Blue at the Mizzen - Softcover

Patrick O'Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0002261286 ISBN 13: 9780002261289

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999

Synopsis

The much anticipated Aubrey-Maturin novel. 'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.' KEVIN MYERS, Irish Times 'If we had only two or three of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, we would count ourselves lucky; with six or seven the author would be safely among the greats of historical fiction...This is great writing by an undiminished talent. Now on to Volume Twenty, and the liberation of Chile.' WILLIAM WALDEGRAVE, Literary Review This is the twentieth book in Patrick O'Brian's highly acclaimed, bestselling series chronicling the adventures of lucky Jack Aubrey and his best friend Stephen Maturin, part ship's doctor, part secret agent. The novel's stirring action follows on from that of The Hundred Days. Napoleon's hundred days of freedom and his renewed threat to Europe have ended at Waterloo and Aubrey has finally, as the title suggests, become a blue level admiral. He and Maturin have -- at last -- set sail on their much postponed mission to Chile. Vivid with the salty tang of life at sea, O'Brian's writing is as powerful as ever whether he writes of naval hierarchies, night-actions or the most celebrated fictional friendship since that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Blue at the Mizzen also brings alive the sights and sounds of revolutionary South America in a story as exciting as any O'Brian has written.

About this title

Review:

Almost three decades after commencing his maritime epic with Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian is still at it. The 20th episode, Blue at the Mizzen, is another swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, complete with romantic escapades from smoggy London to Sierra Leone, diplomacy, espionage, the intricacies of warfare, and imperial brinksmanship. As always, these events are bound up in the ongoing friendship between two officers of the Royal Navy. Jack Aubrey is the naval captain, bold yet compassionate, innovative yet cautious, as fearless in war as he is bumbling in affairs of the heart and household. His boon companion Stephen Maturin is the ship's surgeon--and additionally a spy for the British government, a wealthy Catalonian aristocrat, a doting Irish father, and an avid naturalist.

That may sound like a lot to keep track of. However, it's not necessary to carry around a scorecard or ship's roster while reading Blue at the Mizzen. The ostensible issue is whether Jack will finally be promoted to Admiral of the Blue. But long before he hears any word from the Napoleonic era's equivalent of Personnel, he loses half his crew to desertion, his ship undergoes a disastrous collision, and the entire company comes close to perishing in the ice-choked seas off Cape Horn. Meanwhile, the widowed Maturin issues a surprising proposal of marriage to a beautiful, mud-bespattered fellow naturalist while trekking through an African mangrove swamp. (The two lovebirds happen to be searching for a rare variant of Caprimulgus longipennis, the long-tailed nightjar, which they hope to surprise in full mating plumage.)

Still, this is hardly a plot-driven novel. O'Brian takes time to get anywhere, and invariably enjoys the journey more than the arrival. So even as we get constant hints of the climax to come--Jack's spectacular naval action on behalf of the infant Republic of Chile--we don't mind hearing about the nuances of shipboard existence or the secret life of the white-faced tree duck. We're treated, for example, to this snippet about managed care, circa 1816:

Poll, Maggie and a horse-leech from the starboard watch have been administering enemas to the many, many cases of gross surfeit that have now replaced the frostbites, torsions, and debility of the recent past, the very recent past. Strong, fresh, seal-meat has not its equal for upsetting the seaman's metabolism: he is much better kept on biscuits, Essex cheese, and a very little well-seethed salt pork--kept on short commons.

And we're grateful! We can only hope that the elderly author will favor us with at least one more novel, so that his avid followers can avoid their own form of short commons. Life without Aubrey and Maturin would be a deprivation indeed. --Andrew Himes

From the Inside Flap:

Read by Tim Pigott-Smith
Three Cassettes, 5 Hours

The 20th and final installment in the Aubrey/Maturin series.

Napoleon has been defeated at Waterloo, and the ensuing peace takes on an ugly complexion for Jack Aubrey: drunken, violent celebrations on the English sailors in Gibraltar; the desertion of nearly half his crew; and the sudden dimming of his own career prospects in a peacetime navy.  To cap it all off, the Surprise is nearly sunk in a shattering night collision on the first leg of her journey to South America, where Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are to help Chile assert her independence from Spain.  In the end, Jack's bold initiative to strike at the vastly superior Spanish fleet precipitates naval action that will determine both Chile's fate and his own.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0002261286
• ISBN 13: 9780002261289
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320