Age of Sail
I went to see Kill Bill this past weekend; I liked it, and you might, too, if you don't object to buckets of blood and lots of senseless violence.
What really interested me, though, was learning that an Aubrey and Maturin movie is coming out in just a month. I'd heard about Patrick O'Brian's series of novels of the British Navy for years, but I'd just started reading the first book in the series. The book is really good so far, and judging by the trailer, the movie looks pretty amazing. I'll probably wait until Thanksgiving to see it, though, since this looks like a good flick to drag my dad along to watch.
Buckets o' blood and blood shooting 8 feet into the air are all fine and good, but what about the wicked (and sometimes very subtle or absurd) humor? The pastiche of styles? The lumpy bumpy fun of it? The Over-the-edge, down-the-cliff, bounce-on-the-rocks,wash-out-to-sea,end-in-the-swer violence is only PART of it :>
I've heard of the Aubrey and Maturin books but never ventured to read them. What's the deal?
The violence is the part tthat's getting a lot of criticism, though. Too bad some of that criticism was self-destructively stupid, though; more on that later.
As far as Aubrey and Maturin go, they're the chief characters of O'Brian's series: A naval officer and his ship's physician who become loyal friends. O'Brian (who died just a few years ago, IIRC) wrote about twenty books about the characters, set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I'm on kind of a pirates / age of sail kick right now, and the books are supposed to give a good feel for the nautical life.
Sherri, Patrick O'Brien is the Shakespeare of our age. Though he died in 2000, O'Brien wrote in the elegant style of the 1800's in which the novels take place.
He has the uncanny ability to capture in one or two sentences the amazing complexity of emotions and delicate interplay that form all human inter relations. His writings are a feast for the soul, food for the heart. He can convey more in one well turned phrase than any contemporary author can in a dozen pages. It is pure, sweet, literary pleasure, writ large.
The twenty books in the Aubrey/Maturin series trace the professional, political, and personal relationships of both men and their families set against both the Napoleonic wars and the American war of 1812. Historically accurate, the books envelop you into the class and culture of that faraway world to the point that you begin to feel a stranger to this one. They are phenomenal.
The books are laden with nautical terms and cultural references that often scare the uninitiated, but fear not, kitten, you can enjoy the whole without ever knowing what a "futtock shroud" or "best bower" is. There are many good resource books available, if you prefer, that will allow you to go as deep down the rabbit hole of that world as you prefer. I, for one, respect an author who assumes I am more intelligent than I am and allows me to learn, through context, until I am more intelligent than I was.
Aubrey and Maturin take you by the hand and gently guide you through their world as if you were a particularly backward foreigner, and you emerge from the other side somehow changed, changed by the elegant style and beautiful prose of a simple book. That's what the deal is.
Patrick O'Brien is the best kept secret of this literary age; like a family recipe or a secret lover. His books are meant to savor like a rich stew on a cold, snowy morning.
That's what the deal is, kitten.
Whoa. I wish I'd said that.