Customer Reviews

H.M.S. Surprise

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In praising Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books I am on well-trodden ground. In a sense, it is superfluous to do so: so many people, of such varied and excellent taste, have praised these books to the skies that further lauds from the modest likes of me are hardly necessary. Still, I'm glad to add my words. These stories concern Jack Aubrey, a ship captain in the English Navy at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and his great friend Stephen Maturin, an Irish-Catalan doctor and spy who in the first book joins Jack's crew as ship doctor.

As H. M. S. Surpries opens, political machinations cost Jack his prize money (earned in the previous book0, and Stephen's cover in Spain is blown. As a result, and also because Stephen is scheming to see his lover Diana again (who has been taken by her keeper Richard Canning to India), Jack takes command of the aged frigate H.M.S. Surprise, and is sent to Cambodia (stopping in India) to deliver the new British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong.

Thus the setup for a long, wonderful, account of the voyage to the Orient and back. The pleasures of this book are remarkably varied: high comedy, such as the famous drunken sloth incident; high adventure, as the men of the Surprise battle not only the South Atlantic at its fiercest, but also the French; and bitter disappointment and even tragedy, in Stephen's seesaw relationship with Diana, as well as Stephen's involvement with a young Indian girl.

The pleasures of this book, however, are not restricted to a fine plot. The ongoing development of the characters of Jack and Stephen, and of their complex and fully described friendship, is a major achievement. In addition, the many minor characters are fascinating: the envoy Mr. Stanhope, Stephen's Indian friend, the various ship's officers and men, other ship captains, and so on. And O'Brian's depiction of the building of an effective crew, the relationship of captain to officers to men, is another fascinating detail, and something he revisits from book to book, as Jack encounters different crews in different circumstances. Finally, O'Brian is a fine writer of prose, with a faintly old-fashioned style, well poised to evoke the atmosphere of the time of which he writes to readers of our time, and consistently quotable, in his dry fashion.

Jack and Stephen are heroic in certain aspects of their characters, but they are both multi-faceted characters, with terrible flaws and endearing crotchets in addition to their accomplishments. And they truly come across to this reader as characters of their time, and not 20th Century people cast back into the past. Even Stephen's very contemporary racial and religious attitudes are well-motivated by his background, and expressed in language which reeks wonderfully of his time: "Stuff. I have the greatest esteem for Jews, if anyone can speak of a heterogeneous great body of men in such a meaningless, illiberal way."

I recommend all these books highly. It was with great difficulty the first time through the series that I restrained myself, upon finishing each book, from immediately starting in on the next one.

I, like many others I suspect, was sucked into reading the Aubrey/Maturin series by the Peter Weir film. Little did I know that the books would be so much deeper than the film or topic would lead one to believe. Stephen Maturin: physician, scientist, naturalist, spy (and Patrick O'Brian alter ego) studies people (including his great friend Jack Aubrey - and himself) dispassionately, and we are the beneficiaries of his study. Jack Aubrey: ship's captain, sentimentalist, musician and astronomer is a man of the past - he is a hero with flaws but he holds honor and duty above himself (usually).
H.M.S. Surprise is the best of the early series. We get adventure: a daring rescue of Stephen by Jack, a brilliant sea maneuver led by the Surprise on the Indian Ocean. We get a novel of manners: Maturin's and Aubrey's continued wooing of Diana Villiers and Sophia Williams. We get a marvelous frigate and her crew - O'Brian's depiction of the Surprise is a microcosm of the world at the time of Napoleon. And my, the Surprise is yar!
Some of my friends have expressed surprise (pun intended, and Aubrey would love it!) that a feminist landlubber would admire the same series that Charlton Heston and other manly men have loved before me. My response is that great writing is enough. There are few female characters in Aubrey/Maturin, and those that O'Brian includes are not particularly sympathetic (although I can imagine every actress alive wanting to play Diana Villiers), but it doesn't matter when I feel as much a part of the crew as Pullings or Bonden.
When you get down to it, Patrick O'Brian is just a great writer. At moments I have been reminded of Melville, Austen, and Robertson Davies. His grasp of the technical is thorough. His ability to share the historical feeling of the period is amazing. On top of all this, these books are just page-turners! I was gripped from the moment I opened the novel.
A previous reviewer mentioned that if you read the first three books in the series, you'll read all twenty. If the next seventeen are half as good as H.M.S. Surprise, I'll be singing Patrick O'Brian's praises for a long time.

