Customer Reviews

The Truelove (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Anyone who is working their way thru the Aubrey/ Maturin series as I currently am, will find "The Truelove" a slight change from earlier installments. This time around Jack Aubrey isn't concerning himself with earth-shaking events & Stephen Maturin is devoting himself to his philosophical and naturalist inclinations, so instead we simply spend some time afloat with them and the other members of the Surprise along with something entirely new - a woman!

Clarissa Harvill is a cipher & altho Patrick O'Brian reveals more about her as the book draws to a close, there are still many things left unsaid in her interactions with the other crew members. Maybe this reviewer did not read carefully enough, but allusions and omissions regarding Clarissa sometimes left me confused. However, the pleasure of O'Brian's writing is such that, even tho I'm often a little lost when reading his books (especially when it comes to naval terms), I'm never bored.

This definitely should not be the first book in the Aubrey/Maturin series you pick up, but do pick it up once you've started following their adventures. You won't regret it!

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.

This fifteenth novel in the series is not one of the author's better efforts, I'm afraid. The SURPRISE has just left Sidney Cove when a female stowaway is discovered in the cable tier. She turns out to be Clarissa, a transported convict under the protection of Midshipman Oakes (for which almost no explanation is given), to whom she is quickly married. ("Clarissa Oakes," in fact, was the English title of this volume, and I hve no idea why they changed it.) Most of the remainder of the book is taken up with the ship's progress across the South Seas and, although there is a land battle at the very end (and even that experienced at one remove), the bulk of the story is an exploration of Clarissa's character and how it was formed, as well as the extremely divisive effect of her somewhat warped personality on the ship's officers and company. As usual, O'Brian shows great skill in narrating a plethora of overlapping subplots, both supporting and complementary, most of them depending on the shifting relationships among the inhabitants of a closed universe -- a ship at sea for weeks and months at a time out of sight of land -- and for that reason the book is certainly worth reading. But if you're in search of a more usual naval adventure, this isn't quite it.

It was with some trepidation that I started this book because of what other reviewers said but I found it thoroughly enjoyable and moving as events subtly and inexorably moved to the blow up where officers are reprimanded and Surprises are flogged; where the innocent and the guilty worked till they near died under a right Tartar of a Captain who cowed even Killick until we reach this sentence: "When they were assembled in their usual unseemly heap their Captain surveyed them with a benevolence they had not seen this many a weary day and night..." and I and the Surprises breathed a collective sigh of relief. And then they dashed off into battle as the team they always were. Dull and actionless? Hardly.

SPOILERS: Clarissa Oakes did not throw a baby down a well. Stephen offered her his protection and she offered up this hypothetical situation to test the genuiness of his offer. He already knew what her crime was and states it at one point in a letter to Blaine.
At the start of the novel, it was obvious Jack had contracted hepatitis, an acute, self-limiting illness whose chief symptom is profound exhaustion which Stephen treated by purging and bleeding and admonishing him not to sleep so much as he'll only grow fatter. That he survived this regimen while commanding his ship is a testimony to his fortitude for even a saint would have grown liverish; I believe Jack may be excused for being grumpy and not his usual sanguine self.
Also, women, in Jack's limited experience, were those delightful creatures one dallied with on shore. No one as damaged and poisonous as Clarissa has ever crossed his path, much less dropped into his little wooden world. The reader knew what was going on but Jack was like countless physicians working in hopeless darkness, addressing symptoms, until a paradigm shift took place in their understanding.
If there is a flaw in the book is that not enough was said or even implied. I can just imagine poor, conscientious and introverted Pullings struggling to deal with an impossible situation, probably wondering how Captain Aubrey would've done it, but not having Jack's confidence and deft handling of men. I want to know what went through the youngsters minds (Mr. Reade, Sarah and Emily) as their frank admiration and affection for Clarissa curdled into scorn. O'Brian barely even touches on the people sucked into her black hole or of her dawning realization that her behaviour was inappropriate, that she knew too much and too little, and that she regrets it - a black sheep who is really a lamb with a dirty face.
All the shame, anger, jealousies, dishonour, and sheer stupidity is foreshadowed by Stephen's remark that it was disgustingly fetid below and Pullings' note that the rats were strangely bold; Jack starting a new routine onboard of pumping fresh water in and then pumping the ship dry; Jack joining his crew "dazed and half-blind" at the pump at 5:00 a.m. after Stephen's laudanum on top of the hepatitis; the Surprise, unbeaten by enemies or malevolent weather, quietly tearing herself apart while Jack paced above knowing something was very wrong with the seas within but not what or what to do. All that richness is hinted at and left to the reader's imagination. Oh, if only someone would write a companion novella!

