| Title | : | The Surgeons Mate (Aubrey Maturin, #7) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0393308200 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780393308204 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 416 |
| Publication | : | First published January 15, 1980 |
The Surgeons Mate (Aubrey Maturin, #7) Reviews
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Who is this surgeon's mate that the title alludes to? I confessed that I was baffled for a long time reading this seventh title in the Patrick O'Brian acclaimed series. The surgeon is clearly Stephen Maturin, but he acts mostly as a lone wolf, a necessity of his involvement as a secret agent. His best friend, Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy, is cast in a position of authority rather than as a mate. Maturin takes no assistant to help him in his medical duties aboard ship, and a new character, a lieutenant Jagiello, is used more for comic relief than for drama.
Nevermind, the title will become clear only by the end of the novel (see spoiler). To reach this destination, the reader is treated to what may be one of the most accomplished books in the series. It starts rather innocuously, with Aubrey and Maturin trying to return to England after escaping imprisonment by the Americans in the previous novel. They are accompanied by Diana Villiers, herself fleeing the attentions of her former American beau. The first sign that this is a fully fledged adventure comes in the shape of a killing chase across the breath of the Atlantic by a couple of determinate American privateers.
Matters on shore are far from tranquil also. As good as Jack is on the deck of his war frigate, his business acumen in managing his estate is sorely lacking, to the point of needing rescue from badly worded contracts, hastily signed. Stephen is trying to rekindle his love affair with Diana, but the lady, while favorably disposed, is in the family way as a result of her adventures among foreigners, and refuses to commit.
After a brief scientific interlude in Paris, with Stephen delivering a very erudite, but poorly presented disertation on his naturalist studies, both men are returned to the sea, on a special mission to sabotage Napoleon's efforts in the Baltic by encouraging a Catalan garrison to defect.
I will stop here, as the surprises and twists of fortune, the naval battles and the spy games begin in earnest, and I don't want to spoil anybody's pleasure of discovering for themeselves the fate of their favorite characters. I have previously said all I had to say about the passion for the sea and for the natural world, about the mastery of language and the wicked humour, about the subtle treatment of emotional conflict in the lives of these men who spend most of their lives away on the high seas, courting death repeatedly from hidden reefs, from inclement weather and from enemy broadsides. O'Brian proved his mettle for me from the very first book in the series, and there is no sign of flagging interest or of saturation on my part for the minute details of ship rigging or sail maneuvers. The bromance between Stephen and Jack remains vibrant and balanced, neither taking the other for granted, neither blind to the other's shortcoming or trying to play first fiddle. Each plays his own partiture, and together they make the journey through the perils of the Napoleonic Wars, both at sea and behind closed doors, a formidable experience.
Romance is not forgotten, even if it necessarily takes a step back to allow the boys their war games. Sophia may be more preoccupied with the Aubrey mansion and with raising children, but she shows already that she may be a better administrator than her impulsive husband. The dashing Diana remains my favorite, mostly because she is both unpredictable and self-reliant, a modern woman trying to make it on her own at a time when such liberty was shunned by society. Her relationship with Stephen may be complicated, but nobody can say that it is boring. ( ... it was extraordinary what a stay she had been to him - the pole that held his needle to the north and gave its pointing a significance that it had lacked since her reign came to a sudden halt. )
There are more than enough scary moments in this book, when life hangs by a thread, and only a master storyteller like O'Brian will know how to insert a moment of laughter to relieve the tension. Witness the payback time Jack Aubrey receives for his earlier dalliances with married women , to the role of middle-aged amusement that Jack and Stephen are relegated to when the attentions of all the young ladies they meet are directed at a dashing young Lithuanian attache, ending in a tourist visit to Hamlet's tomb by the fortress of Elsinore - an occasion for Jack to reminisce about his theatrical experiences as a midshipman:
"So there he lies, said Jack, his telescope levelled. "Well, well: we must all come to it. But it was a capital piece, capital. I never laughed so much in my life."
I can't praise the series enough for its full range of human emotions displayed, for its instances of heroism and its attention to detail, for its wonderful use of the English language, and for the call of adventure that makes want to pick up the next novel right now. I try not to be greedy and space them out over the years, to make the pleasure last longer, but I know I will give in sooner rather than later.
- - - - - -
Almost forgot: what about that surgeon's mate? -
The glorious saga continues!
Ugh. "Saga." The word sounds bloated, melodramatically windswept, ponderous. I don't find Patrick O'Brian's seafaring war epic to be any of those things. It suits me.
Perhaps it will suit you, too. Do you like historical fiction set circa the early 1800s? Do you like good, sometimes elegant writing? How about bursts of action aboard cannon-blasting ships? Contemplation of the human spirit? Observations on nature? Can you endure drawn-out scenes of everyday life that may seem unnecessary, but that often include subtle hints of the unfolding plot? If yes, maybe this is for you.
However, I have to admit, I did come for those sea battles!
And yet, I'm just as happy when the battle's over, the ships have been blown out of the water, and the plot turns upon a domestic scene, such a ballroom dance...
In The Surgeon's Mate a very Austen-esque ball is the stage upon which the story unfolds. Long-away and almost estranged from his wife, Captain Jack Aubrey, a man of large appetites, becomes embroiled in a scandalous liaison. His unlikely, but long-time friend, doctor and sometimes intelligence agent Stephen Maturin has his own affair to juggle.
Love and revenge chase them across the Atlantic. The ongoing war with Napoleon drives them into the Baltic to subvert a dangerous battery and troops allied to the enemy. And that's just the first half. Later there's violent storms, prison and wild escapes, the looming threat of torture...jesus, this is starting to sound like a melodramatic saga!
