The IBIC Guide to Books By Patrick O'Brian

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Remarks from the IBIC Editor's Journal

THE COMMODORE by Patrick O'Brian (W.W. Norton) is the 17th in the fabulous Aubrey-Maturin series of naval novels. Honestly, I can't remember much that distinguishes this from the earlier novels; in fact, it feels as if it's just a seamless extension of what is really a 5000 page opus. It's just as good as all the earlier books and if you liked the first ones you should definitely buy this one. Grandmaster stuff.

October 4, 1994

The illustrations in THE PATRICK O'BRIAN CALENDAR 1995 from W.W. Norton are very handsome in a distinguished nautical way and will gladden the heart of most O'Brian aficionados. There are 8 paintings of sailing ships by Geoff Hunt, 3 pictures of odd botanical specimens from the Natural History Museum in London, and one beautiful reproduction of the Nile Medal, with a 2-page description of the Battle of the Nile written by POB.

There is one glaring omission, though. I have to wonder why there are no illustrations of Aubrey or Maturin, O'Brian's signature characters. This calendar is all sailing ships and beetles. I found it a bit disappointing--I'd have liked to see a couple of closeups of Aubrey and Maturin.

I must admit, however, that the dust jackets of the Aubrey/Maturin novels are equally impersonal. If you like the cover art of the books you already have, you'll like this calendar.

Spring 1994

THE WINE-DARK SEA, by Patrick O'Brian (W.W. Norton)

Patrick O'Brian's THE WINE-DARK SEA is the sixteenth in the series of novels set in the Napoleonic era that chronicle the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his "particular friend," Dr. Stephen Maturin, surgeon, natural philosopher, advocate of Catalan independence, and agent for British naval intelligence. I had never read any of O'Brian's books until this year. At first I resisted the wave of publicity that greeted THE WINE-DARK SEA, feeling in an unexamined way that a novel set in the world of "wooden ships and iron men" was likely to be nothing more than a cut-rate derivative of C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels (which I dearly loved). As anyone acquainted with O'Brian's work knows, I was very wrong.

The Aubrey and Maturin novels stand on a level of their own. If anything, they are a greater accomplishment than the Hornblower novels. They mine the same romantic vein of seagoing adventure in exotic waters, beautiful passengers, politico-military intrigue, daring single-ship encounters, and glorious prizes, but O'Brian's is a more gifted, a more polyphonic voice than Forester's. I would hazard that O'Brian will speak more directly to many modern readers than Forester, whose style, although beautiful, is a bit too simple and unaffected for many modern tastes, raised, IMHO, to turn to film and video for pure story telling, and to the novel for insight into the minutiae of character. To put it another way: O'Brian is on a par with Updike.

I read most of the preceding novels in the series before reading THE WINE-DARK SEA. (BTW, apropos of the perennial discussion in r.a.sf.written: I read the novels out of order. I read the first one first, to decide whether I liked the series, and liked it so much that I was unwilling to wait for the volumes to cycle back into the Ann Arbor Public Library.) With that perspective, I must say that THE WINE-DARK SEA is not the best of the series. It shows a few of the signs of an aging formula: familiar characters persisting in familiar settings, despite internal logic that it would be time for them to move on; extreme situations recurring a little too often for credibility; and a hint of St. Elsewhere's Syndrome, in which the creator turns against and torments his creations. That being said, however, THE WINE-DARK SEA is still an outstanding novel by a great novelist. I recommend, however, that you begin with O'Brian's earlier novels--MASTER AND COMMANDER and POST CAPTAIN are first and second in the sequence.


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Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996

In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life and thinking.

  • When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on the classic. What a great movie it would make!
  • The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy. I've read a number of translations over the years, but my favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO; PURGATORY; PARADISE). The notes are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
  • I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY, which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
  • Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent acquisition, the very handsome NIV STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black and brown are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding Scripture.

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