Treason's Harbour

We're reaching peak O'Brian with this book. Packed full of the best of A-M. The sense of humor is there, and adventures are about equally divided between land and sea. I love the interplay between Jack wishing to carry on an actual affair with Mrs. Fielding, the beautiful, married Italian woman (voiced expertly by Patrick Tull) and Stephen's fake affair with her, meant to titillate the local French spy organizations. Jack, sore over the arrangement and unaware that it's a fake affair, moralizes over Stephen's status in a hang dog way.

We have here also Maturin's diving bell used to recover - almost- a sunken 'treasure' from an Turkish galley, and Maturin's rather goofy friend the half blind Reverend Martin. Jack has also to contend with show more friend-for-life Ponto, Mrs. Fielding's enormous dog, who he saves from the cistern.

There are also spy shenanigans aplenty as Lesueur circles Stephen and plots against him with his Maltese henchmen, while Stephen, always with the upper hand, delivers false information to them through Mrs Fielding. Add to this the presence of Way, that sneaking, conniving spy planted high up in the British hierarchy, and how Stephen beats him at cards, winning a ship assignment for the newly minted Captain Pullings among other things.

Of course, Surprise is there in all her glory, as is Heneage Dundas, the awful Admiral Harte, the employment of a drag sail as a ruse de guerre, a hike across a desert with camels, Aubrey's diamond chelengk, a captured French privateer, a dashing rescue of Mrs Fielding by Stephen in the night - so much going on here that's so much fun. This one is worth a re-re-re-read. show less

O’Brian’s writing is often compared to Jane Austen, but I strongly suspect that this is just a widespread reflex to which pretty much anything set in the Regency period is somehow “like Jane Austen.” There is at least some justice to it in this case, in so far as the implied narrator of the Aubrey-Maturin novels is clearly a contemporary and shares not only the conceptions and prejudices of his characters but also their language – as manifest not just in the extensive (and to the reader often exasperating) use of nautical terms but in O’Brians’s general choice of words, the way he constructs long periods, indeed even the very rhythm of his prose is somehow evocative of the late 18th / early 19th century. However, while on show more one hand the narrator appears completely immersed in the period in which the novels take place, at the same time he is clearly not and writes with a distinct detachment, watching the to-and-fro on both land and sea from a distance, with wry amusement and ever-present irony.

And irony is, I think, the key word here – the author who O’Brian makes me most think of is not Jane Austen (whose irony, it seems to me, is more of the tongue-in-cheek variety and something quite different) but Thomas Mann the vast majority of whose narrators also cultivate this involved-but-not-really-commited attitude (and his protagonist often as well – as when Joseph is said to have become in all respects like an Egyptian – “but with reservations”). Thomas Mann is one of the most imitated writers of the twentieth century, but for some reason it seems to be next to impossible to imitate him successfully – while there is a plethora of excellent, even great Faulkner epigones (to name just one example), almost everyone attempting to write in the vein of Thomas Mann seems to end up second- or third-rate (if not worse), mostly due to a vapid and anaemic prose style. Now, one can call O’Brian’s writing a lot of things, but anaemic is certainly not one of them. I suspect that the reason O’Brian succeeds where so many others have failed is that he applies Thomas Mann’s distinct brand of irony not to the novel of ideas but to the historical novel, where the genre itself pretty much guarantees a certain saturation with vivid details and a certain groundedness which prevents a text from pirouetting endlessly around itself, producing nothing but narcissistic self-centeredness – another trap those who would follow in the footsteps of Thomas Mann like to fall into.

In addition the characteristic hovering of irony, the vacillating between two sides of a border without coming down on either seems an almost too perfect solution for what is maybe the central dilemma of the traditional historical novel (i.e., not postmodern and not written by William T. Vollmann) – to present a past period as it has been experienced by its contemporaries while at the same time remaining aware of the basic impossibility of that undertaking, simultaneously immersing the reader in a historical epoch and reminding him that this immersion is an illusion, mere make-believe and an approximation at best. This is a very fine line to walk, and most historical novels tend to fall off to one side or the other – which is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact the results can be quite fascinating, especially if the novel crashes on the immersion side of the divide. O’Brian, however, always remains in perfect balance, walking the tightrope in supreme confidence. In fact, he sometimes makes it look too easy – this is always a danger of irony, that it just is not very dangerous but plays things safe, that the narrator’s equanimous distance from events prevents them from touching him too deeply.

Treason’s Harbour – to say at least a sentence or two about the actual book I’m supposed to be writing about here – does not quite escape this, I think. While it speeds things up again after the non-events of The Ionian Mission, spicing things up mainly with some espionage intrigue, it certainly chuffs along pleasantly enough, and it’s of course always a delight to let oneself be carried along by the rhythm of O’Brians prose. But I felt the novel was lacking a bit in emotional involvement. So I may have liked this chapter in the Aubrey-Maturin saga just a tad less than some previous instalments, but overall I still loved and remain eager to continue. show less

I accidentally skipped this book in my read because I was too excited to get to The Far Side of the World, and that was a mistake. This is one of the most finely balanced novels in a very fine series.


