Volume 38, Number 18 · November 7, 1991
In Which We Serve
By John Bayley
BOOKS BY PATRICK O'BRIAN DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
Master and Commander
Norton, 412 pp., $9.95 (paper)
Post Captain
Norton, 496 pp., $9.95 (paper)
HMS Surprise
Norton, 379 pp., $9.95 (paper)
The Mauritius Command
Norton, 348 pp., $9.95 (paper)
Desolation Island
Norton, 325 pp., $9.95 (paper)
The Fortune of War
Norton, 329 pp., $9.95 (paper)
The Surgeon's Mate
Fontana, 382 pp., £3.99 (paper)
The Ionian Mission
Fontana, 367 pp., £4.50 (paper)
Treason's Harbour
Fontana, 334 pp., £3.99 (paper)
The Far Side of the World
Fontana, 366 pp., £3.99 (paper)
The Reverse of the Medal
Fontana, 287 pp., £3.99 (paper)
The Letter of Marque
Norton, 284 pp., $18.95
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
Norton, 319 pp., $19.95
The Nutmeg of Consolation
Norton, 315 pp., $19.95
In Aldous Huxley's first novel, Crome Yellow, a man of action recounts an escapade of his youth, and comments that such things are only really agreeable to look back on after the event. Nothing is exciting as it happens. Warriors in heroic times only knew what they had been through when they heard about it from the bard in the mead-hall. Armchair warriors who have never performed such feats can nonetheless become connoisseurs of them at second hand. In the same way, it is possible to become an expert on the apparatus of the old-time naval world—backstays and top-gallants, twenty-four pounders and hardtack—without having the faintest idea how to fire a gun, reef a sail, or fother a ship's bottom. Naval novels today are unique among the genre in this engaging respect: author and reader are alike innocent of the experience graphically conveyed by the one and eagerly appreciated by the other.
Review, 3077 words
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