Thoughts on Patrick O'Brian's Novels?

Cafe Society
101

I agree with Sangahyando.

That doesn’t mean that good historical novels can’t have wild and improbable adventures, but they should at least be possible, and the history should be accurate.

IMHO a series that does this right is the Flashman books. Brilliantly funny, and with some improbable events… but every time some unusual character appears in the novels, and you check whether such a person actually existed, you will find he did, and was exactly as described. Every time the novels deal with historical events (which is often), you’ll find that all the facts are accurate.

For the uninitiated, the original Flashman was the villain in the novel Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes (1857). Flashman is a bully, a coward, and a liar. In the end he is expelled from Rugby School, and the virtuous Tom Brown lives happily ever after.

In 1969 George MacDonald Fraser revived the character as an anti-hero in his own novels, and took up the story after Flashman’s expulsion.

Flashman tells the reader his own story in the first person, looking back at his life from the age of 80. He has been extremely successful (far more so than Tom Brown). He is now General Sir Henry Flashman, VC, KCB, KCIE, Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor, San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class - and a member of the Board of Governors of Rugby School. He is extremely wealthy, a personal friend of the royal family, and esteemed by one and all as a perfect English gentleman.

However… in reality his character has remained unchanged from his schooldays with Tom Brown. He is, as he tells the reader, “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward - and, oh yes, a toady.” He’s just been very good at it. The books are very, very funny - but are also unusually historically accurate.

Read the Look Inside on Amazon to get a taste of it.

102

Let us not forget that Flashman served in the US Civil War.
On both sides.

103

“Flashman” is indeed great fun; though IMO some books in the series are better than others.

The one big requirement for willing suspension of disbelief which I find with the Flashman books, is: in sober reality, it would be quite impossible for one person not only to have been present, throughout the period 1840 – 1900, at virtually all the British Empire’s big historical events and many of those of other countries too; but to have played significant roles in all of them. I live with that issue, by reflecting that the series is, in its way, a comical and satirical “take” on history (albeit with, in the course of the books, many decidedly serious and perceptive thoughts and comments being expressed) – whereby, I feel, earning “license” for the big impossibility of “he couldn’t have been everywhere, and been vitally important to the action in every instance !”

In the catalogue of Flashman’s ignoble traits: as well as scoundrel / liar / cheat / thief / coward / toady, he is an obsessive and irremediable lecher and unfaithful husband (and, it would seem, highly attractive to many of those of the female persuasion): by his account, the number of different women he had sex with during his life, is several hundreds – and more or less his only redeeming feature, is that in the novels, he is unsparingly honest about his wicked propensities and deeds – one feels he is not exaggerating re his sex life ! (In parallel with all this, he harbours a genuine love in a weird kind of way, for his wife of very many years.)

And Fraser died before he could write the “Flashy in the Civil War” novel, damn it ! We have only tantalising hints in the other books. From certain things said by Fraser, it would appear that he never in fact planned to write the actual Civil War volume.

104

This is completely me. I’ve listened to a bit of both, and Mr. Tull just couldn’t do voices that conjured the characters in my mind the way Simon Vance did.

Actually, I started out with a third reader, whose name I have embarassingly forgotten, who I felt was better than either, but he didn’t seem to do past book 5 or so.

105

Bumped.

Three years later, and I’m now working my way through the entire series. Great stuff! I finished the fifth, Desolation Island, not long ago.

For anyone who’d like a replica of Aubrey’s Royal Navy flag, from 1801 and thereafter: http://www.militaryissue.com/British-Blue-Ensign-Flag/productinfo/101659/

106

The Leopards encounter with the Dutch SOL, subsequent long chase and how it all unfolded was without a doubt the most gripping thing I ever read. I was actually late for work(only the second time in 33 years) because I simply couldn’t put the book down until I found out what happened.

107

Yes, the series is good stuff.

108

Dr. Maturin is not always an admirer of particular members of the fairer sex, as seen in these two passages from HMS Surprise:

“The nymphs in green? Delightful girls.’ [Capt. Aubrey said, after a dinner party]

‘It is clear you have been a great while at sea, to call those sandy-haired coarse-featured pimply short-necked thick-fingered vulgar-minded lubricious blockheads by such a name. Nymphs, forsooth. If they were nymphs, they must have had their being in a tolerably rank and stagnant pool: the wench on my left had an ill breath, and turning for relief I found her sister had a worse; and the upper garment of neither was free from reproach. Worse lay below, I make no doubt.” [Dr. Maturin replied]

He had earlier said of Aubrey’s future mother-in-law:

‘I particularly wished to serve my friend Aubrey [who] was on the point of becoming engaged to a most amiable young woman. They are deeply attached to one another; but since her mother, a widow with considerable property under her own control, is a deeply stupid, griping, illiberal, avid, tenacious, pinchfist lickpenny, a sordid lickpenny and a shrew, there is no hope of marriage without his estate is cleared and he can make at least some kind of settlement upon her.’

Now THAT’S how you insult someone!

109

Bumped.