Beyond all the fun and excitement, one of the real joys of these books for me is witnessing the friendship between Aubrey and Maturin. It's the glue that bonds the series. I found it particularly touching in this book when Jack remained onboard his ship fretting away like a mother hen as Stephen undertook a potentially deadly mission.
While not an unbridled thrill-ride from start to finish, The Surgeon's Mate is a very fun read in which readers will be dosed with a fair share of love and war, sorrow and happiness.
My review of book six,
The Fortune of War
My review of book eight,
The Ionian Mission -
Da un episodio all'altro lo schema tende a farsi un tantino ripetitivo, il che in teoria dovrebbe suonare come un difetto, e invece nella pratica non è affatto così. Il bravo scrittore punta più su una certa vena di realismo che sul desiderio di impressionare il lettore ad ogni costo; lavora sul doveroso inserimento di qualche nuovo personaggio e sui doverosi sviluppi della trama principale che lega un volume all'altro, ma senza mai strafare, senza nessunissima mirabolante escalation e altri trucchetti simili dai quali sarebbe poi difficile mettersi in salvo senza sfociare nella farsa grottesca.
Quindi, un po' come accade per le imperfezioni sul cuoio invecchiato bene, quello che può sembrare un difetto in verità è un pregio. Ironia sempre ottima perché ottimamente misurata; scrittura e traduzione sempre eccellenti. Ottimo inizio per l'anno nuovo, auguro un buon 2020 di buone letture a tutti. -
"The pretext: dictatorships were absurdly sensitive to the public opinion they continually outraged; they always had to be in the right, to be morally impeccable; and that was one of the reasons why those who had been much mutilated in their interrogation were rarely allowed to live, whether they had given their information or not."
- Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate
When I was first introduced to these novels and read the first couple, I couldn't believe how GOOD the were, but was skeptical that they could continue with the same level of near perfection the early novels evoked. Now, seven books in, I'm less amazed at the continuity of output. I figure it is something like building a cathedral. If you have a master-builder, it doesn't matter if the church is 10 feet high or 1000 feet. The scale matters, but a genius will produce genius work.
I am, however, a bit more accustomed to how O'Brian pulls this off without the books seeming to sink into the trap of most serial authors. Setting. If O'Brian only told his novels at sea, there might be some inevitable boredom and repetition, but O'Brian doesn't.
For example in this book, the setting goes something like this:
Halifax (Land) => HMS Diligence (Chased from Halifax to Home) => England (Land) / Paris (Land) => HMS Ariel (Baltic Sea/Bay of Biscay) => Paris (Prison) => HMS Oedipus (English Channel).
This one has a bit more setting changes than most, but O'Brian's change of settings and occasional diversions into spy-craft and/or spouse-craft allows enough shadows and depth into these novels to keep the reader from becoming sea-blind. -
My love for the Aubrey/Maturin series is evergreen, I do an annual reread of all twenty and this is where I was on my reread when January rolled around so...
A favorite for foregrounding Diana somewhat. I thing O'Brien's characterization of her is possibly the most inconsistent of any of his major characters...or perhaps that's an intentional reflection of her very mercurial nature. In any case, it's lovely to see the books take their heroes to Boston, the only real North American interlude of the series, and O'Brien's wit, sense of fun, characterization, and naval action always always delights. -
There’s a lot going on in O’Brian’s seventh entry of the Aubrey-Maturin series. We start more or less immediately after the close of the last volume showcasing what several O’Brian fans have opined: that in many ways this series of books is more like one very long novel, with each book comprising a new ‘chapter’ in the continuing adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. This could of course be argued for nearly any continuing series based around the same characters, but it seems peculiarly appropriate to me for this one. We begin with Jack and Stephen’s arrival in Halifax aboard the HMS Shannon after their sucessful battle with the USS Chesapeake and slim escape from the clutches of Diana’s erstwhile lover, and American secret agent, Henry Johnson. Jack’s philandering eye promptly brings him into the clutches of the mercenary socialite Amanda Smith who, after their initial liaison, won’t take no for an answer. Luckily for Jack he is able to escape on the mail packet Diligence, along with Stephen and Diana, in order to bring the news of the Shannon’s victory to a Britain sorely hungry for news of success against the Americans in the new war. The first portion of the novel covers this short interlude in Halifax followed by a sea chase when Diana’s former lover, spurred on by jealousy of Stephen and the knowledge that he was bested by him in the game of espionage, refuses to let them go scott-free and sends a pair of privateers after them in the hopes of killing two birds with one stone.
After the chase we get another interlude, this time in England, as Jack attempts to navigate the consequences of his dalliance with Smith and her unyielding attempts to attach herself to him permanently. Stephen is more than busy on his own account as he hands over the secret documents he stole from Johnson to his superior, exposing much of the American and French intelligence networks, goes into the lion’s den itself by travelling to France in order to present an academic paper to the Institut de France, and deals with Diana’s bombshell that she is .
The final segment is prompted by another intelligence mission given to Stephen as he is asked to intervene and hopefully bring an impregnable fortress held by the French over to the British side by persuading its Catalan soldiers of the duplicity of their nominal overlord Napoleon. Maturin of course requests that Aubrey be given command of the ship detailed with sending him on his way, an opportunity eagerly siezed by Jack who will take any excuse to get out of the country and hopefully evade the clutches of Amanda Smith. The mission itself, while of a decidely delicate political nature, seems to go off without a hitch, but we once again run into complications at sea and our heroes end up with their ship, the Ariel, shipwrecked on the coast of France with Jack and Stephen captured by the enemy. Stephen is very much the centre of events here as he plays a game of cat and mouse with his captors, unsure of how much they know of his real identity and activities, and doing his best to obfuscate his role in international affairs while Jack works on a means of escape from their castle prison. The reader is once again given an intimate view of Maturin’s life as an espionage agent, an element of the stories that seems to be gaining greater prominence as time goes on, with first hand examples of some of the dangers and consequences entailed by such a profession.
