I read at The Catholic Thing a piece by Stephen P. White about Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series. Which it begins, as Preserved Killick would say, with Master and Commander, both not to be and to be confused with the homonymous movie with Russell Crowe which deftly pieces together scenes from later books in the series.
Note: White begins his presentation by writing about J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The idea being that the writing draws you in and it is long enough to be profound and engrossing. Hence…
[…]
The English novelist Patrick O’Brian was no J.R.R. Tolkien. But in O’Brian’s series of historical novels – 20 in all, plus one unfinished – I have found, if not a rival to Tolkien’s beloved masterpiece, then at least a compliment. O’Brian portrays the careers of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his friend Stephen Maturin, a physician, naturalist, and intelligence agent, through the Napoleonic Wars.
O’Brian invented no languages or mythologies. His novels are set amongst historical events, sometimes described with slavish accuracy. But in his characters –particularly Aubrey and Maturin – one discovers an astonishing breadth and depth of reflection on human nature.
[…]
The first novel opens with the protagonists as young men, Aubrey a newly promoted “Master and Commander,” and Maturin an impoverished, disaffected would-be revolutionary. Neither is married; both are at the beginnings of their careers (though with very different prospects before them.)
The friendship of Jack and Stephen – an unlikely pair, contrasting in physical appearance, temperament, religion (Stephen is a Catholic), and all interests save a love of music – allows for a fascinating study of human character, but perhaps more so, a study of the effects of time and fortune. [One might be tempted to compare them to Kirk/Spock.]
As their friendship deepens, each friend has time to notice and reflect on the sort of man his friend is becoming, and to wonder at the slow but seemingly inexorable changes in themselves. Years of physical hardship, danger, love, loss, sadness, and joy work upon the men.
And the reader has twenty volumes (about 15 years in the novels’ time) to grow intimately familiar with each character and to savor every detail of the slow work of time upon the human soul.
It is ultimately this moral realism – the surety that these characters inhabit our world, fictional though they may be and as flawed and sometimes disappointing as they are – that make O’Brian’s stories so engrossing, so true.
O’Brian was not a Catholic, though he lived for many decades in the south of France. His familiarity with Catholicism, and with the Mass especially, decidedly alters his understanding of time. Consider the following passage, in which Maturin attends Mass in Boston during the war of 1812:
[…]
I cannot recommend the O’Brian books warmly enough.
BTW… the whole series is read by Simon Vance. He really hits his stride in the second book in which he has all the voices figured out. Two others tried reading as well, namely Patrick Tull and John Lee. A big “Nope!”, to both.
I looked for Vance’s version on Audible and didn’t find it. Back when, I had to check the CD discs out from the public library. More effort, but worth it if you want audio versions. One of many examples comes to mind, namely, Vance’s reading of the chase by the Waakzaamheid, a Dutch 74, in the raging seas south of Cape Horn. Pure mesmerizing genius.
NB: But read the book first. Always. Book first, to form your own mind pictures and voices.
How important was that for us who had the privilege of reading The Lord of the Rings unsullied by the movies? Or any other great books, from Jane Austin to Jack Reacher.
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My wife and I long ago decided we’d never show our kids the LotR movies or the “Pride and Prejudiced” mini-series because we wanted them to grow up with their own imaginations creating the characters and not get stuck with someone else’s vision in their own head (especially when it comes to the elves – Peter Jackson just doesn’t get the elves at all).
I’ve started my boys on their own journeys through the O’Brian books. I know the older one is fairly far along, and he really enjoys them.
And while incomplete, I do believe 21 is a fantastic coda for the whole series. What a fantastic and very Catholic ending (I won’t give away even an iota of a spoiler), followed by the image of them all sailing over the horizon for some further adventures we won’t get to hear about on this side of the grave. I don’t think Mr. O’Brian could have ended it at a better moment if he had tried.
Excellent book recommendation. I’ve got the series and read the first 3. It’s tough for me to stick with one series for 20 books as there are so many good books out there but I hope to come back to these and work through them.
I do agree with Fr. Z 1) This is an excellent series (and as a Navy man, I’m keen on O’Brians well researched nautical writing) and 2) READ FIRST! I try to emphasize that with my kids too if there’s a movie they want to watch that is based off a book.
In other news-could use some “what the heck do we do with this” from Fr.Z on the most recent Fr Martin-Confirming a Sodomite scandal.
Thanks for bringing this piece to our attention, Fr. Z. O’Brian is one of my absolute favorites for many reasons, including Stephen’s return to the Faith and “the Black Parson.” The movie is top-notch and I think it is a must-watch for men and boys of a certain age, because it is about character and leadership. How can your heart not leap at those scrawny midshipmen leading men into battle? And who would not follow Jack Aubrey into battle? Finally, no matter how many times I see it, I cannot help laughing at “the lesser of two weevils.”
Yes, Simon Vance is the Aubrey-Maturin reader par excellance. It’s a superb rendition. I did three of those books per summer on my commute (I shuttle kids during the school year, and some of the content is not exactly suited for little pitchers).
Notably, the books actually span way longer than fifteen years in the books’ own terms. They span fifteen years in historical terms. But as O’Brian himself noted in the forward to one of them, he started the books too late in the Napoleonic Wars and let too much time lapse in between and during the first few books to accommodate the series’ popularity and his own capacity for producing the books. So the sailing to and fro that the characters do in the middle-to-late books (where there is less—not none, but less—interaction with real historical events with concrete dates) would have taken years and years more than the time that elapses in the “historical” timeline those books occupy. So in many ways, you see far more than just fifteen years’ maturation in the characters.