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ramius1212's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
mordshunger's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
juliasilge's review against another edition
4.0
Among all the books I have ever read in my whole life, I don't know if any two characters feel as real to me as Maturin and Aubrey.
greybeard49's review against another edition
5.0
O’Brian is up there with the very best.
leesmyth's review against another edition
4.0
Here are two of the many that tickled my fancy today:
* "Three or four of [the Chilean trainees] were quite fluent in English [...]; but even so the monoglots imposed a dreadful burden on Dr. Maturin, who, though he knew a few nautical terms, such as starboard and larboard, in English, had no notion of how to say 'Come up the tackle-fall' in Spanish or any other language." (p. 256)
* “He was in fact extremely quarrelsome, and I do not think anyone went out in the special sense of pistols for two and coffee for one, so often as Lindsay.” (p. 159)
sandin954's review against another edition
3.0
fflf's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
nlbullock1's review
4.0
neilrcoulter's review
4.0
The final finished novel of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. I'd like to feel more emotion at the conclusion of a story that I have loved for years. Unfortunately, O'Brian's storytelling really declined over the last few volumes. Volume 19, The Hundred Days, stands out as the worst of the series, and while this final volume is not as disappointing as that, it still has a feeling of repetition and non-urgency. The trip around the horn of South America has appeared before in the books, and with more import. Here it is still a dangerous, exciting journey, but it feels pointless--and it ends up being not especially gripping.
A big problem with this story is that the war against Napoleon is over. O'Brian does his best to draw the reader into the next stage of the Aubrey/Maturin journey, but it was hard for me to invest in the Chilean independence struggle. Maturin at one point admits that he finds the Chilean situation confusing and impenetrable, and if even he doesn't know what's going on, then what hope have I? Because our main characters don't have much connection to this part of the world, we get an occasional appearance by Dr Jacob, who becomes a strange deus ex machina of intelligence updates. It feels artificial and forced. Because the scenes in Chile are new and ambiguous, I as a reader don't much care what happens. And as in the past few volumes, here in Blue at the Mizzen I didn't sense that Jack was in great danger at any point, or that the Surprise ever comes up against an enemy that might have the power to defeat her. There's not much suspense in Stephen's intelligence work either, especially when I sometimes read a sentence like this: "It happened that Stephen was on a particularly kind and amenable mule whose good will he increased with a piece of bread at each halt" (209).
Interestingly, O'Brian is more frequently writing about death in these last volumes, which makes sense as his own time of death approached. But he somehow keeps himself (and his characters) at an emotional distance from death. Jack expresses his growing sentimental attitude toward his family, and he admits his deep feeling at the reading of the funeral service. But I'm still offended at the off-screen death of a major character in The Hundred Days, and I still don't understand why the other characters never seemed to mourn the loss.
This book sees the whirlwind return of Christine Wood, from Sierra Leone, and Stephen's extraordinarily fast love for her. It makes little sense to me, and it makes me wonder if O'Brian has forgotten that Stephen's previous romance took up most of the series--meeting, courtship, marriage, and settling into domestic life together. I also find it odd and unsettling that Jack and Stephen, neither of whom are especially good-looking, and neither of whom exhibit a firm grip on social graces, have managed to have three exceptionally beautiful, graceful women fall in love with them. Was it absolutely necessary that Stephen's next romance would be stunningly beautiful, and a great naturalist--and, of all things, have no qualms about stripping naked and running through rivers and swamps with Stephen? Again, my disinterest might simply be because I know this is the last book. Perhaps if there were 10 more books in the series, I'd be more willing to invest in this new thread.
The ending of this story is nice, but through the whole of the second half of the series, I wondered if O'Brian might have done better by radically altering the course of the story, in order to open up some new possibilities. I wonder if he should've advanced Jack more rapidly, and then given him a post in Whitehall, or some outstation. It would've been a much different direction for the story, really changing the lives of the characters, but it might have opened up new vistas for O'Brian to play around in--while still allowing for the occasional sea voyage. For an even bigger change, he might have switched the focus to the next generation--show us George's experience as a young'un on Heneage's ship, or the girls as they grow up somewhere between proper society and naval life. That also would have given O'Brian different options. But as it is, the end of the series is okay, but often feeling like emptier re-treads of more robust earlier stories.
So as I finish this book, I do feel some sadness at saying good-bye to good friends, as well as that pleasant sense of accomplishment for having endured to the end. And I very much look forward to beginning again and working my way through the series once more in this lifetime.
My reviews of the Aubrey/Maturin series:
Master and Commander
Post Captain
H.M.S. Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbour
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
Clarissa Oakes
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
The Hundred Days
Blue at the Mizzen
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