The volume ends well for our heroes, and O’Brian even manages to put in a surprise at the last minute, though perhaps not one that is completely unexpected for the long-term reader. I don’t want to spoil it, but suffice to say that one can only hope that the parties involved have made the right decision and don’t end up regretting it…something not altogether certain given the tenor of events in previous volumes. As always the relationship between Jack and Stephen is the main draw, in addition to the other interesting characters that populate the book's pages, foremost of which here is perhaps the young Lithuanian soldier Gedymin Jagiello, a man far too pretty for his own good who seems somewhat nonplussed by his allure to the opposite sex, but whose constant good nature and boyish charm seem able to win anyone to his side. Acting as a translator for Jack and Stephen on their mission to the Baltic, he shares in their captivity and escape becoming quite close with our heroes in the process. All in all this is a fine addition to the series where quite a bit happens, though not perhaps my favourite entry thus far. -
This is one of my favorites, which partially brings an arc to a close. These arcs are intersecting, which is one of the brilliant aspects of Patrick O'Brian's roman fleuve. But there is a sense of closure in this one, which (in a reread) marks a milestone.
Structurally, it is remarkable in a number of ways. It feels like three novellas tightly wired together. It begins with Aubrey and Maturin sailing triumphantly into Halifax with the news that the Shannon had defeated the Chesapeake. This ship-to-ship duel, based on the details of the real battle, had closed the previous book. Now we get the glorious sense of triumph on the British side as the news spreads.
This first novella takes place in Halifax, and ends with Stephen and Jack leaving. Before then, Stephen and Diana deal with their difficult situation, Stephen fairly emotionally battered, and Diana gallantly trying to maintain her identity and her own sense of honor in a world of men.
Jack, unfortunately, as all too often happens on land, gets himself into trouble. It seems to eat neatly ended by the end of the book, but . . .
There is a thrilling ship chase from Halifax up north and down toward England. When Jack and Stephen get back to England there is a great deal of turmoil and trouble which not only is going to set up the rest of this book, but is also going to launch the next several books’ arc; this includes a trip to Napoleonic Paris for Stephen and Diana.
Jack and Stephen are sent to the Baltic, where once again a real situation is fictionalized so that our guys can be central to the action. As a result, they end up as prisoners in France.
The writing in this book is so strong, so vivid, and so brilliant, reaching the heights of the sublime to the very delicious humor that O’Brian excels at.
Compare this passage, while Jack and Stephen are sailing up a narrow passage between Denmark and Sweden and being fired upon from the heights of Elsinore. While waiting for cannonballs to smash down all around them, they talk about Shakespeare, and specifically Hamlet's grave.
"So there he lies," said Jack, his telescope leveled. "Well, well: we must all come to it. But it was a capital piece, capital. I never laughed so much in my life."
"A capital piece indeed," said Stephen, "and I doubt I could have done much better myself. But, do you know, I have never in my own mind class did among the comedies. Pray did you read it recently?"
"I never read it at all," said Jack. "That is to say, not right through. No: I did something better than that — I acted in it. . .”
Then there is Stephen’s hapax phenomenon, which Jack has not seen above a few hundred times. But Stephen is amazed:
He pointed cautiously with one finger and Jack looked out to the southwest. At this height they were above the low blanket of fog that covered the sea: clear sky above, no water below; no deck even, but a smooth layer of white mist, sharply cut off from the clean air; and ahead, on the starboard bow and on the starboard beam the surface of the soft, opaque whiteness was pierced by an infinity of masts, all striking up from this unearthly ground into a sky without a cloud, a sky that might have belonged to an entirely different world.
Both Jack and Stephen in this book continue to reveal their complexities. Each has chances to be heroic, Stephen covertly, and Jack not only in ship action but in his practical method of tackling an escape from the infamous Temple prison in Paris.
The book ends with a marriage, with high emotions, and with enough threads dangling to make one desperate for the next. -
Another old favourite, book 7 for this series!
Picks up straight away from the previous yarn, fresh from their success against the American Man-O-War... Huzzah! Lucky Jack & Dr Maturin abound Halifax & join in with the general gaiety of the time before making way for a dash for Blighty which involves a sea chase, what ensues thereafter is a spot of home troubles, some intelligence work, a new commission, a dalliance with Diane Villiers for the Doctor..... In truth it’s all quite formulaic across each tale but it detracts nought as I do rather enjoy them... The sea chases are indeed epic with the tension ramped up by the hour. The chemistry between Aubrey & Maturin is wonderful & at the forefront of each novel, great characters.
A clear 4 stars again & perhaps I think the trick is to leave a timely interval between each one so as to saviour each adventure. -
Read this book in 2008, and its the 7th brilliant volume of the amazing "Aubrey/Maturin" series.
Ordered home by dispatch vessel to bring news about their latest victory to the government, when they are assailed by the French on all sides.
The reason is that Maturin is a marked man by the French for his work as a spy and the devastating losses his actions has brought to the French intelligence network in the New World.
Chased by the French through the waves, fogs and the shallows of the Grand Banks, this chase is as tense and desparate as it can get, and in a most determined sailing action they somehow know to remain out of the clutches of these French sails.
What is to come is a fantastic created sea adventure for Aubrey and Maturin, and one that is brought to us by the author in his own authentic and lyrical fashion.
Highly recommended, for this is another accomplished addition to this amazing series, and that's why I like to call episode: "An Astounding Aubrey-Maturin Sea Adventure"! -
Jack is deeply dismayed when a ill-judged fling in Nova Scotia threatens to come back to England and reveal his perfidy. He's thrilled to be ordered back to sea, this time to transport his friend Stephen to co-opt a Catalan base to England's side. Meanwhile, Stephen has just returned from a trip to Paris, where he presented a scholarly paper (very badly, though it was well received) and found a place for Diana to stay for her confinement. The mission is a success, the base is taken--and then on the way home, flush with success, they are captured by the French. They suspect Stephen is a spy, and so while Jack scrapes away at their prison walls searching for escape, Stephen spends day after day trying to seem as innocent as possible to his captors, all the while keeping a capsule of poison precariously held in his cheek.
This book contains a number of subversions of a reader's expectations. Jack is scared of a woman coming back to England with his bastard--and instead . Stephen and Diana battle over her pregnancy--. Jack scrapes away at his French prison walls, and much of the book is given over to the complications of shifting the stone--
This is also the book where finally, FINALLY, after six books of tension and torment,
Overall, another fantastic installment of a great series. I can't wait to read the next! -
I love Dr. Stephen Maturin. Deeply. He may be one of my favourite recurring characters in all of literature, so I may be a little biased when if comes to my estimation of The Surgeon's Mate, but I do think it is one of O'Brian's best.
If I am wrong to rate it so highly that's okay because The Surgeon's Mate is still an exemplar of the Aubrey/Maturin Series' two great strengths.
1. Victory in Defeat: Whether we're talking about the Naval War against Napoleon, the Intelligence War against the French, or the personal lives of our protagonists, Aubrey/Maturin is rich with defeats for Lucky Jack and Dr. Maturin that are either accompanied by silver linings or are actually small victories in disguise. There are two standout cases in The Surgeon's Mate.
The first is the thrilling loss of HMS Ariel in Douarnenez Bay. If this were a lesser piece of writing or a Hollywood blockbuster the ship would never be lost, and the nearly impossible piece of sailing that Captain Jack Aubrey attempts to save his ship would be a complete success. Under O'Brian's steady hand, however, The Surgeon's Mate is realistic and there is really nothing Lucky Jack can do to save his ship. But he can avoid total disaster, and it is this victory in the face of disaster that ends up being vastly more satisfying than any ridiculous impossibility could ever be. More importantly, these moments are the rule rather than the exception, and they elevate the Aubrey/Maturin series above all other Naval novels I have read.
2. The Ocean Isn't All That: While O'Brian's books are often afloat, voyages and battles are not the source of all or even most of the stories' drama. In the case of The Surgeon's Mate, most of the drama surrounds Dr. Maturin --his machinations against the French, his love for and protection of Diana Villiers, his deliverance of the stronghold at Grimsholm Island into the hands of the British forces, his rivalry with American Henry Johnson -- and nearly all of it occurs on land. More importantly, though, all of these conflicts enrich the character of Stephen Maturin (as similar conflicts enrich Jack Aubrey when the focus is on him) far beyond the what we'd expect to see from lesser historical novels.
As for why I esteem The Surgeon's Mate so much ... well, it's all in the title. The "Surgeon's Mate" is not some underling of Dr. Stephen Maturin living and working in the musty bowels of a ship; it is, instead, multiple things: a game, a person, a victory, an escape, and a surprising achievement by our intrepid Doctor.
Finally, there is one last thing to love. Midshipman William Babbington, who we met as a boy in
Master and Commander, is now captaining a ship of his own, and it is his authority and his voice that secure Maturin's final mate. For devoted readers, Babbington is part of the Aubry/Maturin family, and seeing him all grown up and standing beside his former captain on his own quarter deck is a beautiful moment to behold. -
A estas alturas ya estoy preparado para la mezcla de comedia costumbrista y novela de aventuras de los libros de O'brian, por lo que no me aburrí tanto con la primera parte del libro y las desventuras emocionales de Jack Aubrey. Si volví a disfrutar de mitad en adelante cuando nuestros amigos nuevamente se embarcan en aventuras.
Veamos que trae la próxima entrega. -
[Random Read. 29, Ask the Wife.]
Continuing right off from the sixth entry in the series, this book finds Aubrey and Maturin sailing home to a hero's welcome, then rushing off to the Baltic on an intelligence mission to convince some Catalan troops (who happen to be led by Maturin's godfather) to defect to the British side. Jack is glad to have a ship under his command again, not least because it gives him an escape from his poor investments at home and from the society lady who claims to be bearing his child and threatens a visit. For Stephen's part, having installed Diana Villiers, his enigmatic lover and ostensible fiancée, safely pregnant (by the American intelligence officer she ran away with) in Paris, he can turn all his attention to his spy work. However, after their ship runs aground in a squall, he and Jack are taken to a French prison, where the local military officers seem to know who Stephen is. Escape is paramount, but time is of the essence.
What is left to be said about this superb, erudite, amusing, enthralling series, seven books in? I used up all my comparisons and superlatives in the reviews for the fifth and sixth books. The malapropisms, the mangling of Latin by Jack and Stephen's dimly understood sea jargon, the allusions and elisions, all the elements that make these books high literature as well as grand adventure are here. Researched to the point of obsession, there is not a word out of place in this book, from the expressions to the food to the clothes to the manners. The natural history is as finely detailed as the seafaring language, yet despite the deep scholarship on display, this remains a page-turning, suspenseful thriller. -
I really enjoyed this entry in the Jack Aubrey canon. Actually, I think it is one of my favorites, right up there with the first in the series.
The characters of Jack and Stephen continue to amaze and delight me in so many ways. I enjoy their dynamic together and how they deal with the situations they find themselves in.
The best part about these stories are the sea adventures and this one did not disappoint in that category.
