Rating: 5/5
Review:
Quite brilliant
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.
Post Captain is the second in the sequence and the book in
which O'Brian really hit his stride, I think.
Jack Aubrey is a naval Commander during the Napoleonic Wars, struggling
to find a ship, to avoid being arrested for debt and getting into all sorts of
tangles with his heart, while his friend Stephen Maturin continues in his
eccentric way to pursue his medical and philosophical studies and to work as an
intelligence agent, while around them the politics, corruption and patronage of
the time have to be negotiated.
Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period (1803 in Post Captain)
and his knowledge of the 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.
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