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2015 Book Review #25: Master and Commander
Title: Master and Commander
Author: Patrick O'Brien
Genre: Age of Sail historic novel
Thingummies: 2
Synopsis: How can a book chock full of naval battles be this boring?
Thingummies: I loved Horatio Hornblower once upon a time. Swashbuckling adventure, fascinating touches of history, deep moral dilemmas.
This is not that.
Spoilers ahoy.
I'm deeply impressed with how many events O'Brien manages to cram into this book without actually having anything resembling a plot. A British navy ship goes to sea and fights some other ships. Woohoo. The characters do not particularly learn or grow. They do not really have much of a mission to accomplish--they're supposed to interfere with shipping, so they do. They're basically pirates without any of the glamour. They accomplish little in the way of decisive victories--they mostly seize a bunch of other ships, which is notable to the crew only because it means they get a lot of money. Their one big victory is against another ship that's only there specifically to stop them from harassing the traders. There's no momentum. They go to sea, they come back. They fight some ships, they make money. Most of the crew spend it stupidly.
There's one potential interesting plot point set up--one of the officers is forced to make a decision between two different codes of honor. But it's never discovered, it never comes back to bite them, and then he dies a kind of pointless death well before the end of the book. So it fizzles.
I think that's at least part of the problem here--O'Brien is a magnificent destroyer of tension. There's a daring nighttime overland raid which gives the captain facial injuries. It happens off-page. There's a terrible fight with his mistress. It happens off-page. There's a major sea battle at the climax between two fleets. It happens while the heroes are on shore, in the dark, and off-page. Even when action is in front of you, he can't sustain any tension. Officers go below and eat breakfast during major battles. A cat-and-mouse game with three other ships takes fewer pages than he devotes to the (really shitty) poetry of one of the junior officers. The captain gets children entrusted in his care killed and it doesn't particularly matter. It's always clear that the captain and his doctor friend will be ok. So while lots of minor characters die, the author makes it clear that he doesn't particularly care about their deaths, and none of the characters particularly care about their deaths, so why should you?
Also, he goes on and on about the fact the mate's gay. This was written in the 70s. I honestly can't figure out what his point is, but after the poor guy longs after the captain for page after page and everyone else despises him for it and nothing actually happens as a result, I got pretty sick of the schtick. He doesn't actually have any other character traits, and he doesn't actually do much else.
The fact that the captain's a fairly unlikable fellow doesn't help. He's kind of a moron, he's seriously greedy, and he doesn't learn. I think we're supposed to be mad that his superior officer cheats him out of his big victory, but he did screw the other guy's wife and flaunt it. He deserved it. What he didn't deserve was another 19 books. </cut.
Author: Patrick O'Brien
Genre: Age of Sail historic novel
Thingummies: 2
Synopsis: How can a book chock full of naval battles be this boring?
Thingummies: I loved Horatio Hornblower once upon a time. Swashbuckling adventure, fascinating touches of history, deep moral dilemmas.
This is not that.
Spoilers ahoy.
I'm deeply impressed with how many events O'Brien manages to cram into this book without actually having anything resembling a plot. A British navy ship goes to sea and fights some other ships. Woohoo. The characters do not particularly learn or grow. They do not really have much of a mission to accomplish--they're supposed to interfere with shipping, so they do. They're basically pirates without any of the glamour. They accomplish little in the way of decisive victories--they mostly seize a bunch of other ships, which is notable to the crew only because it means they get a lot of money. Their one big victory is against another ship that's only there specifically to stop them from harassing the traders. There's no momentum. They go to sea, they come back. They fight some ships, they make money. Most of the crew spend it stupidly.
There's one potential interesting plot point set up--one of the officers is forced to make a decision between two different codes of honor. But it's never discovered, it never comes back to bite them, and then he dies a kind of pointless death well before the end of the book. So it fizzles.
I think that's at least part of the problem here--O'Brien is a magnificent destroyer of tension. There's a daring nighttime overland raid which gives the captain facial injuries. It happens off-page. There's a terrible fight with his mistress. It happens off-page. There's a major sea battle at the climax between two fleets. It happens while the heroes are on shore, in the dark, and off-page. Even when action is in front of you, he can't sustain any tension. Officers go below and eat breakfast during major battles. A cat-and-mouse game with three other ships takes fewer pages than he devotes to the (really shitty) poetry of one of the junior officers. The captain gets children entrusted in his care killed and it doesn't particularly matter. It's always clear that the captain and his doctor friend will be ok. So while lots of minor characters die, the author makes it clear that he doesn't particularly care about their deaths, and none of the characters particularly care about their deaths, so why should you?
Also, he goes on and on about the fact the mate's gay. This was written in the 70s. I honestly can't figure out what his point is, but after the poor guy longs after the captain for page after page and everyone else despises him for it and nothing actually happens as a result, I got pretty sick of the schtick. He doesn't actually have any other character traits, and he doesn't actually do much else.
The fact that the captain's a fairly unlikable fellow doesn't help. He's kind of a moron, he's seriously greedy, and he doesn't learn. I think we're supposed to be mad that his superior officer cheats him out of his big victory, but he did screw the other guy's wife and flaunt it. He deserved it. What he didn't deserve was another 19 books. </cut.