However, as much as I commend the author on his wonderful storytelling, I still find he does not write women well. I cannot take a shine to Diana Villiers, though she showed unselfishness in this outing. I can't help but get the impression that whatever suits her comes first and never mind about poor Stephen. I just don't like the character.
But the pull of Jack and Stephen are too great, so I will continue on with the series! -
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Benedict Cumberbatch reads the seventh historical novel in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series.
In the early summer of 1812, Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin arrive in Canada on HMS Shannon after escaping their American captors.
Produced and abridged by Lisa Osborne. -
Another exceptional instalment in the series... Nothing more to say!
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Lovesick leads have never interested me. The Baltic action is truncated. The Catalan subplot aborted. And the imprisonment in France is resolved far to ex machina for enjoyment.
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Patrick O'Brian back to his very best in this seventh Aubrey-Maturin novel.
Such a good writer of English, as well-as a master story-teller, and a good expression of characters and their development through time.
The GR blurb mentions only a little of the incidents and adventures, from the Atlantic to the Baltic, to inland France, and back to the home fleet where there are a couple of key developments:
'Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by dispatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attention of two privateers soon becomes menacing. The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as tense, and as unexpected in its culmination, as anything Patrick O'Brian has written.' -
You may remember from
Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian that Jack is without command after having sunk the Waakzaanheid, a Dutch 74. At home in England he finds he has been cheated by a scoundrel and Stephen is busily taking on a new espionage assignment that also gets Jack a ship, the Ariel. Jack hopes for a colonelcy, a device used to financially reward post-captains. When his wife Sophie protests that perhaps taking a colonelcy in the army with no duties attached might be considered corrupt Jack utters the loveable, “ in others is anathema to me. But you would scarcely credit the depths of turpitude I should descend to myself for a thousand a year, and a colonel’s pay is rather better than that."
Unfortunately, because of a lieutenant’s hasty confusion of larboard with starboard during a tense moment Jack and Stephen are taken prisoner, Stephen is recognised as a spy, and things look dicey. To be continued, of course. If you haven’t tried one of the Aubrey/Maturin you are really missing some delightful reading. I recommend reading them in order. -
Great installment. It's really at this point that I feel the Aubrey-Maturin series is less of a sequence of separate novels and more like overlarge chapters in one very large story. The events of the previous book led directly into this one. Maturin and Diana cross paths with the nefarious Johnson again, Jack has an ill-advised tryst with a loud mouthed society butterfly, and is humorously baffled by the boyish good looks of Lithuanian Swiss Army soldier Gedymin Jagiello and the incessant passes by the opposite sex he engenders (even while extolling the virtues of a burlier, harier, more competent crewmate). Not as much action in this outing per say, but an enjoyable character study all around.
-
it was very difficult to choose a star rating for this installment of the aubrey/maturin series. on the one hand, i can't stand diana and she was all over this in every worst way. on the other hand, once we got rid of her, there were some genuinely interesting moments ~ particularly an escape plot from a fortress which provided some solidly hilarious exchanges (reminding me why this series is fun!).
in the end i had to give it only two stars because it's about 150 pages too long and Lt. Pullings isn't in it, alas.
overall this feels very much like a transitional book that ties up threads that have been feeling sorta endless for the last couple of books (particularly with regard to the aforementioned and much-detested diana). -
To date, five out of the seven have been Napoleonic spy stories, not Napoleonic naval stories. There is some enjoyment in the former, to be sure. But to compare O'Brian's heroes to Hornblower, Ramage, Parkinson, or even Kent/Reeman--well, I just don't understand. Aubrey loses more ships in these seven books then those other lead characters lose in each's entire series.
I may read more of the dozens of O'Brian books. But only after wrapping my head around the very different mission of O'Brian's mission, and only for lack of a better choice. -
So very good! Even when the characters frustrate me so much I want to kick them in their imaginary shins, it's a sign of the excellent writing. I also appreciate that even though fate (a.k.a. the hand of the author) swoops in to save the characters often, they are always actively working to solve their own problems before that happens.
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Excellent ending! Both unexpected, despite the title, and wholly entertaining to the very last word. The shifting third person once in a while made me wonder whose head we had just been in, but never interfered with the story, and gave a nice glimpse into the mind of each main character.
Highly recommended. -
There may be other writers as good as O'Brian, but at the moment none come to mind.
-
‘Perhaps his insensibility was no more than a now habitual protection, a way of making the inner void more nearly tolerable: he certainly felt his heart move, as it were involuntarily. Then again, he too was enjoying himself very much more than ever he had expected: the void was still there, certainly, a blank like the white pages of a book after the word Finis, but it was far down, far beneath his consciousness of the moment.’
Of all the historical novels I’ve read so far by Patrick O’Brian, 'The Surgeon’s Mate' is the one which seems the oddest. Superficially at least, it is not especially unusual. Here again we find Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey, delivered to us in that characteristically nuanced, eloquent, powerful prose style. Aubrey is back in command of a ship, for the most part we’re at sea, and at first glance one might be forgiven for thinking not much has changed. But this book continues the project of the previous story, 'The Fortune of War', in two main respects: it ties up some of the story threads, which is to be expected; but it also persists with a certain melancholic tendency that takes these stories away from being simple tales of naval escapades, and towards something psychologically deeper and more profoundly ambiguous.
(What follows contains major plot spoilers for the main events of the book.)
The book begins shortly after 'The Fortune of War', with the HMS Shannon having defeated the USS Chesapeake in that notorious battle from the war of 1812. Jack, Stephen and Diana are taken back to Halifax by the Shannon, where they receive a rapturous reception. At the end of the last book, Stephen argued that they ought to marry for the convenience of making her a British subject again, but now Diana has cold feet, for reasons which at first remain unclear. Still, apart from an eventful party, it isn’t long before all three are headed back to England via a packet ship — but the Americans don’t intend to let them go quite so easily, and a dramatic chase across the Atlantic ensues. As usual, through a combination of skilful sailing and blind luck, they get away.
