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It took me the better part of two years, but I finally finished the series tonight for the first time. It’s also the first time in a long time where I felt… depressed isn’t the right word, but forlorn about finishing? The characters in the book were with me during a lonely time in my life, and reading a 20 book series on friendship was helpful to me. I look forward to giving it another read through soon!
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Apr 5, 2022 05:05
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 01:10 |
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Thank you dear colleagues, your kind words do give me joy. I read 21 and enjoyed it, short though it was. I found that the first chapter of POB’s books often close out the novel that preceded it, and for that alone I was glad to give 21 a chance.
Hot Dog Day #82 fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Apr 6, 2022 |
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Apr 5, 2022 18:25
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Molybdenum posted:Over the weekend I made: How did the ship’s biscuit turn out? I’ve been tempted to try to make that on a few occasions now, but always lose my courage
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May 26, 2022 15:59
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The Diana thing was handled very weirdly in general. We heard about it through ships gossip, and then Stephen seems to be cured by his grief from throwing himself into his work. I guess this makes sense if Maturin is a stand in for O’Brian, since I suspect he used this book as his own way with processing his wife’s passing. Still, I wish more was said about a character that had so much influence over previous storylines. He also writes Martin off quickly as well, which I felt was odd at my first read through since he was a fairly important character during his arcs. Thinking on it some more, I believe that I prefer the first half of the series to the latter half. It feels like the quality in general starts to ebb around Wine Dark Sea. It doesn’t help that Patrick Tull’s narration also starts to go south around that time too… but I guess I can’t begrudge him for his age. Hot Dog Day #82 fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jul 18, 2022 |
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Jul 18, 2022 17:11
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Notahippie posted:My interpretation wouldn't go so far as to say that McAdams was definitively gay and in love with Clonfert, but there's definitely a semiromantic aspect to his connection to him. Stephen mentally comments at some point about how McAdams' face lit up when Clonfert was in full manic pirate mode, and McAdams specifically says something like "have ye ever seen a man so beautiful" or something about Clonfert when Clonfert was in high spirits at some point. I think there's some kind of attraction there, but whether even McAdams himself is consciously aware of it is unclear. That’s an interesting take! When I read that book I saw the relationship of Clonfert and McAdams as running to Aubrey and Maturin’s - only their adventures happened off-screen. What’s interesting in the series is that male friendships rarely self-destruct; it’s usually a love interest entering them (like Louisa Wogen, Diana Villers, or Clarissa Oakes) that destabilizes their relationship. Even Wray and Ledward were ultimately undone in the bedroom. I guess the message from O’Brian there is that men are better off as chaste islands unto themselves? That certainly seems to be his opinion about shipboard life, where women sailing with the crew is almost always disruptive to male relationships - save for that surgeon’s mate in Hundred Days who seemed to be respected by everybody?
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Aug 9, 2022 23:36
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Notahippie posted:Like The Lord Bude said it's always risky to impute the authors' pov from the characters, but personally I definitely feel like O'Brian's take on marriage and for that matter life in general is pretty pessimistic. I don't think there's a happy marriage in the series except for maybe Pullings,' and like you said women are usually presented as a cause of unhappiness. You get a little of that stated directly by Stephen when Sir Blaine is interested in a woman and Maturin tries to talk him out of it. I also always felt like Maturin's musings on humanity felt to me like O'Brian's - in particular the passage, I think actually in book 4, where he thinks something like "many men die before their time - they show a flash of life in their twenties, then die and join the grey things that creep across the land." I dunno, there's something kind of heartfelt in that framing. My mental image of O'Brian has always been that he was depressive and somewhat cynical about the possibility of happiness, but I don't know if that's a fair interpretation or not. Oh yes, both you and Lord Bude are absolutely right about the dangers of trying to impose the author’s personal viewpoint on his creation. I guess my issues come from having reading Dean King biography on O’Brian, where he talks about how POB walked out on his first marriage and then went on to write things like “… many women are bores out of bed and often in it” in his biography on Picasso. I’ve been trying to “forget” the biography during my current read through of the series, but it’s hard not to when scenes like you described (between Stephen and Joseph) pop up here and there. Hot Dog Day #82 fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Aug 11, 2022 |
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Aug 11, 2022 18:20
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I thoroughly enjoyed the Auberyad, and have been on a bit of a Napoleonic Era kick ever since. I was wondering, what is this threads opinion on the Sharpe books? I have heard that they get on the repetitious side of things, but that aside are they worth the time it takes to read them?
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Jan 16, 2023 18:17
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Thanks for the posts, friend goons! The narrator for the sharp audiobooks is pretty good, so I can see myself listening to at least the first book or two before possibly getting bored. I’ll look into those other suggestions as well! I haven’t heard of them before this thread.
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Jan 17, 2023 15:39
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I’ve recently started to listen to the series again (my second time), and I’ve just started Post Captain. I am only three chapters in, but I’m amazed at how much I like it! My first time through I grew very bored with the whole “Captain Aubrey in the Countryside” portion of the plot, but now I can’t get enough! What I once thought was an interminable interlude following all of the sea action in Master and Commander is now easily my favorite part of the 20+ hours I’ve listened to so far. What creatures we humans are.
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May 13, 2023 01:51
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At the very end of Master and Commander O’Brian says that Stephen was now wealthy enough to buy foul tasting additives for his medicines so that “his hardy patients knew with their entire beings that they were being physicked” haha. Other than that there isn’t really a reference to his wealth at the beginning of Post Captain, outside of his family owning an estate in Spain. Hot Dog Day #82 fucked around with this message at 03:32 on May 16, 2023 |
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May 16, 2023 03:29
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Genghis Cohen posted:You are right but in that particular but I think it means more he has some prize money cash and is spending it on professional kit. The prize money for a surgeon, even in a very successful cruiser like Sophie, wouldn't make a man wealthy by the standards of the upper classes. Yeah, I think you are exactly right. It mentioned in the beginning of master and commander that Stephen has to split an 1/8th of the prize money with the bosun, carpenter and master’s mates. I forget the book where Stephen comes into his inheritance, but I think that it is around Reverse of the Medal or there abouts? Hot Dog Day #82 fucked around with this message at 14:02 on May 16, 2023 |
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May 16, 2023 13:43
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3 Action Economist posted:It doesn't help that some of them feel like they end 2/3 of the way through, and the last 1/3 is the beginning of the next book. Oh absolutely. I love the series, but towards the back half it becomes somewhat formulaic (the book generally ends 2/3s in, action takes place around chapter 10, etc). I love every book, but for me the series is at its best from master and commander through to the end of reverse of the medal.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:51
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 01:10 |
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Lockback posted:I'm going to selectively cut a piece from that weird rant like I'm cutting around rancid salt beef but I don't mind at all when an adaptation to different media takes a different path. Things that work in a book don't work in a movie. Stephen as described in the book would be....distracting I think, especially with a short amount of time to explore his character. Bettany at least is unconventionally attractive. In the book Aubrey being as big as he is but still a graceful swimmer/yard rigger/etc gives an interesting contrast. In a movie he'd look slovenly (Crowe was pretty cut then though. Hilariously he looks much more like older book Aubrey now). If there is ever a world where the books get remade into a series I’d love for old man Crowe to play General Aubrey. Also, re: Bonden chat, I’ve always pictured him as Jason Statham for some reason haha.
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Jun 10, 2023 18:57
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