Reviews

Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian

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nlbullock1's review against another edition

4.0

After 15 years of reading this series (and 20 books), I came to the end of the Aubrey/Maturin series. I love these books and this book series. Time to start it over again!

neilrcoulter's review against another edition

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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

21

krep___'s review against another edition

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4.25

Audiobook edition.
Only 4-1/2 stars. A little weaker than the average chapter in the saga, which means it's better than only 90% of all other books I've read.

brontesaurus84's review against another edition

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4.0

A rare review, but warranted considering this is book 20 of 20 finished novels in what has been an incredible series.

I've heard some say that the unfinished book is an appropriate way to finish the series, letting any storyline threads just drift off with the final passages, but I think I prefer to finish it here where, if not at the end the author had in mind for the series, at least the end he had in mind for this particular part of the story.

The book itself is not his strongest. It's a bit of a meandering story where not a lot of interest happens, but going in knowing it is the last in the series allows one to simply enjoy the much beloved characters' interactions with each other and the wonderful prose.

The series as a whole has been unlike anything I have read. As a bloke that reads 19th century romantic fiction, the influence of writers such as Jane Austen are apparent and make for a richer experience. The apparent realism O'Brian painstakingly depicts is at once the most off putting thing for new readers and one of its greatest aspects.

But ultimately it is the characters that drive these books and, whether Aubrey, Maturin, any of the myriad other shipmates or those left on shore, O'Brian brings them to life wonderfully.

I've put off reading this last one as I will miss them now they are done. I'm now left with the choice of starting Hornblower, but knowing it won't be the same.

Anyway I'll stop barking around the wrong mulberry bush and finish this review.