Some critics have referred to the Aubrey/Maturin books as one long novel united not only by their historical setting but also by the central plot element of the Aubrey/Maturin friendship. Having read these fine books over a period of several years, I decided to evaluate their cumulative integrity by reading them consecutively in order of publication over a period of a few weeks. This turned out to be a rewarding enterprise. For readers unfamiliar with these books, they describe the experiences of a Royal Navy officer and his close friend and traveling companion, a naval surgeon. The experiences cover a broad swath of the Napoleonic Wars and virtually the whole globe.
Rereading all the books confirmed that O'Brian is a superb writer and that his ability to evoke the past is outstanding. O'Brian has numerous gifts as a writer. He is the master of the long, careful description, and the short, telling episode. His ability to construct ingenious but creditable plots is first-rate, probably because he based much of the action of his books on actual events. For example, some of the episodes of Jack Aubrey's career are based on the life of the famous frigate captain, Lord Cochrane. O'Brian excels also in his depiction of characters. His ability to develop psychologically creditable characters through a combination of dialogue, comments by other characters, and description is tremendous. O'Brien's interest in psychology went well beyond normal character development, some books contain excellent case studies of anxiety, depression, and mania.
Reading O'Brien gives vivid view of the early 19th century. The historian Bernard Bailyn, writing of colonial America, stated once that the 18th century world was not only pre-industrial but also pre-humanitarian (paraphrase). This is true as well for the early 19th century depicted by O'Brien. The casual and invariable presence of violence, brutality, and death is a theme running through all the books. The constant threats to life are the product not only of natural forces beyond human control, particularly the weather and disease, but also of relative human indifference to suffering. There is nothing particularly romantic about the world O'Brien describes but it also a certain grim grandeur. O'Brien also shows the somewhat transitional nature of the early 19th century. The British Navy and its vessals were the apogee of what could be achieved by pre-industrial technology. This is true both of the technology itself and the social organization needed to produce and use the massive sailing vessals. Aubrey's navy is an organization reflecting its society; an order based on deference, rigid hierarchy, primitive notions of honor, favoritism, and very, very corrupt. At the same time, it was one of the largest and most effective bureaucracies in human history to that time. The nature of service exacted great penalities for failure in a particularly environment, and great success was rewarded greatly. In some ways, it was a ruthless meritocracy whose structure and success anticipates the great expansion of government power and capacity seen in the rest of the 19th century.
O'Brian is also the great writer about male friendship. There are important female characters in these books but since most of the action takes place at sea, male characters predominate. The friendship between Aubrey and Maturin is the central armature of the books and is a brilliant creation. The position of women in these books is ambiguous. There are sympathetic characters, notably Aubrey's long suffering wife. Other women figures, notably Maturin's wife, leave a less positive impression. On board ship, women tend to have a disruptive, even malign influence.
How did O'Brian manage to sustain his achievement over 20 books? Beyond his technical abilities as a writer and the instrinsic interest of the subject, O'Brien made a series of very intelligent choices. He has not one but two major protagonists. The contrasting but equally interesting figures of Aubrey and Maturin allowed O'Brien to a particularly rich opportunity to expose different facets of character development and to vary plots carefully. This is quite difficult and I'm not aware of any other writer who has been able to accomplish such sustained development of two major protagonists for such a prolonged period. O'Brian's use of his historical setting is very creative. The scenes and events in the books literally span the whole globe as Aubrey and Maturin encounter numerous cultures and societies. The naval setting allowed him also to introduce numerous new and interesting characters. O'Brian was able to make his stories attractive to many audiences. Several of these stories can be enjoyed as psychological novels, as adventure stories, as suspense novels, and even one as a legal thriller. O'Brian was also a very funny writer, successful at both broad, low humor, and sophisticated wit. Finally, O'Brian made efforts to link some of the books together. While a number are complete in themselves, others form components of extended, multi-book narratives. Desolation Island, Fortune of War, and The Surgeon's Mate are one such grouping. Treason's Harbor, The Far Side of the World, and The Reverse of the Medal are another. The Letter of Marque and the ensuing 4 books, centered around a circumnavigation, are another.
Though the average quality of the books is remarkably high, some are better than others. I suspect that different readers will have different favorites. I personally prefer some of the books with greater psychological elements. The first book, Master and Commander, is one of my favorites. The last 2 or 3, while good, are not as strong as earlier books. I suspect O'Brian's stream of invention was beginning to diminish. All can be read profitably as stand alone works though there is definitely something to be gained by reading in consecutive order.