We haven’t been back to England in these books since the start of 'Desolation Island'; it feels like it must be years in the book’s universe, though the author’s way of condensing this period in time makes that difficult to judge exactly. Here, though, is the first hint of what will become the dominant tone of this book: a sort of sad, strange, tragicomic atmosphere. When our heroes arrive back in England, they find that the news from America has beaten them home: the victory of the Shannon is treated as a great national victory as a wave of patriotism sweeps the country. Aubrey finds irritating, and irrelevant to the service as he knows it; but stranger for him is to return home to find that his young daughters have grown up and no longer recognise his face. I like this passage where we follow him on his final walk up the drive:
‘The clock struck the quarter, and he walked across the yard, into the house through the kitchen door, through the empty kitchen with its gleaming copper pans, and into the white corridor beyond. In the silence, the clean, light-filled silence, he hardly liked to call, although the house was so familiar, so intimately well known that his hand found the doorknobs of itself: he was not an imaginative man, yet it was as though he had returned from the dead only to find still, sunlit death waiting for him. He looked into the dining-room: silence there, no more. The breakfast-room: neatness, clarity, no sound, no movement at all: automatically his eye glanced at the regulator, the austere clock by which he checked his astronomical observations. It had stopped. His own room, and there was Sophie sitting at his desk with a sea of papers in front of her; and in the second before she looked up from her sum he saw that her face was sad, worried, thinner than before.’
Look at that deliberately archaic phrasing — ‘the hand found the doorknobs of itself’ — today we would say ‘by itself’, but I like the author’s implication that the parts of the house are somehow a part of his body, as though Aubrey’s return home were also somehow a journey inwards. It is a happy reunion between him and his wife Sophie, of course, though somewhat tainted in his mind by memories of his rather torrid affair in Halifax. But otherwise his home country offers little but alienation, artifice and distraction, and so it comes as some relief when Stephen returns from London with a top secret mission for the both of them.
The idea is that they must travel to Grimsholm, a heavily defended island fortress in the Baltic sea that happens to be occupied by soldiers from Catalonia. Stephen must sneak on shore, and convince the garrison to assist the British by peacefully returning home. There’s a great deal of fuss made of the approach to the island, and for many pages it seems that this mission must be the central event of the remainder of the book. We are introduced to Jagiello, a rather jolly young Lithuanian cavalry officer who is absurdly good-looking and has a habit of tripping over his spurs. They sail past both friendly and hostile nordic countries, which at times feels like it rather tests the limits of the author’s formidable cultural knowledge; the best we get is a reference to a local delicacy of salted honey buzzards, and Stephen ranting against the Danes when their mortars obstruct the progress of his beloved eider ducks (‘…It is all of a piece: look at Hamlet’s mother. I only wonder her behaviour caused any comment….’).
For all this, the actual business conducted at Grimsholm is remarkably straightforward. What feels like a tragic escalation is undercut by a few swift comic strokes. A cunning ruse is employed to get Stephen ashore, but once he’s there, the whole thing seems to be over quickly and without much fuss. It helps that the man in charge is actually Stephen’s godfather, which also seems significant at first, but if the reader is prepared for an emotional family reunion, they might be disappointed. A mood of constant peril — the idea that they could all be annihilated at any moment — alternates with a patient cataloguing of well-planned events, and a larking tone that revels in small pleasures.
Of course they are successful: the island is taken without a shot fired in anger. Stephen’s godfather turns out to be an absurd confection, a caricature straight out of Monty Python, yet for all the japes the sense remains with the reader that the only reason our surgeon was willing to take this job in the first place was the idea that it might be a sort of suicide mission:
‘The attempt must either succeed or fail: he hoped with all his heart for success, but ‘all his heart’ did not amount to a great deal now that some essential part of its core seemed to have died. Yet on the other hand he felt more able to command success in that it meant no less to him – to command it with a strength that arose not indeed from a fundamental indifference to his own fate but from something resembling it that he could not define; it had a resemblance to despair, but a despair long past, with the horror taken out of it.’
There’s something reminiscent of Joseph Conrad here; that sense of having confronted one’s own depression and moved beyond it, away from morbidity and towards to some other kind of essential motivation.
So with this great obstacle conquered, what next? The return journey from the Baltic turns out to be a great deal more difficult than the outward journey, not least because the only chronometer on the ship has broken, thus leaving them without a reliable method of precisely determining latitude. Off the coast of France they break from the convoy to join in a pursuit of a French ship, but this time they are outrun. The weather, a significant misjudgement of their location, and a very unfortunate accident involving a sounding line, leads to the Ariel wrecked on the rocks near Brittany.
As gentlemen officers with coin in pocket, Jack, Stephen and Jagiello are treated well, but any chance of escape seems remote after they are transferred to Paris and locked up in the old Temple. Stephen is the one in real danger here. If the authorities realise they have a spy on their hands he will probably be tortured and killed. For a while, the situation seems hopeless; and yet all throughout, despite the dark implications that they might all be going to their deaths, the book maintains an almost whimsical sense of humour. On the way to Paris, for example, Stephen’s main concern is for Jack’s health — not because he has been starved, but because he has been madly overeating at only the finest French taverns on the way to Paris. A dish of undercooked crayfish seals the deal (or rather unseals it) and leaves all except Stephen dashing for the privy on arrival.
