H.M.S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian: A review

H.M.S. Surprise is the third in Patrick O'Brian's twenty book historical fiction series concerning the English Navy in the Napoleonic War and early 19th century period. The entire series has been acclaimed by professional reviewers and ordinary readers alike. The books are extremely well-written with tenacious attention to detail and that continues to be true in this third entry.

Fans of naval history love the series for its wealth of detail regarding the most arcane aspects of life on a navy ship in the early 19th century. O'Brian obliges them with long passages describing, in the terminology of the period, how the ships are set up and how they are run, and the passages concerning the naval battles, I am sure, have those who are turned on by such things drooling. That really isn't me and I confess my eyes glaze over a bit at those times and I tend to skim hurriedly through them.

But these books aren't just about the hardships of life on board ship and about naval battles or else I wouldn't be reading them. At their heart, they are about the relationship between Captain Jack Aubrey and doctor/spy Stephen Maturin and that is what I find compelling in them.

I also find particularly interesting the fact that, even though the books were written in the late 20th century, they are very much in the style of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The language that is used, the particular style of phrasing could easily have come from a Jane Austen book, if Jane had written naval histories. This increases their feeling of authenticity and makes it easier for the reader to lose him/herself in the story.

The story here takes Jack and Stephen and the Surprise on a long voyage across the Atlantic, down along the coast of Brazil, then through the perilous southern ocean and back up to the Indian Ocean. They spend time on the teeming Indian subcontinent itself. Their travels in all these places are full of enough adventure to keep even the most easily bored reader turning those pages to see what happens next.

The adventures start even before the advent of the Surprise when Stephen is betrayed and is captured by the French in Spain and there undergoes terrible tortures. He manages to get word out and it is hardly a spoiler to reveal that he is rescued by Jack and a hardy band since he does continue to appear in later books. Unfortunately, after rescuing Stephen, Jack, who has been just half a step ahead of the bailiffs for some time now, is finally run to ground and clapped in a debtors' prison. He is extracted from there by the Admiralty in order to take command of the Surprise and sail the Indian Ocean in search of Napoleon's fleet.

Affairs of the heart take their place in this book, as well, as we find Jack now engaged to his beloved Sophia, much against the better judgment of her mother, Mrs. Williams. Meanwhile, Stephen continues to be obsessed with the beautiful Diane Villiers, who has now decamped to India with her lover, Canning. When we learn that Stephen's voyage will also take him to India, we can guess that they will meet there, which they do with utterly unforeseen consequences.

This book spends many pages on developing the character of Maturin. He is something of an earlier day Charles Darwin as he studies and collects specimens of flora and fauna at their every stop along the way. He is also a student of human culture as he observes it in every port of call, seeking to learn languages and customs. He accepts people as they are and seems to fit in wherever he goes. His interactions with an untouchable child in India are particularly poignant.

O'Brian's writing is also suffused with humor, often provoking smiles or chuckles and, less often, belly laughs, and it is one of Maturin's collecting expeditions, in Brazil, that is the impetus of my favorite line in this book, the one that I found laugh-out-loud funny.

When Maturin returned to the ship with his specimens, he brought with him a sloth, which quickly became a favorite with the crew but which, for some reason, cast a baleful eye on Jack. At one point, attempting to make friends with the creature, Jack feeds it some grog. When Stephen comes upon the two of them later, he views the sloth, sniffs its breath
and realizes it is drunk, at which point he turns to Jack and cries:

Jack, you have debauched my sloth!

Name me one other book where you would be likely to read such a line!

fla

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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