Customer Reviews

The Far Side of the World (Vol. Book 10) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

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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.

The recent film Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World sparked my interest in Patrick O'Brian's lengthy series of nautical adventures featuring Capt. Jack Aubrey and his close friend and ship's doctor, Stephen Maturin. While the source novel, The Far Side of the World, comes at a midpoint in O'Brian's chronology, it provides a familiar port for a movie fan to embark on the journey. (Had I read the book before seeing the movie, this might be an entirely different review; now, a comparison between the two is inevitable.)

O'Brian's novel is an intelligent, fascinating look at British naval life during the Napoleanic wars. The author quickly draws readers into the world of seamanship and His Majesty's Navy, filling the pages with rich images and jargon that bring a bygone era back to life with less flash but more substance. Book and movie are both enjoyable and absorbing; still, readers will find very little resemblance here, as the movie draws very few scenes and plot twists from O'Brian's text.

Characters, on the other hand, are better developed in these pages, and there are more of them to boot. Relationships aboard ship are more fully explored and there are even a few women -- a handful of officer's wives -- among the passengers. Subplots dealing with international intrigue, shipboard romance and murder (that were dropped entirely from the movie script) kept my interest level high. There is plenty of humor, too, providing the occasional elbow jab in the ribs and hearty chuckle.

The novel can be slow-moving at times; it seems an endless wait before HMS Surprise and her crew even leave port! But there's interest in the details even while bound to land -- Maturin's eccentric fascination for birds, for instance, and the gauntlet of formal meetings and informal callers Aubrey must deal with as he tries to hasten his ship's departure. The voyage itself, to action hounds, will seem interminable. The U.S. frigate Aubrey has been ordered to find and take or destroy doesn't even appear until more than 200 pages have passed -- and even then, it passes quickly by. The cat-and-mouse game that dominated the movie is, here, more mouse than cat.

Don't read the book looking for great sea battles, cannons blazing and cutlasses at the ready, either. There is no great sea battle at the climax, but O'Brian's denouement is satisfyingly unexpected.

I kept turning pages with unflagging eagerness as the story unfolded. The Far Side of the World is not high adventure, but it is historical fiction of the highest order.

When reading the Aubrey/Maturin series it is hard to think that perhaps any one book is better then the rest. Because of O'Brians brilliant use of language and subtlety, the best book always seems to be the one you have most recently put down. This seems to be the case until you read The Far side of the World. This book has all the elements that you love about the series - great dialogue, authentic naval warfare, love, intrigue, and more - all rolled into one. O'Brian is able to present early 19th century life to you in a way that can only be equalled by primary sources. I would recommend that you read the series in order , but if you had to read just one make it The Far Side of the World.

Patrick O'Brian himself seemed to recognize, in his prefatory comments, that The Far Side of the World was unequivocally his weakest effort in the series to this point. Plot is virtually non-existent: take command (again) of the HMS Surprise to find, and deal with, the USS Norfolk, which is harassing British whalers in the South Seas. Period. The novel nevertheless has a captivating title, which explains the decision by Universal-Miramax-Fox (which studio DOESN'T have a piece?) to cobble together the titles of the first and the tenth Aubrey-Maturin installments into possibly the single longest film title of the season. (And, judging from the trailer and the promotional materials, the movie will have absolutely nothing to do with The Far Side of the World beyond the appropriation of its title.)

What this novel displays amid its linear spareness, however, is O'Brian's particular genius in characterization, his anthropological eye for the details of nautical life during the Regency, and his love of imparting - in impeccably wrought, Austenian prose - the arcane bit of datum, observation, procedure, or lore. Working within a lean plot structure, he fills his customary 300-plus pages with new turns on his by-now signature themes and concerns - friendship, love, betrayal, heroism, integrity, leadership (indeed, a surpassingly good volume on "leadership" could be compiled from these books) - while continuing to build an encyclopedic account of life at sea in the early 19th Century.