"The Truelove", the immediate precursor to Patrick O'Brian's "The Wine Dark Sea", is quite frankly not the most riveting installment in the Aubrey/Maturin saga. And yet it is an interesting psychological glimpse into the personalities of the officers and crew of Her Majesty's Hired Vessel Surprise, when a female stowaway, Clarissa Harvill, is discovered. She becomes quite literally the main attraction to Surprise's junior officers, and even a trusted veteran like Captain Thomas Pullings, falls prey to her charms. For once neither Captain Jack Aubrey nor Dr. Stephen Maturin are the main focus of this tale, devoted instead to the enigmatic Clarissa Oakes (She is married off to one of the junior officers later during the tale.), who provides Maturin with a tantalizing clue regarding a French spy working in Whitehall. Instead we see an idyllic sojourn in the South Seas marred by personality disputes, a brief battle on a Polynesian island between French privateers and Surprise's crew, and the eventual appearance of the French privateer Franklin, which will play a prominent role in the next novel in the series. This book still deserves highest praise for O'Brian's eloquent prose and vivid descriptions of Polynesian natural history.

While this book does not equal the quality of the best books in this series - Surprise and Master and Commander - it is an excellent book that delves further into the personality of Jack Aubrey. It does not have the lovely detail about the sea and sailing that were the hallmarks of his best books (this really is the best part of his writing). What it has instead are fascinating character studies of Jack and the female protagonist, Clarissa. It also is a very humerous and revealing look at the effect one moderately attractive woman can have on a ship filled with men who have gone far too long without the sight of a woman of any description - much less one who is attractive and somewhat desirable. I found the interplay between the men on board to be very funny and probably very accurate. As I stated at the beginning, it is not his best by any stretch of the imagination - I would follow that up with it should not be read before the first 4-5 books in the series (you really do need to know the characters before reading this book) - however, even at this level O'Brien is far superior to most contemporary writers.

This is, in my estimation, the funniest of OBrian's Aubrey-Maturin series. The American title is itself one of O'Brian's punning jokes; even though it refers to a vessel encountered late in the volume, the over-riding subject here is the changeable nature of human desire, the effects on aging to a dashing captain's self esteem, what "women really want," and the cures for long-voyage constipation. The plot is just a good excuse to get around to the dialogue. The arts of conversation are most prized about the long voyages, and these are some of the best of the entire series. While by itself, this quote won't mean much, but in context, it's the biggest laugh of the entire series; Stephen answers Jack's vociferous, self-pitying, multi-paged diatribe against the bad luck brought to sea-going vessels by the on-board presense of women with, "I think, my dear, your animosity toward women is largely theoretical." Jack's retort is excruciatingly tortured and sidesplittingly true. A true gem.

I love all of the Aubrey/Maturin books, and all get five stars from me. But this, the fifteenth in the brilliant twenty-volume series by Patrick O'Brian, is not the strongest of the bunch. It is different from the others in that there are no scenes of naval warfare and only a trivial, and somewhat belabored, battle for a Polynesian island. The true action lies in the long voyage across the Pacific with a young woman stowaway. Clarissa's own personality is quirky and shaped by a childhood of abuse, which causes no end of consequences on a ship of men starved for female companionship. Jack and Stephen, as always, deliver wonderful dialogue and a subtle interplay. Jack's shipboard authority and management style offer a different side fo the man. Patrick O'Brian could write. Even when he wasn't at his best, he could write. Five stars for The Truelove.

I have to agree with other reviewers who find The Truelove to be the weakest book in a great series. It needs to be read for continuity, but devotees of Aubrey should temper their expectations. The book is slow, very slow, with the plot congealing at a fraction of the pace set by Preserved Killick's various pudding monstrosities.

The professional reviewers paid so little attention that they got the chronology and places wrong (the main action is in Hawaii, not Tonga). They, as I, probably found themselves nodding at the pages and pages devoted to Clarissa Oakes, a stow-away, and her inexplicable (except perhaps due to the desperation of enforced shipboard celibacy) charm. Why Aubrey or Maturin would be genuinely interested in such a creature is about the only mystery in this volume.

Oh, you have to read it to keep up with the series. But the characters have been away from Sir Joseph, England, and real combat for way too long, with too many loose ends. About halfway through this book I was taken with the conviction that the Surprise had become Die Fliegende Hollander and was doomed to sail around Australasia forever.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series are some of my favorite books, ever. Don't start with this one, though. Start with the first one, Master and Commander, and work your way up.