A review by frodolives
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
adventurous
funny
3.0
I'm giving this a sort of generous 3 stars since this book was an overall disappointment for me and I sort of ended up speed-reading the second half of it but I gotta admit there was still aspects of this I quite enjoyed.
To begin with, I've had a bit of a 19th century sailing fixation lately and really appreciate the historical accuracy. O'Brian knows his shit. Readers are immediately dropped into the historic naval setting of 1800 and while O'Brian does explain a bit of the basics (through characters explaining to the clueless Stephen), the book also doesn't spoon-feed readers. Most notably, the book uses its setting to its advantage to dissect themes of patriotism and nationalism in a mostly thoughtful manner.
Where Master and Commander is most memorable is with its two main characters Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Here's where I admit to being a huge fan of the 2003 film which is what led me to reading this in the first place - literally one of my all time favourite films so I went into this with a pre-existing emotional connection to these guys so I have to give O'Brian full props for inventing them. Stephen especially, what a guy.
I would also say the writing was decent for the most part. It's written in a style to transport you to the 19th century but it's also quite witty - it's a bit of dry humour but by the end of the day this book is just kind of goofy and unserious and that was fun sometimes.
However... a lot of the time it wasn't so enjoyable. Despite all these things I liked about a book, this really failed to hold my interest. Maybe it was the high expectations from enjoying the film and the fact that the books lacks a lot of what makes the film good explains my disappointment. But there was a notable lack of emotional resonance, Romance, and investing plot.
Some of this is due to the language itself - O'Brian's writing abilities did not strongly impress me. The wit wasn't quite clever enough to earn being more devoted to being a "funny" story over one with actual emotional weight. I feel O'Brian often failed to convey in any interesting matter how his characters really feel - there's a whole lot of "his face got red" but that's about the extent of it. From the little I've heard about O'Brian he seems very averse to getting personal in any way and it shows - this book is just about impossible to connect to on any meaningful level. Even the main friendship between Aubrey and Maturin fell sort of flat, I was hoping for a bit more camaraderie and while it's there sometimes the relationships throughout the book often feel more business-like than anything. The most interesting thing ended up being Marshall's crush on Jack, especially after the whole episode where readers are informed that "sodomites" are literally punished by murder, but that goes absolutely nowhere (And this ties into another complaint I have - I don't feel the brutal subject matter was treated with as much thoughtful dissection as it should have? The British Navy was a seriously fucked up place, obviously, and while this book sort of probes into the authoritarian/patriotic aspects of it that I discussed, it does brush over a lot of the other brutal aspects, sometimes with a bit of bland humour. The approach was just a bit too conservative a lot of the time. Hell, even one of the main characters dying in battle didn't manage to leave a notable impression.)
There's also just a weird lack of Romance. Not to compare with the movie adaptation again, but the thing that stood out to me most about that film was just how wildly romantic it was by every definition of that word, so finding it missing in this book made it feel a bit empty for the subject matter at hand. This is supposed to be a sea adventure but it hardly felt like it, the pure insanity that it the sea is basically never touched on. Where is the passion!?!?!? I also think there's a kind of Romantic, sublime quality to experiencing "history" which is what draws me to historical fiction and also what got me to become a history major in the first place but I didn't feel it much here. O'Brian may know his facts but isn't too interested in delving into actual feelings all that much which is sort of a shame.
Lastly, the plot/story/character development was nearly non-existent for a large part of this book which made it really difficult to keep interest in it. I understand this is no.1 of a 20+ book series which explains why this book feels more like an episode than a finished story, and also I imagine as O'Brian wrote more books he improved as a writer and perhaps resolved a lot of the things I have issues with in future books. After all, these are some good characters O'Brian thought of and he knows his shit so the potential for greatness is there. But man, after reading this I really don't think I have enough interest level to devote myself to 20 more of these. Maybe in the future but for now this was enough
To begin with, I've had a bit of a 19th century sailing fixation lately and really appreciate the historical accuracy. O'Brian knows his shit. Readers are immediately dropped into the historic naval setting of 1800 and while O'Brian does explain a bit of the basics (through characters explaining to the clueless Stephen), the book also doesn't spoon-feed readers. Most notably, the book uses its setting to its advantage to dissect themes of patriotism and nationalism in a mostly thoughtful manner.
Where Master and Commander is most memorable is with its two main characters Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Here's where I admit to being a huge fan of the 2003 film which is what led me to reading this in the first place - literally one of my all time favourite films so I went into this with a pre-existing emotional connection to these guys so I have to give O'Brian full props for inventing them. Stephen especially, what a guy.
I would also say the writing was decent for the most part. It's written in a style to transport you to the 19th century but it's also quite witty - it's a bit of dry humour but by the end of the day this book is just kind of goofy and unserious and that was fun sometimes.
However... a lot of the time it wasn't so enjoyable. Despite all these things I liked about a book, this really failed to hold my interest. Maybe it was the high expectations from enjoying the film and the fact that the books lacks a lot of what makes the film good explains my disappointment. But there was a notable lack of emotional resonance, Romance, and investing plot.
Some of this is due to the language itself - O'Brian's writing abilities did not strongly impress me. The wit wasn't quite clever enough to earn being more devoted to being a "funny" story over one with actual emotional weight. I feel O'Brian often failed to convey in any interesting matter how his characters really feel - there's a whole lot of "his face got red" but that's about the extent of it. From the little I've heard about O'Brian he seems very averse to getting personal in any way and it shows - this book is just about impossible to connect to on any meaningful level. Even the main friendship between Aubrey and Maturin fell sort of flat, I was hoping for a bit more camaraderie and while it's there sometimes the relationships throughout the book often feel more business-like than anything. The most interesting thing ended up being Marshall's crush on Jack, especially after the whole episode where readers are informed that "sodomites" are literally punished by murder, but that goes absolutely nowhere (And this ties into another complaint I have - I don't feel the brutal subject matter was treated with as much thoughtful dissection as it should have? The British Navy was a seriously fucked up place, obviously, and while this book sort of probes into the authoritarian/patriotic aspects of it that I discussed, it does brush over a lot of the other brutal aspects, sometimes with a bit of bland humour. The approach was just a bit too conservative a lot of the time. Hell, even one of the main characters dying in battle didn't manage to leave a notable impression.)
There's also just a weird lack of Romance. Not to compare with the movie adaptation again, but the thing that stood out to me most about that film was just how wildly romantic it was by every definition of that word, so finding it missing in this book made it feel a bit empty for the subject matter at hand. This is supposed to be a sea adventure but it hardly felt like it, the pure insanity that it the sea is basically never touched on. Where is the passion!?!?!? I also think there's a kind of Romantic, sublime quality to experiencing "history" which is what draws me to historical fiction and also what got me to become a history major in the first place but I didn't feel it much here. O'Brian may know his facts but isn't too interested in delving into actual feelings all that much which is sort of a shame.
Lastly, the plot/story/character development was nearly non-existent for a large part of this book which made it really difficult to keep interest in it. I understand this is no.1 of a 20+ book series which explains why this book feels more like an episode than a finished story, and also I imagine as O'Brian wrote more books he improved as a writer and perhaps resolved a lot of the things I have issues with in future books. After all, these are some good characters O'Brian thought of and he knows his shit so the potential for greatness is there. But man, after reading this I really don't think I have enough interest level to devote myself to 20 more of these. Maybe in the future but for now this was enough