The humanity of O'Brian's two principal characters, and the manner in which both they and their relationship develop over the course of the series, is the essence of the literary miracle O'Brian has created. His hero, Captain Jack Aubrey, a lion at sea and a naïf ashore, has by the time of this novel been more than two years at sea, has left his beloved wife to deal with an army of creditors and bad business deals, and must bear the weight of a blustering father who, as a member of Parliament and the Radical anti-government interest, gives Admiralty leadership what justification it requires to disfavor Aubrey. Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, "natural philosopher," and naval intelligence operative par excellence - is Aubrey's "particular friend" (and, I presume, O'Brian's idealized literary self, in knee-breeches and smudged silk stockings). A brilliant epitome of the Enlightenment, Maturin, an Irish "papist," is uncommonly learned, wise in the ways of human frailty, as cunning ashore as Aubrey is naïve, and hopelessly in love with a woman whose fidelity he can never ensure.

On their long voyage around the Horn to the "far side of the world," O'Brian has time to develop detailed expositions on aspects of seamanship and life at sea - objects of long research in the naval archives and among his own acquisitions - on which in the course of the series he has yet to comment. He provides discourses on whaling (for the unabridged version, see Moby Dick), the provisioning of ships, the education of "squeakers" - the young midshipmen who ship with Aubrey - ways to float ships grounded on sandbars at low tide, the society of seaman at sea and their omerta-like rules of conduct, and so much more.

Of course, by this 10th Aubrey-Maturin novel, O'Brian knew he was in for the long haul. Here, as throughout the series, he demonstrates a sure mastery of pacing, planting a variety of ticking time bombs - for example, letters that will not be read until subsequent novels - and ties up, wholly or partially, ends left loose from earlier installments. (I would imagine these to be difficult novels to read out of sequence, even though O'Brian is diligent in trying to fill in necessary detail without becoming tedious to devotees.) Secondary characters like Sophie Aubrey, Diana Villiers, Aubrey's steward Killick and other members of ship's company, and assorted friends, heroes, villains, knaves, and simple walk-ons are all etched sharply by O'Brian and, if they're around for more than one tale, show a stable core of personality amid human variableness and growth. As an single example, I point to the development of the disturbing Mr. Andrew Wray - a senior Admiralty official of many sinister attributes who makes a brief but important appearance here - as being particularly impressive over several books.

Worthier reviewers than I claim these novels to comprise the finest literary series ever written. I cannot imagine anyone reading more than one and not agreeing. Each book is at once wholly familiar yet entirely different from its predecessors, set in O'Brian's uniquely realized world, as fascinating ashore as at sea - with everything floating in O'Brian's poetic prose. Each book is worth the effort to encounter.

But you may need help. I did. As companions to O'Brian's unstintingly accurate period language and settings - and particularly those who will never intuitively understand the meaning of "wear ship" or "haul wind" - I recommend the helpful work of Dean King, O'Brian's unauthorized biographer, who has compiled two indispensable reference works, a glossary and a gazetteer.

And while I'm at it, permit me to commend the astonishing Recorded Books Unabridged editions of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, narrated by the incomparable Patrick Tull, who, with a myriad of accurate dialects and accents, transforms bare words on a page into spoken dramas of subtle beauty and rare power.

Throughout his brilliant Aubrey/Maturin series, O'Brian has delighted his readers with the uneasy juxtaposition of order and chaos. The tension between the two reaches a fever pitch in "The Far Side of the World."

The title itself resonates with the struggle. Perhaps it had a literal meaning during the Age of Sail but, today, with jet travel and the internet changing our entire conception of time and space, the phrase seems archaic, as though the natural order we so take for granted is about to be stood on its head, and O'Brian is, indeed, taking us to the "far side"-- into a dark, chaotic world dimly perceived, little understood.

For O'Brian, a single, solitary female is usually enough to create tension and discord in an otherwise well regulated Man of War. That happens with Mrs. Wogan in "Desolation Island" and Clarissa Oaks in "The Truelove". Both women are stand-ins for the ultimate female provocateur of the entie series, Diane Villiers, who nearly destroys Aubrey's career in "Post Captain" and temporarily turns Maturin into a heart broken opium eater.

But in "The Far Side", 19-year old Mrs. Horner creates more than tension and discord aboard the HMS Surprise. Her adulterous affair leads to utter chaos and despair. O'Brian seemingly ties the entire plot together with the letter "H". There's Mr & Mrs. Horner, Hollum (the adulterer), Higgins (the abortionist), Howard (the callous, blood-thirsty marine,) and last but not least, the Greek Tragedian, Homer. The poetical Lt. Mowett is reading the Iliad, and on a dark, stormy night Maturin opines that Homer's Iliad is not only, "...the great epic of the world...," it is also, "a continued outcry against adultery."

Although he has no "H", the ventriloquist, Comptom, is all about chaos. His ability to project his voice in a shrill, inhuman fashion is another blow to the natural order. After one weird stunt right in front of no one less than the Captain, Aubrey tells Maturin, "It was the strangest experience: there he was, telling me things to my face as though he were invisible."

Later, at night, Jack Aubrey botches a familiar violin transition and Maturin admits that, "I was uneasy in my mind before we ever sat down; and for once music has not answered." For Maturin to admit that his playing with Aubrey for once "has not answered"-- he's saying a lot! Their music binds the two together. Music is how they express their devotion to one another book after book. And, now, the beauty and internal logic of music, which is somehow related to the system of math and the harmonic path of planets and stars, which in turn, are the well-spring of time and navigation-- well, all of it is out of sorts.

The sweet balm of music is so much wormwood for Maturin because, not only is there adultery aboard ship, Maturin has been receiving malicious letters from home alleging the infidelity of his wife, Diane Villiers.

Adultery, in short, is chaos. And adultery, abortion and murder coalesce in one of the eeriest scenes I can recall from the entire series. Howard shoots a baby manatee, and that night its mother commences a human-like wail for its child, circling the ship and spooking the entire crew. Not even "time" can stand the strain anymore. A marine sentinel caught up in the terror forgets to flip the watch glass and Aubrey cries out, "God's my life. What the devil are you thinking of? Turn the glass and strike the bell."

If you're racing through the Aubrey/Maturin series, strike your topgallants and drift awhile through the waters of "The Far Side". It's quite a voyage!

Given the existence of the movie MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, something has to be said initially about that. I would very strongly recommend anyone who has seen the movie and wants to read the novel to resist the temptation to do so. Mainly this is because it is the tenth novel in a series, and the author assumes that you have read the previous nine. If you pick this up and attempt to read it without having read the others, you will be utterly at sea (pun intended). I also do not recommend this novel to viewers of the movie (who don't intend to read the other novels first) because the novel and the movie bear very little resemblence to one another. There is, in fact, almost nothing in common between the two except for the two main characters, the fact that the H.M.S. Surprise is chasing another ship (an American ship rather than French as in the movie, presumably so as not to alienate American movie goers), they encounter the Gallapagos Islands, and they end up in the Pacific. In other words, there is only the most superficial resemblence between the novel and the movie.

For readers of the series, this is one of the stronger additions to the sequence. Instead of taking the Surprise back to England where she is to be sold or perhaps broken up, Jack is summoned to go out in search of the U.S.S. Norfolk, an American ship sent out to harrass British whaling ships in the Pacific. Although things go well at first, it turns out to be an almost doomed voyage, with one catastrophe after another taking place. None of the misfortunes dooms the mission, but neither do they allow anything to go smoothly. The only thing that saves the mission is that the Norfolk ends up having even less luck than the Surprise.

