The Yellow Admiral (Aubrey - Maturin Series #18)
- Book Review,
by Patrick O'Brian
Amazon.com
At last! Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are back as Patrick O'Brian provides his indomitably loyal fans with another adventure, this one by land as well as by sea. Lucky Jack Aubrey finds himself not so lucky as his troubles amount ashore, his prospects of admiralty dimmed and Sophie's affection waning. At sea, he fares little better: in the storms off Brest he captures a French privateer ladden with gold and ivory at the expense of missing a signal and deserting his post. And worst of all, in the spring of 1814, peace breaks out... Fortunately, Maturin returns from a mission in Chile with news that may help restore Aubrey to good favor with both his beloved navy and wife. Then, off to Gibraltar: Napoleon has escaped from Elba. The Yellow Admiral is a change of pace, a reversion to the themes of the earlier novels in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Much of the story takes place on land, giving scope to O'Brian's fascination with the landscape, physical and social, of early nineteenth-century England. In vivid glimpses of various rural pursuits, and nuanced observation of politics and domestic arrangements, O'Brian proves himself ever more surely to be the heir of Jane Austen. Not to say there aren't some rousing and bloody sea-battles!
From Publishers Weekly
As befits a popular and enduring fictional hero, Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy is besieged on all sides in the 18th installment of O'Brian's splendid 19th-century historical adventure series (The Commodore, etc.). Jack is fighting expensive, possibly ruinous, legal battles with slavers, as well as with rich landowners trying to enclose common lands around his family estate. He must also deal with a Navy superior with a financial interest in the enclosure, who is trying to wreck Jack's career. (If a captain becomes an admiral without a command he is "in the cant phrase... yellowed"). Jack, on blockade duty off Brittany, frets that the impending peace will indeed yellow him; and he's also in for some rough marital weather with his wife, Sophie. Meanwhile, the series' other hero, Irish-Catalan physician Stephen Maturin, who's Jack's best friend, connects in "the dark of the moon" with Chilean independence leaders who may hire Jack to head their own young navy. O'Brian is at the top of his elegant form here. He offers a wealth of sly humor (Navy officers' talk is "really not fit for mixed company because of its profoundly nautical character"), some splendid set pieces (a bare-knuckle boxing match, lively sea actions), characters who are palpably real and, as always, lapidary prose. This is splendid storytelling from a true master. Major ad/promo. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this sequel to The Commodore, Jack Aubrey gratefully leaves behind his messy life ashore to pursue Napoleon, who has escaped from Gibraltar.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
New York Times Book Review
Taken as a whole, the Aubrey-Maturin novels are by a long shot the best things of their kind, so much better than the competition that comparisons long ago ceased to be relevant: they are uniquely excellent.
The New Yorker
Although O'Brian is ingenious at devising new adventures, it is the richness of his characters which justifies his reader's continuing enthusiasm....O'Brian acknowledges Jane Austen as one of his inspirations, and she need not be ashamed of the affiliation.
Donald Graham, Wall Street Journal
If there were 17 more novels, I'd start today.
John Balzar, Los Angeles Times
There are those already planning this afternoon's trip to the bookstore. Their only reaction is: Thank god, Patrick O'Brian is still writing. To you, I say, not a moment to lose.
From Booklist
In this intriguing sequel to his best-seller The Commodore, O'Brian once again reunites Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, surgeon Stephen Maturin. As the novel opens, Maturin returns from the Continent on an intelligence mission to find Aubrey in trouble on several fronts. Now a member of Parliament, Aubrey is resented by former friends who have been disappointed with votes he has cast. Debts and a land squabble nag at him. But his worst difficulties concern a possible promotion. Past exploits have made him a sailor of note, but naval politics and the threat of imminent peace may work to make him a dreaded "yellowed" admiral: he'll hold the rank but won't actually command a ship. Meanwhile, he and Maturin are sent out to battle the French, at which point a new round of personal and professional troubles descends. Fans of O'Brian's previous novels will find themselves well rewarded. Brian McCombie
Detroit Free Press
Aubrey and Maturin are the most enjoyable literary companions since Holmes and Watson.
Commonweal
The experience of reading O'Brian is that of gracious acceptance at one of the banquets of life's feast. . . . It's hard not to find him irresistible.
Book Description
Life ashore may once again be the undoing of Jack Aubrey in The Yellow Admiral, Patrick O'Brian's best-selling novel and eighteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series. Aubrey, now a considerable though impoverished landowner, has dimmed his prospects at the Admiralty by his erratic voting as a Member of Parliament; he is feuding with his neighbor, a man with strong Navy connections who wants to enclose the common land between their estates; he is on even worse terms with his wife, Sophie, whose mother has ferreted out a most damaging trove of old personal letters. Even Jack's exploits at sea turn sour: in the storm waters off Brest he captures a French privateer laden with gold and ivory, but this at the expense of missing a signal and deserting his post. Worst of all, in the spring of 1814, peace breaks out, and this feeds into Jack's private fears for his career. Fortunately, Jack is not left to his own devices. Stephen Maturin returns from a mission in France with the news that the Chileans, to secure their independence, require a navy, and the service of English officers. Jack is savoring this apparent reprieve for his career, as well as Sophie's forgiveness, when he receives an urgent dispatch ordering him to Gibraltar: Napoleon has escaped from Elba.
About the Author
In addition to twenty volumes in the highly respected Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian's many books include Caesar, Hussein, Testimonies, The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore. O'Brian also wrote acclaimed biographies of Pablo Picasso and Sir Joseph Banks and translated many works from the French, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Lacouture's biographies of Charles de Gaulle. He passed in January 2000 at the age of 85.
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