A review by gitli57
The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian

adventurous funny informative reflective

4.0

One of the realities of historical fiction done well is that the attitudes and language on display will sometimes seem problematic for modern sensibilities. Nobody does historical fiction better than Patrick O'Brian. The setting for this magnificent series is the English Navy during the Napoleonic wars. His attention to period detail has been widely praised. It should also be noted that O'Brian is not a romantic or a sentimentalist. He does not shy away from the nastier social aspects of the time and place or from the brutalities of war. In this volume, descriptions of whaling, some racist characters, graphic depictions of war violence and other details may be challenging for some as they were for me. Certainly, none of his characters could be described as anachronistically woke. But his lead characters, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, are thoughtful, sympathetic and progressive. Their friendship is one of the greatest in all of literature. And O'Brian writes beautifully, especially about the natural world and all the beings in it. I do not read much historical fiction and very little military historical fiction, but O'Brian remains a favorite for the consistent sheer immersive quality of his writing as well as the thoughtful development of his lead characters.