Patrick O'Brian - Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The fifteenth in a brilliant series

This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.

Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove sees the Surprise in the South Seas and finds the eponymous Clarissa aboard as a stowaway from the penal colonies. There are the fine naval and intelligence development s we have come to expect, but the chief underlying theme of the book is the effect of a young woman on the closed, celibate male community of a man of war, which O’Brian does superbly, along with a fine, nuanced portrait of Clarissa herself. This is for me one of his finest psychological studies – but the narrative and action are as gripping as ever.

Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.

I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff.