24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
O'Brian's Bleaker Side, April 18, 2006
The dust jacket of this reissued novel shows a man with raised arms standing in a field. It is dusk. Above him, trailing vapour from its wing-tips, flies a Spitfire - the emblematic World War Two British fighter plane. The publisher, it seems, would have us believe we are about to embark on an action-packed espionage tale set in Occupied France (shades of Charlotte Gray perhaps?). Not quite.
About thirty-five pages of this novel are set in a Gestapo prison in wartime France, the other three hundred odd contain an intensely introvert account of a man's lonely and ultimately failed attempt to construct a life with some meaning and value to it. It is a bleak and almost harrowing third-person narrative of a near-destitute artist, part of the flotsam of pre-war Fitzrovia, a troubled, emotionally crippled man with some distinctly unpleasant acquaintamces; a man left with few ethics or values who spends his time trying to exist on next to nothing so that he can devote all his mental energy to his painting. Mr. O'Brian knows about painting and the passages relating to the artist's struggle with his (lack of) materials and the problems of spacial and colour arrangement on the canvas are, actually, compelling. Also compelling the advice about how to forge a Utrillo and the descriptions of pre-war Chelsea and the seedy misfits who peopled it. I'm sure today's inhabitants of this now luxurious quarter would be horrified at what went on there a mere sixty years ago.
Mr. O'Brian also draws some fine word pictures, in particular of the pre-war aristocracy. The protaganist falls in love with a young aristocrat who has decided to patronise him and provide him with some income. She is beautiful, naturally, with the almost ludicrous self-confidence that often accompanies people with both fortune and pedigree. The author records with discreet bitterness the megalomania, the casual promiscuity and the anti-semitism of the pre-war nobility and also its contempt for the Royal Family and the instant loathing for anything not reactionary and conservative. However he also, rather peevishly, describes the disarming kindness and concern he was shown.
It is said that O'Brian was involved in wartime espionage and also that much of his life was spent in straitened circumstances while his writing received only tepid enthusiasm from the publishers of the day. It is a fact that he married an aristocrat so we can assume there is a measure of autobiographical material in this work.
In any case we know that O'Brian's career ended in pyrotechnic critical acclaim with, of course, the concomitant financial rewards and this earlier work serves to put his later success into an interesting perspective.
This book has much to offer and it is unfortunate that the publisher has attempted to persuade the public that it is something that it is not. Perhaps it is a good thing that Patrick O'Brian is not around to see the way in which this work has been reissued. But then again, he might well have enjoyed the irony of seeing one of his bleaker more introspective works got up to look like a wartime adventure novel .
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, get off the high seas for a moment..., January 12, 2008
I have enjoyed and admired all of Partick O'Brian's works, and this novel also served as a pleasurable read. Yes, I agree, thirty-odd pages of bleak Naiz prisoner stuff is a bit of a slog for an introduction, but "prison" is what the book is about- the artificial prisons we construct for ourselves and those that circumstances trap us within. No, this is not an adventure novel, unless self-discovery may be called an adventure, but it is a good read for those who want to visit another time and commune with a character seeking the solution to the maze he finds himself trapped in.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of COURSE it isn't an Aubrey/Maturin novel, May 20, 2010
I went into this book knowing that it wasn't about a couple of guys rollicking about on the high seas. Unfortunately, many others don't seem to snapped to this fact and are disappointed when their favorite author turns out to be a three-dimensional human.
I was stunned by this book. It was a work of art, and I felt privileged to have been able to read it. After all, O'Brian could have just pushed his thoughts aside and penned another "action" novel for the masses.
As much as I love Jack and Steven, I'm glad he didn't.
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