Gavin's Reviews > Post Captain

Quite scattered and prolonged, with too many plots, thus ending up feeling like no plot. But still good. (People say this is the worst one but it is still better than most novels.) There are 30 notable moments (sailors as manservants, Mrs Williams’ idiot machiavellianism, Scrivens’ poster, the Canning offer, the experimental weapon, press-ganging the debt-bailiffs, dressing Jack as a bear, the undischarged duel, Jack’s powerful fear of bees) and 5 or so bravura passages

Tides, tides, the Cove of Cork, the embarkation waiting on the moon, a tall swift-pacing mule in the bare torrid mountains quivering in the sun, palmetto-scrub, Señor don Esteban Maturin y Domanova kisses the feet of the very reverend Lord Abbot of Montserrat and begs the honour of an audience. The endless white road winding, the inhuman landscape of Aragon, cruel sun and weariness, dust, weariness to the heart, and doubt. What was independence but a word? What did any form of government matter? Freedom: to do what? Disgust, so strong that he leant against the saddle, hardly able to bring himself to mount. A shower on the Maladetta, and everywhere the scent of thyme: eagles wheeling under thunder-clouds, rising, rising. 'My mind is too confused for anything but direct action,' he said. 'The flight disguised as an advance.”

“The lonely beach, lanterns flashing from the offing, an infinity of sea. Ireland again, with such memories at every turn. 'If I could throw off some of this burden of memory,' said Stephen to his second glass of laudanum, 'I should be more nearly sane. Here's to you, Villiers, my dear.' The Holyhead mail and two hundred and seventy miles of rattling jerking, falling asleep, waking in another country: rain, rain, rain: Welsh voices in the night. London, and his report, trying to disentangle the strands of altruism, silliness, mere enthusiasm, self-seeking, love of violence, personal resentment; trying too to give the impossible plain answer to the question 'Is Spain going to join France against us, and if so, when?' And there he was in Deal once more, sitting alone in the snug of the Rose and Crown, watching the shipping in the Downs and drinking a pot of tea: he had an odd detachment from all this familiar scene - the uniforms that passed outside his bow-window were intimately well known, but it was as though they belonged to another world, a world at one or two removes, and as though their inhabitants, walking, laughing, talking out[…]”

‘Two roast-beefs to see you, sir,' said an orderly.
'Oh no!' cried Captain Christy-Pallière, 'not at this hour, holy name. Tell them I am not here, Jeannot. I may be back at five. Who are they?'
'The first is Aubrey, Jacques. He claims to be a captain in their navy,' said the orderly, narrowing his eyes and scanning the official slip in his hand. 'Born 1 April 1066, at Bedlam, London. Father's profession, monk: mother's, nun. Mother's maiden name, Borgia, Lucrèce. The other pilgrim is Maturin, Etienne -'
'Quick, quick,' cried Captain Christy-Pallière. 'My breeches, Jeannot, my cravat -' for ease and commodity he had been sitting in his drawers. 'Son of a whore, my shirt. Penhoet, we must have a real dinner today - find a clothes-brush, Jeannot - this is the English prisoner I was telling you about. Excellent seaman, charming company. You will not mind speaking English, of course. How do I look?'
'So pimping as possible,' said Captain Penhoet in that language. 'Camber the torso, and you will impose yourself of their attention.

But all the foxhunting and marriage chitchat does derail things a lot. A perfect summary of Jack’s foolish idea of romance, which is still the default one:

It occurred to him that he should put some order into his thoughts about these two [women]. Yet there was something so very odious, so very grossly indecent, in making any sort of comparison, in weighing up, setting side by side, evaluating. Stephen blamed him for being muddle-headed, wantonly muddle-headed, refusing to follow his ideas to their logical conclusion. 'You have all the English vices, my dear, including muddle-headed sentiment and hypocrisy.' Yet it was nonsense to drag in logic where logic did not apply. To think clearly in such a case was inexpressibly repugnant: logic could apply only to a deliberate seduction or to a marriage of interest.

O’Brian does the following often (a quick cut, or object transition, or something):

‘If you are to see the First Lord in the morning, your mind must be in a condition of easy complaisance, in a placid, rested state. There is milk in the little crock - warmed milk will relax the fibres.'

Jack warmed it, added a dash of rum from his case-bottle, and drank it up; but in spite of his faith in the draught, the fibres remained tense, the placidity of mind a great way off.

The first paragraph is at a party; the second is back at home, with the farewells, cloakroom, cab-hailing, ride, and key-fumbling all elided. Jack has warped through the mention of milk, to the milk. So simple, but because it demands an inference it slows me down and gives me a lift, once or twice a chapter. Flatters the reader, saves on boring exposition, and provides a visual click, all in one.

Not impressed with Villiers yet.

Even a frigid, self-sufficing man needs something of this interchange if he is not to die in his unmechanical part: natural philosophy, music, dead men's conversation, is not enough...

It was not that he did not like the land - capital place; such games, such fun - but the difficulties there, the complications, were so vague and imprecise, reaching one behind another, no end to them: nothing a man could get hold of. Here, although life was complex enough in all conscience, he could at least attempt to cope with anything that turned up. Life at sea had the great advantage that - something was amiss.