All this is especially striking, given that it comes in between Stephen’s rather sullen meditations on his own possible end, either at the hand of another or his own: he now carries a hidden capsule of poison strong enough to end his own life in a moment, if he should so choose. The worst of it comes when Johnson arrives, his rage still fresh from the events of The Fortune of War, and implicates Stephen directly. He’s thrown in the worst cell in the prison, where he can look out on the world from a tiny window below street level:
‘Standing there he saw the sun go down, the sky turn nacreous so that the roofs beyond the court took on the sharpness of a silhouette: the pallor deepened to an exquisite violet; the outlines vanished, lights appeared and in an uncurtained room beyond the stake he saw a man and woman eating their evening meal. They ate awkwardly, because they were holding hands, and at one point they leaned over the table and kissed. There were also stars, a sprinkling of small-dust and one great unwinking planet that sloped diagonally down the sky by imperceptible degrees, slanting past a gable before it was lost behind the roofs: Venus perhaps. He felt the ampulla in his cheek – undying mortal sin except by casuistry – and although he had long thought prayer in time of danger indecent, prayers sang in his mind, the long hypnotic cadences of plainchant imploring protection for his love.’
The scene could not be a more obvious allegory for emotional distance, yet it seems entirely appropriate for Stephen; and for this author, who so often sets his most emotionally intense scenes at the same kind of remove.
Diana’s refusal to marry him is the event that haunts Stephen throughout this novel; her rejection cements his idea of himself as belonging to a race apart from the rest of mankind. Hamlet is mentioned a good few times in the story, and though the story never directly adopts the story of that play, a great many parallels are quietly introduced. Stephen is the ever-doubting prince draped in black, searching perhaps for a father figure at Grimsholm, and though he has little of Hamlet’s crippling uncertainty, all throughout this book is that same uncertainty as to whether he ought to bother go on living. To extend the comparison further, one could even argue that the Ophelia figure is not Diana, but Jack. He evens mentioned having played her once, while a junior midshipman, when he sang her song with his back to the audience — all the better to show off his long blonde hair, perhaps — ‘…it all ended unhappy, as I recall,’ he muses.
Jack would never sing and scatter herbs at Stephen’s feet, of course. But he does have something of Ophelia’s obsessive devotion in relation to his friend. The emotional balance of their relationship is far from equal; frequently it feels as though Jack needs Stephen far more than Stephen needs him. For Stephen, death is entirely conceivable, even courted; but it often feels like Jack would gladly sacrifice himself in order to save his friend, if necessary. When Stephen first visits Grimsholm, Jack stays all night high in the maintop, wrapped in his cloak, till dawn arrives with the first sign of his fate. Would Stephen do the same for Jack, if he were ever in such a position? I’m not sure.
And what a cruel joke it is on Jack that Diana should be the one to rescue them from the Temple in the book’s final chapters. She gave up one of her prize diamonds to secure the attention and favour of a royalist faction, who effect their disappearance and spirit them away from the city. In the end, they walk out the prison by the front door, rather than via the elaborate rigging of a homemade block and pulley system that Jack spends hundreds of hours fashioning through a hole dug in the wall of their toilet. Of course he gives away nothing in the way of disappointment — certainly he is grateful to Diana — but perhaps we might feel he has been usurped in his relationship with Stephen. There’s something rather sad about the sight of him and Babbington discussing naval trivialities in a stage whisper to drown out the sound of Diana and Stephen arguing below decks in the final scenes; but how fitting it is that he should be the one to give Diana away at their subsequent hurried marriage while crossing the channel.
It took me a while to realise the pun embedded in the title. Titling a book The Surgeon’s Mate initially suggests a deputy, but of course the only ‘mate’ to emerge here is Diana. It’s an oddly fitting term, given Stephen’s stoic and strangely conflicted attitude to betrothal here; in romantic terms, he is only able to express himself in the guise of a man of rationality. At one point, he is consulted by one of his superiors about a matter of sexual dysfunction, wherein Stephen suggests it might be preferable to simply give up sex altogether:
‘When a man looks about him, surely he sees that in general the pain outweighs the pleasure? Your own Horace begged Venus to spare him – parce, precor, precor. Is not peace the greatest good? Calm rather than storms? I once sailed with a young man well versed in Chinese, and I remember his quoting a passage from the Analects of Confucius in which the sage congratulated himself on having reached the time of obedient ears, the time at which he could do whatever his heart moved him to do without the least transgression of the moral law. And Origen, as you recall, struck off the offending member, and returned to purer contemplations, undisturbed…’
That’s how our physician would like to feel about it, anyway; but the patient’s gentle riposte is secretly a perfectly weighted summary of how Stephen actually feels about it:
‘…it may be that you do not know from experience that the absence of a torment may be a worse torment still: you may wish to throw a hair-shirt aside, not realising that it is the hair-shirt alone that keeps you warm.’
A hair shirt would be putting it lightly. Until now he has always put marriage to Diana as a purely practical measure, yet he does love her deeply, and the unrequited natured of their relationship renders him almost suicidal at times. He is a black hole of sorts: he absorbs love from Jack and affection from Diana, but is unable to express anything like the same in return.
I’m not sure how convenient it is that she should suddenly pull him and his companions out of the prison in Paris; this seems to me like an authorial contrivance too far, as artificial as Jack’s absurd system for abseiling down the prison walls. Perhaps in reality Stephen might have gone to the firing squad, much like the less fortunate spy he glimpses from a window at one point. But even if it isn’t entirely fair to history, it’s appropriate in the way that it seems to answer Stephen’s quiet faith; his prayers are finally answered, providing another chance at redemption for his lonely, sinful soul. Here is an author who believes such a man ought to be given another chance at happiness, even if it doesn’t always seem like he deserves it. -
Darlings! As sweet and as charming as usual. I’m not going to do as detailed a review as I’m just going to be saying the same things I always do - I love the history, I love the style, and I love the characters. I totally respect that Patrick O’Brian’s whole vibe is ‘oh, you don’t understand what I’m talking about? Tough! Learn it!’. It’s such a good way to throw you into the world of the narrative and give such a rich and detailed atmosphere.