The key to Patrick O'Brians series is not to focus too very much on any one novel. There is truly a sense in which all the novels together form a single saga. Unlike other series, no single book stands very well alone. In fact, each novel functioned more like a chapter in a very long book than an independent novel. For the reader who plows through all of the novels, this can be immensely satisfying, like reading the longest novel ever written. I'm a little surprised that the publishers didn't contest O'Brian's strategy (or perhaps they did but he successfully resisted). Most publishers prefer series that can be entered at any point in the sequence, but with the Aubrey-Maturin books you need to start at the beginning or not at all.

While I do not recommend neophytes beginning with this series, I do heartily commend the whole group of books. This is not merely the finest set of historical novels ever written, as has often been noted by literary critics and reviewers: it is arguably the finest long series of novels of any genre of the past hundred years. It has the potential to appeal to a remarkable range of people, whether fans of great literature, those engaged in sailing, those who enjoy first rate historical fiction, or those who like sea faring adventure. It is a sequence that can truly be many things to many people, and yet manage to satisfy all.

The Far Side of the World was my first foray into author Patrick O'Brian's epic series of Napoleon-era novels detailing the exploits and adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and I'm happy to say it won't be my last!

The story, set in 1812, is this: Captain Aubrey, also known as `Lucky Jack' for his good fortune on the seas, is assigned to hunt down and destroy, or take as a prize, the American frigate Norfolk, which has been attacking British whaling ships in the Pacific. After assembling his regular crew and selecting some newer members to fill vacancies left by promotions, the HMS Surprise sets out under Aubrey's command. Along the way, he and his faithful companion, Stephen Maturin, an intelligence officer and ship's doctor, face a series of challenges and incidents (a cheating wife, a murder, a vicious storm, an incident with men overboard and, believe it or not, an encounter with a tribe of deadly Amazonian women!) that threaten to end their voyage and their lives.

From the first sentence, it was clear that The Far Side of the World was not going to read like the `cinematic Big Macs' of today's popular fiction (not that there's anything wrong with that!). Immediately dropping us into the action, that opening sentence sets up a whirlwind of events that are already in progress in a prose style that is more reminiscent of actual novels of the 1800s than of today's popular fiction. Moreover, while some things are explained, it is generally taken for granted that we know the ins an outs of life on a ship, the terminology, the past relationships among the crew members and the general history of the time. As much as I felt that, because of all the references, I wasn't quite getting everything out of the book that I could have been, I simply chose to continue onward without worrying and in the end, I feel that that approach (for someone not familiar with the series nor with the sea) worked well and paid off. The events that transpire in and of themselves prove to be so interesting and fun that it didn't bother me at all - the book simply hooked me.

The story is not necessarily as exciting as it is fascinating. Readers who pick up The Far Side of the World expecting it to be like the movie will be disappointed. The film, while very faithful to the characters, some of the incidents, and most importantly the spirit of the book, has a feeling of full speed ahead that builds as the story progresses. The book, on the other hand, is more about one interesting incident simply following another, with not too much linking these events beyond that they happen on the same ship and on the same mission. Once Aubrey and his crew put to sea, some readers might even say that the story begins to cool off as it meanders from incident to incident and toward it's twist of a conclusion.

While in some respects I can agree that the book is paced, shall we say *patiently*, I found O'Brian's realistic, slice-of-naval-life approach far more fascinating and involving than anything that I was expecting after having seen the film version. I was fascinated by the details of the way things worked on the ship, the relationships between the crewmembers and how they reacted to the challenges that they faced. Most of all, though, I was fascinated by the feeling that everything was as it happened in 1812. It was obvious by the rich detail and painstaking research that must have gone into Far Side of the World that the author was absolutely in love with the sea, in love with the time period and in love with the Surprise and her crewmembers. I think that love of the sea translates into a lot of enjoyment for the reader and is what really carries the book so well when the story slows. Those willing to give the book a chance will find it to be in it's own way every bit as exciting and fun as the film.

