Post Captain

How much do I love the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien?

If you're not familiar with them, the film Master & Commander was based on book ten (The Far Side of the World) of a twenty-book cycle that follows the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey, a brutish by good hearted sailor in the royal navy, and his friend Stephen Maturin, who is variously a surgeon for Jack's vessels and a spy for British Intelligence.

It's not just that they are the most meticulously researched historical novels I've ever come across. It's not the ease with which the author switches between the two utterly different but intricately well realised lead characters. It's not even the hilarious little post-modern winks that shows up every now and then to remind you that it's just a book. It's the raw sense of fun that permeates every page. There's a great line in one of the Sandman comics that reads: "Think on it, and you'll be there." which I think neatly sums up the Aubrey-Maturin novels. They create a time so vividly in your mind that it's just fun to see what happens next.

Post-Captain is the second in the series, and is something of a departure from the first (which revolved mainly around naval warfare) in that it begins with a Jane Austenesque aside in the country, as Jack and Stephen go to Balls and coming-out parties and fall in love with Sophie Williams and Diana Villiers, respectively. Sophie is a simple girl who could never marry Jack, as he is bankrupt and her mother would not allow it (!) Diana Villiers is her cousin, whom Stephen falls in love with (and it's great fun to read his analytical take on what love is), but there is more to Diana than meets the eye, and she plays Jack and Stephen against each other in a way that almost tears the friendship apart.

However with Jack on the run from the debtors and the invasion of Napoleon, Jack and Stephen are soon thrust into action, which is the meat and potatoes of the book, but I have to say the moments I love the most are the conversations with Jack and Stephen as they play together in the cabin, discussing all manner of thought and theory. I almost never stopped reading this book from the moment I started it, it's that entertaining. Yet I suppose that is true of a great many terrible books. What elevates Post Captain, what makes it better than the impression the cover might give you, is the humanity on show, those moments that are true now, then, and a thousand years before. Friendship and logic and passion.

Read it, read it, read it. Read the whole series. Do.