I came to this one because I was intrigued by the Patrick O'Brian story, a writer laboring for decades in obscurity, only to have fame and fortune find him in his last years, with barely enough time left him to enjoy the fruits of it all. And yet he was a writer with a secret past, a man of irascible personality who shunned publicity though welcoming fame and the honors bestowed on him in the end.
Mr. King has done justice to this tale and this man, giving us some interesting insights into O'Brian and the artistic process of writing itself. He tells the tale of a young man, growing up in a troubled household, with a penchant for writing and a markedly artistic temperament, who strikes out on his own, only to reinvent himself early on, severing all ties to the family of his youth and even to the wife and children of his early adult years. Hard to forgive, one would think. And yet King's version is so compassionate and respectful that we do forgive . . . in spite of the fact that Mr. O'Brian not only deserted his dying child and first wife but remained cut off from his only son, no less than his parents and brothers and sisters, for the remainder of his long life, hurting these people by his cold dismissal of them in the process.
And yet, you have to respect the man himself, a writer who dedicated himself so much to his own vision, to his art. He was, apparently, not a cruel man though he did cruel things. He sought only the privacy and solitude required to do his work, a work which brought him precious little in the way of material reward until the end but which impelled him to substantial achievement regardless of tangible benefits left unrealized.
King gives us a very good picture of the maturing man who was O'Brian (both after he changed his name legally and before) as well as a close-up view of the man's devotion to, and developing, artistic skills. First and foremost, this O'Brian (who, enmeshed in his own "cover story", claimed to be Irish, but wasn't) was a craftsman. Secondly he was a perfectionist who labored over his own work until he had it just right. Finally he was a man with his own special vision who wrote, in the end, a series of sea stories which would transcend their obvious genre and finally bring him the recognition he did not achieve with his more mainstream literary novels.
I must confess, however, that I am not a fan of the sea stories . . . not yet at least. I am, at the moment, laboring with the first one I picked up, THE WINE DARK SEA, selected, I think, because it was the first book of his which I learned about some years back in a New York Times book review (though it is smack in the middle of the series) and because I found it, ( ) and perhaps because I was taken with the Homeric allusion of the title. But, thus far, it has not grabbed me, despite all the hullaballo about the series of which it is a part. It has an oddly abstract quality which, despite all the detail O'Brian has imbued his somewhat dense and sophisticated text with, somehow fails to convey the immediacy of life on board the Surprise among the crewmen who inhabit it. There is no real sense of the wind in the hair or the salt in the mouth (though there is plenty of reference to these, among other facts of life at sea). In the end, it's a tale told largely through the internal musings of the main characters, the outside world viewed palely through this "lense", a tale of manners on an 18th century English vessel, with lots of conversation and dinners and musical performances to wile away the hours, but not much plot or action (besides its obvious lack of immediacy of experience). So far, the characters have remained mysteriously distant to me and the tale, while mildly interesting and even charming, is decidedly not compelling. But, based on this biography by Mr. King, I expect it will get better.
If it doesn't work in the end, I shall first of all blame myself and go off to the first in the series and try to enter this world which O'Brian has so famously rendered by that route instead. Afterall, 50 million Frenchmen, give or take a few, and the American and British reading publics besides (not to mention Mr. King, himself) can't be entirely wrong.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from other countries
CB
To read the book makes the man even more of ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2015
Carlosdiver
A tough read for those who loved the Captain Aubrey series
Reviewed in Canada on July 27, 2016