Aubrey-Maturin novels


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Posted by Mike Field on September 26, 2008 at 12:51:09 user mikefield.

In Reply to: Re: Magic that books give us posted by Adam Quinan on September 26, 2008 at 10:41:40:

The O'Brian novels have been discussed at length on the WoodenBoat Forum: eg --

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81268
http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68794
http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37216
http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43401

Peter Wier, being interviewed about the film "Master and Commander," described how difficult it was to make a film out of O'Brian's books. Roughly quoted, he said, "If you pick up one of these books by the spine and shake it until the words all fall out there's not much of a story left to work with." And he's right -- it's the language that makes these books so good; plots are a bit lighter on. (That's why "Master and Commander" was based on a combination of novels instead of just one.)

Forester was still the master though. Hornblower was a fully-rounded and thoroughly-thought-out character, the plots of the novels were excellent, and the historical details are all there (like the establishment of the telegraph system from Admiralty house, or "walking" a narrow-boat through a canal tunnel.) The only place where O'Brian beat him is that O'Brian used contemporary language whereas Forester used modern English.

What particularly struck me about the Hornblower books were that they weren't written in any sense as a chronological series. Forester wrote only one story initially, and it was to be a stand-alone. (It was "Captain Hownblower" from memory.) Then he wrote a second about the same character later in life, then a couple of other ones skipping around at different periods in the time-line, and only then did he decide to complete a full series by writing further books to fill in the chronological gaps -- which I think he did brilliantly, as they had to join seamlessly with what had gone "before" and what had already happened "after."

What makes O'Brian is the language. What makes Hornblower is the character.


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