At last, Aubrey

Commander Jack

Over the last several weeks I have read the first ten books in the Patrick O’Brian books featuring Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. I’ve had this whole series sitting on the shelf awaiting my attention for possibly 15 years. And having finally begun, I find myself to be no exception to the readers I’ve seen fall prey to the O’Brian addiction—I find myself compelled towards the next episode, while trying to limit myself because I don’t want them to end. Aubrey is a Commander, and later Post Captain, in the Royal Navy at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Stephen Maturin is his friend, musician, Physician, naturalist, naval surgeon and spy. The books are set in the same period as Jane Austen’s work but show a very different side of Britain (where the non-inheriting second and third sons in an Austen novel may choose the navy as a career). This is Britain as a World Power. The battle scenes are exciting but O’Brian doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war. Giant splinters from the breached structure of the ships leave men dead and horribly injured. O’Brien has managed to create characters with complex inner lives and while much happens on the high seas, Jack and Stephen’s lives are very different, and equally compelling ashore. This is compulsive reading and I am looking forward to the remaining eleven books in the series. John