It has been awhile since I've read a book in this series, but returning to it I felt like I had never taken a break. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin have become my good friends, and O'Brian swept me away with their exploits instantly. Even thought the style is decidedly un-modern, O'Brian's narrative thrust is irresistible. In this, the third volume of the series, Jack is still in debt due to the Admiralty refusing to honor a war prize based on a technicality, thus putting his engagement to Sophie in danger. Maturin is in real danger as the new Lord governing the navy broadcasts his name in a public meeting, thus raising possible questions about his role as a spy. Stephen's heart is troubled as well; he still moons over Diana Villiers, from the events of the second book.

How can you possibly dislike a book that contains a line such as this: "Jack, you have debauched my sloth." Yes, O'Brian has a certain amount of levity, although it is often hidden underneath the layers of the manners of the time. His style is somewhat like that of Jane Austen, where the most cutting of phrases are being said in the nicest of ways. You either like this sort of thing or don't. I like it, when I catch it, but I yearn for annotations, just knowing that there are some subtleties that are escaping me.

I read the first two in the Aubrey/Maturin series (Master and Commander and Post Captain) a few years ago and liked them. In an idle moment, I recently picked up HMS Surprise and glanced at the first page. Thirty minutes later I was still reading and within the week I had finished the book. Unfortunately my vocabulary cannot do justice to describing just how good this book is. The characterizations are sympathetic and acute, the descriptions of seafaring are hypnotic and the battle scenes are wonderful. These books are not pulp fiction, but finely wrought and accurate depictions of the world nearly two centuries ago. Some of O'Brian's observations are so good, I felt like applauding at times. These books require some patience and discipline, but the pay-off is immense. I'm only sorry that it looks like I'm on the slippery slope that will lead to reading the 17 or 18 other novels in the series. I'm just too busy to read them right now, but there may not be anything I can do about it. If you want books to truly transport you somewhere else, this is the series.

This is the third novel in the Jack Aubrey-Stephen Maturin series, and the story just keeps rolling right along. It's difficult to maintain the pace and the reader's interest for more than the first couple of volumes in any sort of fiction series, but O'brian certainly has the knack. This time, the newly-posted but still heavily indebted Captain Aubrey is detailed to ferry a diplomat to the court of an Indian prince . . . having been the unknowing beneficary of Maturin's leverage at the Admiralty. He's impatient at being out of the principal theater of the war with France, but happy to have any ship at all -- especially the frigate SURPRISE, in which he had served as a midshipman. Besides helping his friend, Dr. Maturin has his own reasons for visiting India -- Diana Villiers has gone there in the company of a wealthy merchant from the City and the East India Company. For O'Brian spends as much time on the details and development of his characters' personal interrelationships as he does on naval maneuvering and battles. And the descriptions of rounding the Cape of Good Hope are mesmerizing!

The third of the Aubrey-Maturin books primarily focuses on a long voyage Aubrey and Maturin undertake to deliver a British envoy to India, but along the way they undergo trials and tribulations far darker than anything that happened in the first two books. Maturin alone undergoes extensive physical torture, has his heart broken yet again, fights a duel that he wins but in which he is seriously wounded, and meets a young girl in India who he wants to help but discovers her murdered by those who want to steal the bracelets he bought for her. Jack, on the other hand, is merely imprisoned for debt and then has his engagement with Sophie tested. Comparatively speaking, he gets off rather lightly.