The Wiki article on O’Brian’s The Truelove (published as Clarissa Oakes in the UK) says, “The cause [of gunroom tensions] is jealousy over Clarissa, who has had sexual liaisons with several of the ship’s officers.” Is that accurate? I had understood she was sharing her affections only with Midshipman Oakes, her future husband. If she was sleeping around, I totally missed it.

110

One could make the argument that O’Brian harbored some dim views of women based on his portrayals of characters like Sophie’s mother or Diana Villiers, but just as often he treated other female characters far more charitably; Sophie, Queenie, or Mrs. Broad spring to mind.

111

I would argue that his portrayal of Diana Villiers is in no way indicative of a “dim view” of women. She’s one of his best creations. And Sophie’s mother, Mrs. Williams, is indeed a horrible person, but an author’s creation of unsympathetic characters is not proof of his contempt for the gender of that character.

Sophie, on the other hand…

On the other hand (spoiler coming):

The way he offhandedly kills her off is inexplicable. And inexcusable.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. My spoiler-blurred comment is about Diana Villiers, not Sophie.

112

Oh c’mon, Diana is the (nearly) heartless jagged rock that Stephen casts himself upon repeatedly. She is portrayed as a hedonistic mercenary who loves living the high life and unapologetically sponges off wealthy male benefactors in a serial fashion. True, she isn’t entirely without virtue - OBrian goes to pains to describe her beauty and courage - but on the balance, I think ‘dim view’ is appropriate if she’s representative of the gender.

113

We’ll have to disagree on that. She’s a smart, tough woman making her way in the world as best she can, a world where women have little in the way of currency to trade on, who has little choice but to attach herself to “male benefactors,” and who ultimately does come to love Stephen (in her own way, of course).

And I still say that O’Brian’s casual throwing-away of the character was unconscionable and almost unforgiveable.

Also, I recommend a book written some decades later, George Gissing’s The Odd Women, for a perspective on the plight of women without resources of their own.

115

Clarissa would absolutely would have sex with anyone who asked, because sex was essentially meaningless to her. She never understood the whole emotional and possessive aspect of it, because of her unusual and abusive childhood. That’s why she was so upset and puzzled about the conflict her behavior caused between the officers.

And she admitted to Stephen she had slept with several men on the ship:

For her, because of the particularity of her bringing-up, kiss and coition are much the same in insignificance; furthermore, she takes not the slightest pleasure in either. If therefore, through a variety of motives in which good nature and compassion certainly have a part as well as a general desire to be liked, she has admitted some men to her bed, she has done so very innocently: “If an ill-looking pitiful fellow with say a thorn in his foot begged you to take it out, sure you would consent, even if doing so were rather unpleasant than otherwise.” To her astonishment she had found herself loved and hated to various degrees, rather than merely liked, by those she obliged; and condemned by many who were in no way concerned.
…
In any event she is determined to renounce fornication; though how she will fare I know not.

I don’t think we need blurred spoilers in a 5 year old thread that’s already full of them.

I’ve read that O’Brian killed off Diana in “The Hundred Days” because his own wife had died before he wrote the novel. He wanted to have Maturin express the emotions he was feeling.

Add some text because I accidently deleted the previous post, and it won’t let me post the same body as previously…

116

Hmm. I had interpreted that first excerpt, muldoon, to be referring to her experiences with sex over the course of her whole adult life. She was ill-used in London and in Sydney, after all, and even said she had been repeatedly raped.

117

But Stephen is writing about the trouble happening on the ship, right then. She’s being “loved and hated to various degrees, rather than merely liked, by those she obliged.” Why would she need to renounce fornication, if that wasn’t the cause of the trouble?

And earlier in the book, Reade tells Stephen “they go in and out of that door (Clarissa’s), like a bawdy-house. I see them from here.”

118

I realize i am coming in after two years, but it is still relevant.

Nope, just the send best naval fiction, after Hornblower. IMHO!

However, O’Brian has more novels in the series than the Hornblower ones.

Both are really really good, mind you, the best in the Genre. That genre is a very small part of historical fiction, mind you.

Good thing too, as cooking destroys Vitamin C.

A naval fiction series that starts with a pressed lubber is the Kydd series by Stockman.

I will note that the first Hornblower book is kinda weak.

Not bad.

Yes, some classify her books as “Historical fiction” while I waiver between Fantasy and Romance, Supernatural Romance, even. My wife loves them. Too much torture for me.

Which is why I can’t read Philippa Gregory, no need to add fantasy in historical fiction.

119

Thanks, Muldoonthief.

Shelby Foote often said that historians need to write more like novelists (telling an interesting story), while novelists need to write more like historians (taking care to get the facts right).

Much as I love O’Brian’s books, my all-time favorite historical novel is Aztec by Gary Jennings, an epic covering the life of a peasant with a talent for languages who rises to become court interpreter for Montezuma just as the Spanish arrive. Over the course of his life he’s a soldier, a knight, a merchant, a courtier and a spy - it’s quite a tale. Highly recommended.

120

audiobook? Glad you mentioned it. I’ve reread the entire series several times but never thought to look for an audio version. And behold it’s available on Hoopla!

121

I think the characters Diana and Sophie were each admirable women in their own way and very well-developed as characters. I took the impression that Po’B loved them both.

Confession: I once went looking for Diana’s apartments in London.