Discussion: Master & Commander (Aubrey/Maturin #1)

[CRussel]

The first book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series finds our two protagonists in Port Mahon, on the Spanish island of Menorca, as they are about to meet for the first time.

Lieutenant Jack Aubrey is without a ship, and Stephen Maturin, physician and soon to be Jack's surgeon, is without the wherewithal to pay his landlady, or buy his next meal. As the book opens, chance has them sitting side by side in a drawing room listening to Locatelli's C Major quartet and being thoroughly displeased with each other.


From the Amazon description:

The beginning of the sweeping Aubrey-Maturin series. "The best sea story I have ever read."—Sir Francis Chichester


This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Details of a life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson's navy are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.

Please use this thread to discuss Master and Commander as you read it. Rather than wait to open the discussion until everyone has had an opportunity to read the entire book, we'll open the thread early so you can comment as you go on. Please exercise appropriate discretion to avoid spoiling too much too quickly, of course, but honestly, we want to hear what you think. Whether it's about the actual book, or the specifics of a particular version of the book. (Some of us are listening to audio versions, of which there are at least four that I'm aware of.)


Master and Commander is 457 pages long, and is available at:

Amazon US (WhisperSync Enabled)
Amazon CA
Amazon UK (WhisperSync Enabled)
Audible (Patrick Tull narration)
Audible UK (Ric Jerrom narration)
Kobo US (couponable in the US; not available in Canada)
Kobo UK
Overdrive eBook
OverDrive Audiobook (Simon Vance narration)

Let the discussion begin!

[CRussel]

OK, I admit, I'm excited. I know, that's not cool. But I don't care. I haven't read these books in years, so I'm really looking forward to a chance to revisit them and discuss them with everyone.

I've just barely started, switching back and forth between the eBook and both the Vance and Tull audio books. I'm going to try to mostly listen to the Vance version, just because it's not my old, familiar favourite. I'm already noticing the difference in pacing, and the very different voice of Stephen Maturin. Overall, the Patrick Tull version has gravitas. It feels like Tull is telling me a story. OTOH, the Simon Vance version is somewhat lighter, and it feels like Vance is reading me a story.

This opening scene says so much about the two characters that we come to understand in more depth later. It's a well written scene, IMO. And from this rather unpromising start to their relationship, a deep and abiding friendship develops that will span decades and many challenges.

[issybird]

This is a little embarrassing, but I'll share it. Sitting down to the beginning of this series evoked for me the times when I was an adolescent that I'd reread Gone with the Wind. I'd open the book with a happy inner sigh, looking forward to all the pleasures I knew were ahead of me. This was the same feeling.

I'm also switching among the same three versions as Charlie. Objectively speaking, I think Vance does a better Aubrey and Tull does a better Maturin. But where Charlie likes Tull's gravitas, I like Vance's humor. It's funnier when Vance reads it.

[CRussel]

OK, and how many of us have gone looking for Locatelli's C Major Quartet yet?

There are several wonderful compilations of the music that is mentioned in the various Aubrey/Maturin novels, but none of them contain this most seminal work.

Spoiler:

Personally, I suspect this of being Locatelli's TRIO in C Major, transcribed for the available musicians. Because Locatelli never wrote any quartets, so far as modern musicologists can determine. And I also suspect O'Brian of having a bit of fun with us.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

This is a little embarrassing, but I'll share it. Sitting down to the beginning of this series evoked for me the times when I was an adolescent that I'd reread Gone with the Wind. I'd open the book with a happy inner sigh, looking forward to all the pleasures I knew were ahead of me. This was the same feeling.

I'm also switching among the same three versions as Charlie. Objectively speaking, I think Vance does a better Aubrey and Tull does a better Maturin. But where Charlie likes Tull's gravitas, I like Vance's humor. It's funnier when Vance reads it.

I find both versions funny, though I think you're right that the Vance is more obviously so. But there's a certain scene in a later book when Jack and Stephen are trying to escape from France to Spain that may well be one of the funniest ever. I'm looking forward to listening to both versions then.

[jgaiser]

Nearly done. Jack writing letters after

Spoiler:

capturing the Cacafuego

. Tried Patrick Tull again. Still doesn't work for me.

It's been a couple of years since I first read M&C. I don't think it's the best of the 9 I've read, but O'Brian has a way with words that just sucks me in to the story. I think I'm going to enjoy this reread.

I'm curious if anyone has seen the Master and Commander movie. While it mashes together a number of the books, I thought it was a very good movie. Well, except for Maturin.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

I'm curious if anyone has seen the Master and Commander movie. While it mashes together a number of the books, I thought it was a very good movie. Well, except for Maturin.

I've just picked up the movie from the library. I thought I'd wait until I finished the tenth book as that is supposedly the main source. I'm glad to hear it's good; I'm looking forward to seeing it as it should help me visualize the stories better.