There is not a great deal of plot in the book, very much like the first two books. O'Brian isn't so much not very good with plot as unconcerned. In this regard his books are far more true-to-life that tell a well-contained story. O'Brian is more concerned with successive events that may have some connection with one another, though if one pushed hard enough one might contend the novel is concerned with the question of whether Jack and Stephen will get married. But if that were the "story" the novel was trying to tell, too many extraneous are involved. But for O'Brian the main point of the books are those extraneous details. He is far more interested in the texture and the historical veracity of the period than he is in "plot."

What I really enjoy about these books is the way he is constantly making Jack and Stephen more interesting characters. They are far from perfect. By contemporary standards, Jack is a throwback, having a host of biases and opinions about human beings that we would consider most unenlightened. Stephen, on the other hand, is a product of the 18th century Enlightenment, not merely interested in the scientific issues of the day, but clearly holding many of the leftist political positions of the time. Yet, Stephen is a mass of beautiful contradictions, being liberal and enlightened in most ways, yet working for the British government as a spy. It is this complexity in Stephen's character that makes him by far the more interesting character of the two. Jack, on the other hand, only really comes to life when there is a battle.

As far as battles go, O'Brian clearly has embraced the theory that less is more. There is a rousing rescue near the beginning of the novel, but apart from that the only battle scene in the novel comes near the end, where Jack is challenged to product a merchant fleet from a packet of powerful French ships that vastly overpower them. It is probably my favorite battle scene of any of the books so far.

Like the first two books, I heartily recommend this novel to anyone who wants to enjoy some terrific historical novels. O'Brian tries hard to be an objective observer, trying hard not to impose 20th century values on all the attitudes, though Maturin has many of the same sympathies and attitudes that we do (though not adverse to a duel). One will learn a great deal of history, be highly entertained, and come to know a couple of flawed but enormously interesting characters.

One of the best books I have ever read, better, I think, than its two predecessors, Master & Commander, and Post-Captain. In HMS Surprise O'Brian showcases all his talents: exhilirating action, endearing character, historical knowledge and erudition. For me, however, a few scenes that remark upon minor tragedy and loneliness were the most moving and memorable. A wonderful book in a series that I have found to be, amazingly, better as it proceeds.

HMS Surprise, by Patrick O'Brian is the third in the Aubrey/Maturin series of novels about the British Navy during the early 19th Century. This tome starts with Captain Jack Aubrey, now a post captain, temporarily commanding the large frigate HMS Lively while the primary captain is busy with another task. His job as captain is the boring job of running a blockade, and he is bored, broke, and trying to find a way to find enough money to marry his sweetheart, Sophie Williams.

Thanks to some intervention by his good friend and surgeon, Stephen Maturin, he is given command of HMS Surprise, a small frigate which Jack served on as a young midshippman. Jack is charged with the task of protecting the East-India fleet from destruction and confication by the French.

His job takes him to the great India subcontinent, and the rich sights and smells that go with it. Along the way we see an amazing storm at sea, the damage that can be inflicted on a ship and her crew while rounding Cape Horn, an amazing act of surgery performed by Stephen Maturin.

The final battle that pits "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, the Surprise and a vastly outgunned fleet of ships against the far superior French forces. The story more is clear, fast paced, and exciting. Just like Jack now commands a ship he knew is his youth, HMS Surprise moves along at a comfortable enjoyable pace as O'Brian comes into his element at writing great stories.

The story is exciting, fun to read, and the characters are truly interesting and well developed. As anyone who is interested in 19th century "ships of the line", naval history, or just love a great story, this book is sure to please.

H.M.S. Surprise, like the two books before it in this series, is excellent in every way. There is great dialogue, subtle humor and riviting action. We finially get to see what Jack Aubrey can do when given command of a decent ship (as oppossed to the little Sophie and the piece of junk Polychrest). I think most male readers will like this book a little better than Post Captain; the main characters spend a lot less time on shore and there is a little less romantic/relationship stuff. From the reviews I have read of this series, it stays pretty good at least through book #17 and then deteriorates badly. Although it is a shame this series is not strong until the end, O'Brian did write a very large number of excellent books that we should all be grateful for. In my humble opinion, if O'Brian had not written another word after finishing H.M.S. Surprise he would still deserve to be remembered as the best novelist who ever wrote in this genre.