Spike It!

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Today, I finished "Master and Commander" by Patrick O'Brian. I bought it to read years and years ago--back when O'Brian was still alive, back before the movie was in pre-production. My friend, Jean Sherrard, had mentioned the Aubrey-Maturin series as a "great" series of books. He'd read them all to that point--his friend John Ciscoe runs a book store in the University District--and would tell me of the excitement of John's regulars every time a new O'Brian came in.

"Well," I thought. "I've got to start reading these books."

So I bought "Master and Commander," the first of the series, many years ago. And I started to read it. Started. But I believe over four years of fits and starts I hadn't made it past page 15. Figuratively (and literally in the book) I never made it out of port.

(Start of the world's longest aside. You may skip ahead if you so desire.)

I do this. It took me 15 years to make it through "Dune," by Frank Herbert, a book I now love dearly, but there was something daunting about it (probably the appendices) that I never really got out of the first chapter.

Same with "The Lord of the Rings." I read "The Hobbit" in grade school, and have a vague memory of loving it, so I got the rest of the books. When I started "The Fellowship," I just got bogged down in the twee of it all. In fact, I grew to hate "Fellowship" and the rest of the Rings books because of my failure to get "into" the first few pages...plus, it had all those appendices, too. Twenty years later (!)I started reading to my wife at night, before she went to sleep, and I thought "Hey! "Lord of the Rings' is safe! And it'll give me an excuse to pound through it." Well, it was torture. The first few chapters of the start of the journey are a maddening repetition of the travails over glen and heather, through woods and briar, through the valley, and over the hill past the shier and over the brook and through the glade and beyond the NEXT hill and OVER THE BEND and blah de blah de blah de elvish blah. I felt like the thing wasn't going to go anywhere if Tolkien was determined to describe every "f...ing"* leaf the little nutters walked by. Plus, I felt that all the little hairy-footed characters were basically interchangeable...I didn't like Merry and Pippin and I wanted to put the smack-down on Sam Gamgee. And THEN! And then they come across the extraordinarily pedantic (especially for a tree) Tom Bombadill. That nearly did me in. I have no love of hobbit poetry but that section made me want to reach for the insulin syringe. Gah! But we got through it. And I read "The Two Towers" at a quickening pace. By the time I got into "The Return of the King," I was hooked, and when the penultimate moment of the Quest happened, I just stopped with my mouth agape. "Tolkien, you bastard!" I said out loud. "THIS is how you end it?" And I snapped through the rest of it in awe. And was heart-broken when it was over...so I started reading all of the appendices, and came away with a realization of why the crazy cultists of the book are crazy cultists.

(End of the World's Longest Aside)

Since, moving to the Island, I've been watching little television, and reading more. The ferry has provided ample opportunity, and I've found myself anticipating picking up the O'Brian. When I had dinner with Walaka and Otis, I mentioned in conversation that I was reading it and it was tough-going reading a novel with English as a foreign language. The nautical terms and arcana were a tough slog for me, but I determined early on during this pass that I would keep my mainsail to the wind and just keep ploughing through. And it's been fun. In fact, I was getting looks from the folks at the laundromat today as I giggled my way through the outcome of the battle of the Sophie and the Desaix off the coast of Gibraltar. And I was sorry to see it end.

Here's my favorite part of the book:

'To tell you the truth, sir' said Jack, looking over the sea at the
towering rock, 'I am quite sure they will attack. And you will forgive me for saying, that when you reckon up the forces in presence, it seems clear that we shall all be in Gibraltar tonight. I confess I am heartily glad of it, for it will allow me to repay a little of the great kindness I have met with here.'
Master and Commander, p. 382 W.W. Norton

I read that, and I genuinely laughed out loud at the sublime absurdity of it. The sincerity of the words (they are genuinely meant without a trace of irony) are absolutely thrilling reminders of the civility that O'Brian infuses into his Royal Navy (and a good many of their foes) during the time of Nelson. If only it were so. One wants to return to this world again and again.

But for me, it's onto "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose, and then I'll start checking the second-hand book shops for one of the John D. MacDonald "colors" I haven't read (I'm sure there must be a couple).

While I was looking for a cover shot of the book, I came across an appreciation of O'Brian by no less than David Mamet. It reminded me I need to get around to finishing the last third of "Absolute Friends," too.

* falling, of course