the rich sights and smells that go with it. Along the way we see an amazing storm at sea, the damage that can be inflicted on a ship and her crew while rounding Cape Horn, an amazing act of surgery performed by Stephen Maturin.
The final battle that pits "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, the Surprise and a vastly outgunned fleet of ships against the far superior French forces. The story more is clear, fast paced, and exciting. Just like Jack now commands a ship he knew is his youth, HMS Surprise moves along at a comfortable enjoyable pace as O'Brian comes into his element at writing great stories.
The story is exciting, fun to read, and the characters are truly interesting and well developed. As anyone who is interested in 19th century "ships of the line", naval history, or just love a great story, this book is sure to please.
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Title: Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 039330812X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 0393307050 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: November, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 0393308138 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Surgeon's Mate by Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 0393308200 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian ISBN: 0393308219 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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