If I had one issue with the book, however, it would be the transitions between scenes. Perhaps I'm too much a child of today's popular fiction, where things are simply spelled out, but I found the way O'Brian moved between scenes to be slightly confusing. While I'm sure he was aiming for smooth transitions that moved the story along quickly, the best word I can think of to describe O'Brian's transitions would actually be `stealthy' - as in, the reader isn't always quite aware of them until actual characters or events transpire to anchor us in a new scene. There were numerous times when I found myself flipping back several paragraphs or even a page or two because I was unaware that the scene had transitioned to another and was confused as to who was speaking to who and why! While these stealthy transitions sometimes worked well to move the story along and I eventually got used to them, I thought O'Brian might have made them a little clearer for the reader. Or, perhaps I'm just slow and dim-witted.

To those interested in O'Brian's Napoleon-era epic, I wouldn't exactly say don't start with this book... but I have a feeling that, assuming the other books are just as good as this one, it might be better to start with Master and Commander (the first in the series). All around, however, the Far Side of the World was a fascinatingly detailed read that I found to be great fun. I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves tales of the sea or adventure in general. I suppose the best compliment I could give is to simply say that, after reading Far Side of the World, I greatly look forward to reading another adventure of Captain Aubrey and his crew!

The tenth volume in O'Brian's wonderfully intelligent nautical series finds Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in Gibraltar, still aboard the Surprise. Their mission is to track an American ship down the Atlantic and on to the largely uncharted Pacific whaling grounds. While "Far Side of the World" contains none of the heart-pounding muzzle-to-muzzle naval battles that readers have come to expect in O'Brian's stories, it contains lots of imaginative plot twists nonetheless. A strange and tragic love triangle, a raft full of primitive lesbians, Maturin's disappointing visit to the Galapagos, and an oddly gripping denouement as the Surprises confront their American nemeses. The book is entirely afloat, with pit stops to refit, but no extended periods ashore with family or engaged in intelligence affairs. Maturin's friendship with Dr. Martin, a naturalist parson, provides comic relief at every turn.

O'Brian never fails to please. This book smoothly picks up where the last one left off, and leaves a thread or two dangling to launch the next volume. As always, the writing is brilliant and spare, the characters complex and developed, and the adventures well-researched, founded in British naval histories. Another great voyage.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin voyage to unfamiliar waters, chasing an American frigate around Cape Horn, up the South American coast to the Galapagos and into the South Pacific. The American is laying waste to British whaling, and Aubrey's mission is to stop her.

"The Far Side of the World" of course has O'Brian's signature scholarship, his extraordinary attention to the detail of a square-rigged ship during the Napoleonic Wars, his wit and sense of the absurd, and, best of all, his pulse-racing descriptions of a chase and battle at sea.

What sets this installment a bit above its counterparts is the exhilaration of a chase that winds through two oceans and thousands of miles, and a wonderful scene wherein Aubrey and Maturin are plucked from the drink by a female crew of Polynesian men-haters.

By all means, read this book. (But read all the others in the series first!)

Patrick O'Brian is at fever pitch in this novel, the 10th in the A/M series. The action begins with the Joyful Surprise hitting the coast of Brazil, rounding the Horn, cruising the waters off Chile up to Juan Fernandez and the Galapagos, then heading west for the Marquesas, all in pursuit of the elusive Norfolk, an American frigate making trouble for British whalers. Aubrey's task is to stop her, if the mighty Horn and Pacific typhoons don't stop him and his resolute crew first.

O'Brian's descriptive power is almost overwhelming as he takes us on this journey into the unknown, for, indeed, not much was known of the Pacific then. It's almost as if we see it for the first time, too, in all of its infinite beauty, expansiveness and danger.

At this point in the series, O'Brian has me caring about these characters way too much for my own good. All of them, down to the ship's goat, are so well drawn in The Far Side of the World that it's almost heartbreaking for me to think there are only 10 books to go.

When I get there, there will only be one place to go -- back to # 1, to enjoy it all over again.