I have to say I'm no fan of Russell Crowe, but I thought Master & Commander one of the best Hollywood blockbusters in the past twenty years. I loved the way it seemed so immersive - by the end of the film, you really felt as if you had watched a documentary rather than your standard big-budget Hollywood schtick.
Interested, I started reading the book Master & Commander, of which the film only borrows the name and a couple of scenes. The books do not offer an easy introduction - for the first 60 pages you are bludgeoned over the head with mizzenmasts, foretopsails and a cunt splice. The technical knowledge is astounding, but after a while you realise that you don't really need to know every sail and yard on the ships, and the language draws you in. The writing is masterful, and a delight to behold. The places, characters and scenarios come to life through the slow immersion into beautiful language.
The characters of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin were barely touched on in the books. Aubrey, born to the sea, is naive and clumsy by land, whereas Maturin blossoms into life as natural philosopher, doctor and spy.
I am currently up to book 10 in the series of 20 (half way there!) and there has not been a bad book yet. The book The Ionian Mission was a wonderful exercise in maintaining suspense, as various battles and confrontations loom for 300 pages, yet nothing happens. In the last 20 pages, the author unleashes the most brutal, vivd encounter of the books so far, and finishes the book with the smoke of battle still hanging in the air, forcing the reader to pick up the next installment to discover the outcome.
Patrick O'Brian's literary achievement is quite astonishing.
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