[CRussel]

We've got the movie on DVD, and I'm trying to schedule a time for us to watch it again. But meanwhile, I'm at ~25% complete on this re-read. I've been switching back and forth between the two audio versions I have and the eBook, and each has their appeal. I haven't changed my overall preference on the audio side (didn't expect to), but I have a greater respect for the Simon Vance version, which does have it's appeal. For example, I much prefer his Babbington voice -- it's just hard for a baritone like Tull to sound like a squeaker, and Babbington should definitely be a squeaker at this point in the series.

The other thing I'm recognizing are some precursors to things that become very much a part of the series as we go on. The bits of poetry from Mowatt, for example, in Chapter 3. And Jack's two-pronged and crafty(not to say sly) solution to the problem of his main mast (in Chapter 2).

Spoiler:

'Mr Brown,' said Jack, with an earnest look, 'you can do me a very essential service, if you will. I have sprung my mainyard hopelessly, I am concerned to tell you, and yet I must sail this evening—the Fanny is in. So I beg you to condemn it and issue me out another in its place. Nay, never look so shocked, my dear sir,' he said, taking Mr Brown's arm and leading him towards the cutter. 'I am bringing you back the twelve-pounders—ordnance being now within your purview, as I understand—because I feared the sloop might be over-burthened.'
** 'With all my heart,' said Mr Brown, looking at the awful chasm in the yard, held up mutely for his inspection by the cutter's crew. 'But there is not another spar in the yard small enough for you.'
** 'Come, sir, you are forgetting the Généreux. She had three spare foretopgalantyards, as well as a vast mound of other spars; and you would be the first to admit that I have a moral right to one.'

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

We've got the movie on DVD, and I'm trying to schedule a time for us to watch it again. But meanwhile, I'm at ~25% complete on this re-read. I've been switching back and forth between the two audio versions I have and the eBook, and each has their appeal. I haven't changed my overall preference on the audio side (didn't expect to), but I have a greater respect for the Simon Vance version, which does have it's appeal. For example, I much prefer his Babbington voice -- it's just hard for a baritone like Tull to sound like a squeaker, and Babbington should definitely be a squeaker at this point in the series.

The other thing I'm recognizing are some precursors to things that become very much a part of the series as we go on. The bits of poetry from Mowatt, for example, in Chapter 3. And Jack's two-pronged and crafty(not to say sly) solution to the problem of his main mast (in Chapter 2).

I know I've said that one reason I prefer Vance is that Tull's Aubrey is too much the grizzled sea dog, when Jack's still in his twenties in the first book. But yeah, it's a tradeoff. Generally, I think Vance does a creditable American accent, no doubt helped by his having lived here for so long, but his Mrs. Wogan (in a later book), from the American South, took every bit of my loyalty to endure. That was painful.

I'm enjoying "meeting" for the first time so many beloved characters. I'm also switching among three formats and doing a lot of repeating as I do, which slows my process enormously. I suspect at some point I'll jettison Tull, as I have listened to his version already.

There was a reference to Port Mahon's looking like a Canaletto. It's no Canaletto, but I found this image by a contemporary artist, Anton Shranz.

[pdurrant]

I'm about 2/3rds of the way through now, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm really looking forward to seeing how James turns out.

[CRussel]

I'm only about 37% in, and having fun going back and forth between the two audio books and the ebook versions. This means I'm slower, but it's still interesting to see the differences.

One thing I really notice is how much less the naval details seem to intrude in the audio versions, especially Tull's. Curious that, since I can more easily skim over them in the ebook. One might have expected them to be less obtrusive there, but that's not proving to be the case.

(Of course, it's also true that I've now read enough of these that the nautical details are actually almost understandable. Scary thought, that!)

[Twitchly]

I had a tough time with the movie adaptation. By the time it came out, I had read nearly all the books and had of course formed impressions of Aubrey and Maturin that were completely upended by Russell Crowe (huh?) and whatshisname (double huh??). Paul Bettany, that's it. Fine actor, weird choice for the role. Wasn't Maturin described as dark and small and generally unwashed? Not tall and blond and Hollywood dreamy. And I'd pictured Aubrey as a big, redheaded bear of a man, an English Viking with a heart of mush. Not shortish, unapproachable Russell C.

That might be a fun tangent at some point: whom would you cast?


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[BenG]

I've never thought of Crowe as "shortish." I like the movie fine, and wish they had continued with the series. Of course I saw the movie before reading any of the books.

[CRussel]

I thought Crowe was OK, not a perfect type cast, but acceptable. And he did well in the role. But Paul Bettany???? You've got to be joking! Stephen is small, dark, unkempt and unlovely.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, even though it was a mashup of the books. And it did get conditions on an English Man-o-war closer to reality. Though to really get them, you'd need smellovision.

[pdurrant]

I'd say that one of the later battles was unbelievable, except that I suspect that Mr O'Brian could point me to a report of a very similar action that really did take place.

Nearly done with the first book, and I'll definitely be continuing with the series.