Okay, so some personal highlights from this one:
-The Ariel chase in the English Channel. Classic Patrick O’Brian! I have missed these sea battles so much as this and the previous book were pretty much all set in the USA and involved more politicking. It’s like we rattled through so many years in the series before, and then we slow down a bit with the time expanse here. Not a problem when you love the characters so much though. Still, I loved this big exciting chase, and it was everything I adored about the first few books.
-The final chapter in the prison. It was funny to see the difference between how this captivity segment and the one from Sharpe’s Tiger, which I read not long ago, was played out. This is so low-key but just as exciting and tense.
-Captain Babbington!! I’m always so happy when Jack’s former crew mates turn up, and have been promoted!
-Stephen and Jagiello. They made such a fun pair, and I loved Jack’s exasperation with them on the sea, another clueless sailor for him to deal with. But when Stephen started explaining sea terminology to Jagiello, I was so proud of my darling. I love how as the series goes on, Jack and Stephen start crossing-over in their interests.
-The scenes with Amanda Smith. I did want to slap Jack upside his head for cheating on Sophie and emulating his hero Nelson a bit TOO much in that vein, but I have to admit that Amanda did make me laugh because her ‘Oh, I do so LOVE Admiral Nelson!’ was such a mood. -
The Surgeon’s Mate is the 7th Aubrey/Maturin Royal Navy story set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. It is 1812 and there is a new war with the USA. Aubrey and Maturin have escaped on board the HMS Shannon and been present during the battle with USS Chesapeake. From Canada, Aubrey and Maturin make their way back to Britain where more dilemmas await each man’s careful consideration. As a Captain at sea, Jack Aubrey is tremendous. On land, he seems to become a bit of a buffoon. Quite by accident. These land capers get him into all sorts of trouble and often his devoted wife Sophie and his good friend Maturin are the ones who seem to get him out of such vexations. Usually, a ship’s command turns up on time and he can get away from it all with a high sea adventure.
This story moves along the same lines as Aubrey and Maturin go on a mission in the Baltic. In this sea is a fortified island manned by Catalans. Maturin is half Catalan and half Irish. To persuade the garrison to surrender and ally with Britain against Napoleon is the aim of the British government. Maturin is selected to do this and he wishes Aubrey to command the sloop, HMS Ariel, upon the mission. Once again, Maturin is up to his neck at sea where Aubrey can always pull something out of the bag for him. Also, the elegant and tantalising Diane Villiers is still in the story. She becomes more dashing with her gloriously refined roguish elegance and sincere support for her country. The whole saga takes another fabulous step forward. A peach of a read. I can’t wait for the next story in this wonderful chronicle of seafarers. -
This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.
In The Surgeon's Mate, Jack's affairs ashore are in a tangle (to say the least) and Stephen helps both practically and by requesting that Jack be the captain commanding a tricky intelligence mission in the Baltic. The subsequent action and thoughtful developments are, as always, thrilling and engrossing.
Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.
I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff. -
In
The Surgeon's Mate,
Patrick O'Brian finally brings the long journey of the previous few books to a conclusion. Aubrey, Maturin, and Diana escape North America, pursued by Johnson's hired fleet. The homecoming back to England is bittersweet: Jack's children don't recognize him, and he still has the problem of Kimber and his growing entourage to resolve. A moral lapse in Halifax has also brought new problems into Jack's life.But the tragic hero of the grand narrative at this point is Stephen. Having never fully understood his emotions when he loved Diana in his youth, he is now even more bewildered by the changes of his heart as he and Diana grow older and the youthful passions and attractions become something different. Stephen remains ready to marry Diana, but now it seems almost a cold, functional marriage, without the deep longing and romance of before. In The Surgeon's Mate, Stephen is forced to confront his reason and logic and begin a journey of reconnecting his heart and mind. By this point in the series, Stephen has become an old friend for whom I, as a reader, care deeply. So it is quite painful to see Stephen's struggles; conversations like this, with the young Dr. Fabre, cause tears to gather in my eyes:
"Just as well," observed Stephen. "There are far, far too many children as it is."
"Oh, surely, sir . . . " cried Dr Fabre, who had five, with another due in a few weeks' time.
"Surely, sir," said Stephen, "no thinking man will deliberately entail life upon still another being in this overcrowded world perpetually at war?"
"Perhaps, sir," suggested Fabre, "not all children are deliberately begotten?"
"No," said Stephen. "If men were to consider what they were at – if they were to look about them, and reflect upon the cost of life in a universe where prisons, brothels, madhouses, and regiments of men armed and trained to kill other men are so very common – why, I doubt we should see many of these poor mewling little larval victims, so often a present misery to their parents and a future menace to their kind."
Tears gathered in the young man's eyes . . . (333-334)In such conversations Stephen anticipates Ebenezer Scrooge's “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” But we also know by this point that O'Brian will not let his characters remain as they are for very long, so we have hope that Stephen will find a true affection for mankind. In fact, by the end of The Surgeon's Mate, Diana herself will push Stephen into a corner, demanding some sign of a soft heart, and Stephen's response is, we hope, the beginning of his journey back.
This has been a long, long journey for Aubrey and Maturin, with many sea battles, several prisons, and unbelievable emotional and psychological stress. I find it exhilarating and look forward to the next part of the story.
My reviews of the Aubrey/Maturin series:
Master and Commander
Post Captain
H.M.S. Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbour
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
Clarissa Oakes
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
The Hundred Days
Blue at the Mizzen
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