Another wonderful O'Brian novel | The Commodore (Vol. Book 17) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)

Good enough to make me glad it wasn't the last! | The Commodore (Vol. Book 17) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) | Patrick O'Brian

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	• The Commodore (Vol. Book 17) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels) Patrick O'Brian W. W. Norton & Company, 1996 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Home Again To Become Commodore.

This is the continuing sea-faring heroes' tale as they venture to Ireland after their last assignment to the Gulf of Guinea to suppress the slave trade. The two central characters are Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the ship's surgeon, who uses his resourcefulness as a secret intelligence agent as a second profession. Alas, his little girl, Brigid, appears to be autistic, incapable of speech or contact, but it could be caused by the disiappearance of her mother -- as was the case of the child in the movie, The Patriot.'

In this one, Jack has been promoted; "I shall be a 'first-class' commodore" promised by Melville. This is about early 19th century naval life filled with varied characters on the ships with all the quirks and dialects possible. This adventure is "one of those great fleet actions on which the supremacy of the British Navy was founded." They have a direct confrontation with the French navy. It is an imagined world you don't want to leave, like Terry Webber's performance of both Booth and Lincoln in the one-man performance of 'Killing Lincoln,' I told him "I didn't want you to stop; I wanted you to go on and on and on."

'New York Times Book Review' calls this series "the best historical novel ever written." That may be stretching it some as I feel that way about Jack Finney's stories. American Navy had its own Admiral Farragut after whom a building in Knoxville is named, also a suburb which is becoming a town of its own.

John Ferguson calls O'Brian "a lyric poet working in epic form" which is an adequate comparison with Homer's "Odyssey." James Hamilton wrote in 'New Republic' that Patric O'Brian is 'the Homer of the Napoleonic wars." He has seventeen sequential novels about these two seamen pals, which are brilliantly written. I am wondering, will there be a number eighteen?

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Another wonderful O'Brian novel

I am slowly reading my way through the entire set of Aubrey-Maturin novels. It has been one of the most enjoyable reading experiences of my life. The stories are compelling, the characters are extremely well developed, and the prose is vivid. Recommended to anyone who likes to read.

Good enough to make me glad it wasn't the last!

Amended review: This ISN'T the last of the series! WOO HOO! I found that there are three more titles, and an unfinished one as well, plus a fellow named Dean King has put together an atlas and a dictionary of terms based on the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Whew. The Commodore ended well enough to cap off the series, but there is more to know about the characters, and I want to spend more time with them.

The last and one of the best of the Captain Aubrey series. O'Brian writes with an urgency like a ship flying across the ocean under full sails. He drives headlong right to the happy ending, resolving the last loose end (involving Stephen and Diane) on the last page.

Good enough to wish it wasn't the last.

Eighteenth in the series: The Yellow Admiral (O'Brian, Patrick, Aubrey/Maturin Novels, 18.)

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A more somber and reflective Aubrey & Maturin novel.

The seventeenth installment of the Aubrey/Maturin series is vintage O'Brian. Those who seek mere relentless thrills and action will be disappointed. By contrast, those who enjoy a novel that flawlessly fuses historically accurate fleet actions in the Age of Sail with meditations on the nature of friendship, love, fine music, literature, wine and all that makes life worth living will come away as fulfilled as could be expected from any book in this wonderful series.

"The Commodore" finds Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., and his friend Stephen Maturin, back in England after a prolonged, around-the-world voyage. For both, their respective home-comings are, at best bittersweet. Though substantially enriched from their last expedition, the two friends must confront personal and family challenges that are awkward at best, and, in Stephen's case, painful at worst. Over a decade has passed since the naval officer and the medical doctor/naturalist/intelligence agent had met in Port Mahon just before the Peace of Amiens. Sixteen novels later, in the waning months of the Napoleonic wars, we find them not only older, but more reflective and serious. Jack is now a Commodore, commanding a powerful squadron and charged with a complicated dual mission that will take him from England to the coast of West Africa and later, to the shores of Ireland. Stephen, his private life as complicated as ever, finds himself enmeshed in intelligence-related intrigues that threaten to reach far, far too close to home. For all that, the novel's dominant ambiance is never opressive. True to form, O'Brian provides his readers with plenty of flashes of humor and levity that pierce the somber clouds that now and again gather over the heads of the protagonists. There is a happy ending -- of sorts. As is always the case in the Aubrey/Maturin novels, the nature of happiness is always somewhat ambivalent, perhaps fleeting. But, then again, is that not true in real life?

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The Aubrey-Maturin series is simply the best fiction ever written

Patrick O'Brian's "The Commodore" is the seventeenth book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. The Aubrey-Maturin books are quite simply the best fiction I've ever read. I enjoy them so much that I find it difficult to read any other fiction now.

Although there are twenty (completed) Aubrey-Maturin novels, in a sense they are one long, unending story. O'Brian tells the story of an unlikely pair of friends in early 19th century Britain: a hard-charging Royal Navy captain and an Irish physician and naturalist (and British spy). Both are devoted, for different reasons, to the fight against Napoleonic France. Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin are dedicated friends, and the interplay between this unlikely pair is ranges from deep philosophical discussions to intended and unintended humor.

But what really makes these novels is Patrick O'Brian's writing style. Through his words, he paints wonderful pictures and creates real characters in brilliant narratives; which is good, because Aubrey and many of his exploits are based on real-life adventures during the Napoleonic Wars.

In "The Commodore," Aubrey leads a fleet of Royal Navy ships to the coast of Africa to interdict the slave trade. Aubrey has to deal with the internal problems of his fleet while also leading a successful campaign against African traders. Finally, Aubrey leads the fleet north to stop a French invasion of Ireland. This is a fabulous book, but I recommend that everyone with any interest in historical fiction or the Royal Navy read the entire series in order.

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On a strange decoy mission to the disease-ridden lagoons of the Gulf of New Guinea, Captain Aubrey and secret intelligence agent Maturin are ordered to suppress the slave trade, but the French are mounting an invasion that will give the men added problems. Reprint.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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