Joseph Banks: A Life [Hardcover]

Patrick O'Brian (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Harvill (HarperCollins) (1989)
• ASIN: B000MAQRLO
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

More About the Author

In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian's many books include "Testimonies," "The Golden Ocean," and "The Unknown Shore". O'Brian also wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture's biographies of Charles de Gaulle. He passed away in January 2000 at the age of 85.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars O'Brian's "Banks" presages Aubrey & Maturin, February 19, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Ashland, Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joseph Banks: A Life (Paperback)

Having read every one -- all 18, I think -- of the wonderful Aubrey & Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, coming across O'Brian's earlier "Joseph Banks" is a special pleasure. The same wonderful O'Brian dry wit is there, the same fascinated and fascinating focus on the late 18th century, British politics and society, and the sea. O'Brian's "Banks" is an easy read, compared with many scholarly biographies. That is because, actually, it doesn't really qualify as a "scholarly" effort. It is more discursive, easy-going, unpretentious. Delightful is the word that most aptly describes O'Brian's writing in general, and that applies here. Of special interest, though, is that the character of Jack Aubrey is prefigured, very briefly, in the description of a sea-captain acquaintance of Banks's, and Stephen Maturin himself, while not found in person here, is prefigured by the career of Banks himself: explorer, biologist, botanist, collector, and man of the world. O'Brian's "Joseph Banks" is not for everyone, but is certainly for any one of the thousands of O'Brian addicts. Which makes one muse and wonder: when, oh when is "The Hundred Days" coming out in paperback so I can line it up with the other eighteen volumes?

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Piece of Work, But..., June 20, 2000

By 

Randall Barnhart (Earth) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Joseph Banks: A Life (Paperback)

I, on the other hand, have never read any of the Aubrey & Maturin books, but I'm extremely interested in the Cook expeditions of which Banks played so much a part. I think it must be because I can see Banks Island right outside my window. Anyway, I must say that, after reading this book, I was prepared to believe Banks walked on water. Founder of modern botany (and modern science generally), explorer, developer of Kew and on and on. Certainly one of the giants of British naval exploration.

Alas! Cook biographers have been a little less kind to Banks. While often portrayed as a hard driving scientist, he has also been portrayed as a bit of an upper-class twit, always petulent and silly. Which is it? Probably somewhere in the middle. Read this book, but keep an open mind about the hagiography!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting yet disappointing, March 21, 2007

By 

H. Schneider "Hamlet" (Pandistan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Joseph Banks: A Life (Paperback)

This biography is obviously a collection of study material for Aubrey & Maturin. Sea travel combined with geographical exploration as well as botanizing and zoologizing, plus English society bickering is what the series is about just like this book on Banks. The whole O'Brian is there in the material.

Unfortunately only in the material. The flow of the prose is sadly lacking. The wit and humour comes through occasionally, but not the brillant dialogues, nor the elegant story telling, nor the gripping passages on nature and human encounters with it.

This is far too lean, relying on the accumulation of facts. Too much of the narrative is told in Banks' own stunted language. I have a hard time going through these condensed and stumbling diary entries. This is mostly a probem in the first half of the book. It gets much better at the time after Banks' travels, when he becomes a 'barnacle' and presides over the Royal Society.

A good biography ought to be more than material and information. It ought to tell us a story. The story is visible, but not fully told.

A good biography, on the positive side now, is always also a history of something larger than the main hero. This is a history of science and exploration in the 18th century, with some noteable supporting cast like James Cook and Linnaeus, with King George III and Benjamin Franklin. And awful Captain Bligh of Bounty fame, later Governor of Ossiland. And Jane Austen, but she more by association and less by personal appearance.

All that is fine.

But what about poor Solander? The man is there for much of the narrative, but does he ever get a chance to become a person? I don't think so, only in wee little asides. Just a tertiary cast member. Does Solander deserve that? Possibly not, but since O'Brian treats him with scarce attention, I may never know.

Disappointing.