The Nutmeg of Consolation - Hardcover

O'Brian, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393030326 ISBN 13: 9780393030327

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991

Synopsis

"[The series shows] a joy in language that jumps from every page....You're in for a wonderful voyage."―Cutler Durkee, People

Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Aubrey, surgeon and secret intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Diane fashion a schooner from the wreck. A vicious attack by Malay pirates is repulsed, but the makeshift vessel burns, and they are truly marooned. Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and ingenuity of Patrick O'Brian―or Stephen Maturin―could devise.

In command now of a new ship, the Nutmeg, Aubrey pursues his interrupted mission. The dreadful penal colony in New South Wales, harrowingly described, is the backdrop to a diplomatic crisis provoked by Maturin's Irish temper, and to a near-fatal encounter with the wildlife of the Australian outback.

About this title

About the Author

One of our greatest contemporary novelists, Patrick O’Brian is the author of the twenty volumes of the best-selling Aubrey/Maturin series, as well as many other books, including Testimonies, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore, and biographies of Joseph Banks and Picasso.

Reviews

Readers will welcome the reappearance here of elegant Stephen Maturin, one hero of O'Brian's excellent 19th-century seafarer series. Maturin is a ship's doctor, naturalist, spy, musician, ex-opium eater and, we're reminded here, terrific swordsman. His "brother" is Capt. Jack Aubrey, RN, MP, popular hero for his success against Napoleon, less introspective but as subtly drawn as Maturin and as avid a musician. Last seen in The Thirteen-Gun Salute the two were shipwrecked on a barren isle in the South China Sea. After a bitter fight with Dyaks and Malays they reach Batavia, where Governor Raffles gives Aubrey the eponymic Dutch sloop ("a tight, sweet, newly-coppered, broad-buttocked litle ship, a solace to any man's heart") to continue his circumnavigation of the globe. As usual the chief joys are in the details of the food, drink and clothes of the era, with those of the rain forests, kangaroos and platypuses added here. On the other hand, early Sydney's squalor is matched by its brutality.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Another in O'Brian's stylish epic series devoted to the exploits of Captain Jack Aubrey, his close friend and traveling companion Dr. Steven Maturin, and the men who share their ships-- and their adventures--on the high seas of a world nearly two centuries gone. We pick up Aubrey and the crew right where we left them in The Thirteen Gun Salute (p. 496), shipwrecked in the South China Sea after having seen the British envoy they had been carrying sent to a watery grave as a result of his impetuous actions. After a bloody battle with Aborigine invaders and an unexpected rescue, Aubrey is given command of the small Dutch ship whose name serves as the title of this volume. He then overtakes and tricks a French frigate into following him to his rendezvous with his beloved man-of-war, Surprise, leading to the capture of the enemy ship forthwith. Then it's off to the Solomon Islands, where the seagoers rescue two young girls from an island stricken with smallpox, and ultimately to Sydney, where Maturin is provoked into a duel, complicating relationships with officials ashore (as do the two rescued children). The doctor, who is somewhat bemused throughout by his apparently fallen fortunes (thanks to a banking decision made in the previous novel), is, as always, the tale's most interesting character and constantly preoccupied with flora, fauna, and good conversation, not to mention the sumptuous food and drink that he and Aubrey seem to enjoy even in the midst of battle. Witty, literate, and engaging--as Aubrey himself might say, ``capital work indeed.'' -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The latest of O'Brian's many novels of the sea, this is an intriguing story about an early 19th-century British ship as it voyages through the South China Sea. On their way back from concluding a treaty with a local potentate, Captain Jack Aubrey and his crew go through a series of adventures, including shipwreck and a battle with a French frigate. They end up amidst the cruelty of Botany Bay, the penal colony in New South Wales. The crew are, on the whole, a dignified bunch, and some of the characters are very well drawn, including Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the ship's Irish doctor and naturalist. Some of the best parts of the book are the descriptions of the flora and fauna of the area, and O'Brian certainly knows his stuff about 19th-century seamanship (although landlubber readers may find themselves confused by some of the technical terminology). Recommended for public libraries.
- Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393030326
• ISBN 13: 9780393030327
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320