Russell Crowe in the movie

The Surprise is being repaired in Malta, and Aubrey and Maturin are idle on shore, doing their best to stay entertained with the musical evenings of Laura Fielding, a charming Italian aristocrat married to a captured British naval officer. Mrs. Fielding is also under pressure from French intelligence, who have thoroughly infiltrated Malta.

There's not much time to save Mrs Fielding, as the crew is dispatched to the Red Sea, via walking across Suez, to capture a galley loaded with French silver. Maturin takes his show more diving bell, and there's adventures in the desert with camels, Bedouins, jinn, and haboobs. Despite fine sailing and keen tactics by Aubrey, the mission comes to naught.

A second mission back up the Adriatic returns them to the scenes of the previous book and various warm reunions, including with the escaped Lt. Fieldings, who believes Aubrey is sleeping with his wife after various dog-related escapades in Malta. Before satisfaction can be given, the repaired Surprise is sent to the Port of Mascara, where they enter into a sharp action against three French ships and escape only with even more daring seamanship from Aubrey.

I think in some respects this book represents a pivot for the series. Aubrey is becoming older, meditating on change and death. Meanwhile a new set of French intelligence agents are introduced as adversaries for Maturin. The diving bell and 19th century natural philosophy shine. I cannot care for birds even 1% as much as Maturin does, but I'm in it for scientific instruments.

And I cannot go by without mentioning a truly shocking incident with a shark. Just wow! show less

The Aubrey & Maturin novels continue to delight. This one features Stephen’s adventures with a diving bell, Jack rescuing a dog from a well, a nefarious spy who suffers from piles, and a foiled bear hunt. Another highlight is the visit of Mrs Fielding to the ship Surprise, which results in the crew’s language improving remarkably: ‘It was pleasant to hear the bosun cry, “Oh you… unskilful fellow” when a hand called Faster Doudle, staring aft at Mrs. Fielding, dropped a marline-spike from the maintop, very nearly transfixing Mr. Hollar’s foot.’ As ever, the dialogue is filled with wonderful puns and perfect comic timing, as well as constant affection for the characters. Much of the land-based action is set in and around show more Malta, where it is seemingly impossible to keep secrets as everyone gossips all the time. Various sea maneuvers are naturally present too, involving the wicked French and the untrustworthy Turks, however I generally pay less attention to these. It is the absurd details of character that make this series a joy to read. Moreover, I’ve never come across another writer that uses the enchanting word ‘mumchance’. show less

Treason's Harbour finds the crew of the Surprise in Malta while the ship undergoes repairs. Malta is crawling with spies, keeping Stephen Maturin particularly busy with espionage and counter espionage. Orders send Captain Aubrey and his crew on missions that could be compromised by leaked intelligence. Will the combination of Aubrey's nautical skill and Maturin's sharp mind keep the Surprise and its men from falling into a trap?

I've wanted to try this series for a while because I've heard so many good things about it. Normally I wouldn't start in the middle of a series, but I picked this one up because I needed a book set in Malta. Enough of the series back story is included so that I didn't feel like I was missing information crucial show more to the plot. I thought the ending was rather abrupt, leaving some major plot threads unresolved. I liked it well enough to want to read more in the series, but I'm torn between continuing from this point in the series so I can find out what happens next or going back to the beginning of the series. show less

Book 9 in Patrick O'Brian's series of sea stories featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and ship's doctor and part-time spy Stephen Maturin. In this one, they go after a potentially incredibly valuable prize and deal with some issues of compromised intelligence.

You know, it sometimes occurs to me to think that either O'Brian knows nothing about pacing or just does not care, and this volume is very much a case in point. Rambling conversations about nothing relevant go on for pages while dramatic moments where plot-critical things are happening are sometimes passed over very quickly. And yet somehow, at his best, he makes that work for him. And as far as I'm concerned, it definitely worked for him here. This was kind of slow, and not all that show more exciting, but doggone it, I found it just terribly pleasant, somehow, as I sat there reading it in my living room on a series of lovely spring days, imagining the desert breeze wafting in through my windows might at any moment start bringing me the scent of the ocean and feeling content with my life of not being shot at by the French. show less

I'm really trying to pace myself when going through this series, because with every part of it I read, I am more and more conscious that I only have a finite number of books remaining to be read. I'm not even quite half way through the series, but I'm still trying to draw it out as much as I can, so that I will have more of this world to savour and explore.

Treason's Harbour is one of the quieter of O' Brian's works so far. The pace is slower, and it feels much more like a part of an extended series, not a stand-alone work, than the previous novels of his that I've read. The prose is still a joy to read, elegant and free-flowing, and capable of displaying O' Brian's erudition and knowledge of the period without ever letting them show more overwhelm the story.

The skill and the subtlety and the love with which he draws his characters is still more than apparent, though. I've rarely read characters who seem more real to me than Jack and Stephen. I've wittered on before at length about my love for Stephen because of how closely I can relate to him as he's one of the few characters I've ever read in fiction who have a comparable background to me (mixed English and Irish culturally) and who share my speech-patterns; and this story certainly did nothing to shake that. His quietly ruthless intelligence, his single-minded fixations on his academic pursuits, his loyalty to Jack and the friendship they have - I can't offhand think of many books which inspire such a fierce joy in me as I read them. show less