Customer Reviews

Richard Temple: A Novel

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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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 .

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.

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.

Richard Temple is not an adventure novel, and if you read it with the expectation that Captain Jack is going to come bounding over the waves to the rescue you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you have ever felt a connection with Dr. Maturin at his darker moments you will appreciate this novel. It paints a bleak self-portrait of a man who can't reach the brass ring. A portrait that casts in sharp relief the risks faced by a man living on the edge of spiritual and temporal poverty, not so much because he wants to, but because it is the way his life stubbornly insists on unfolding. It is not uplifting, but it plays on fears rarely discussed by "successful" people and it is, for that reason, compelling and vaguely terrifying, especially if the reader can connect emotionally with the main character. I could... and for what its worth I enjoyed this book. It was like watching a horror movie in which the cinematography makes the viewer feel as if he or she is running down a dark and forbidding hallway in slow motion with some implacable and unfriendly presence moving in the shadows just behind. I kept hoping that the mirror on the hallway wall would not reveal my own image.

No, it isn't as good as "Testimonies" or any of the Aubrey/Maturin books. But it is NOT terrible or colorless. I thought it was a rich portrait study that could have been resolved better, and (like some of the Aubrey/Maturin books) ends way too abruptly. Sure, would have loved to have more espionage explored in it. But this is O'Brian! We just don't read him for the rousing naval action, but for his prose and characters. And he paints a fine portrait in this one.

This is not a story with an ending. The ending is really a beginning to be written in our imaginations. And this happens due to the introspection of his life by Richard Temple of Richard Temple. Yes the cover is wrong for this book. It is not a war story but an artists tale. The gift, the poverty, love and denial, the play of external forces all combine to blend an artist's life into World War II and England of the day. I could not get a grip on the story in it's early stages, but soon felt rewarded for seeing a life unfold with all the self consciousness that one human can feel for another who has a genuine gift we can not know.

This is a look inside a confused artist from boyhood to when he is in his thirties or forties. The majority of the story is told from the mind of Richard Temple and it is confusing. The ending is lacking any conclusions. The story just sort of stops. I read the hardback edition which shows Richard Temple inside a German prison camp. Its an interesting read, but the ending left me wondering what was happening.

The book was received in excellent condition in a timely manner. I would buy from this vendor again.

Richard Temple is a terrible book. This was unexpected because I am a real fan of the Aubrey/Maturin series that O'Brian also wrote. This text is a colorless and boring grey. The main character would not be an interesting background character. He takes no initiative, has no creative thought. He is a victim from start to finish. Don't read the dust cover. It could give you the impression that there could be a story hidden in this mess.

No author of the caliber ("calibre" for British readers) of O'Brian can hope to go unnoticed in this quite obvious self analysis and cry for understanding. I do not know why he attempted to do so.
I am aswim with gratitude and awe at his other literary creations, not just the 20 book classic but the Golden Ocean and others which stand alone. Anyone who has taken Psych 101 will see in here a vain attempt at self analysis. I feel that he was trying to "get help" and didn't know how to get it. Not everything he wrote was good, in fact, this one stinks.