Richard Temple
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.' Irish Times
'The best historical novels ever written.' New York Times
Any contemporary novelist should recognize in Patrick O'Brian a Master of the Art.' Sunday Telegraph
Product Description
This is the story of Richard Temple – prisoner of war, sometime adventurer, lover and artist – told with insight, empathy and drama by one of the world's master storytellers.
Captive in a brutal German prison towards the end of World War II, Richard Temple has been stripped of everything that once defined him: pride, courage, his very identity have all been surrendered in a desperate bid to protect his secrets from the Nazis.
But with the real Richard Temple suppressed to the point of near-extinction, a sudden respite in his torture allows him a moment of rare release, when he can lower his guard and remember who he is. Huddled in his cell, too badly beaten to move, the action of the novel takes place in the Richard’s mind as he retraces a convoluted course from an unhappy childhood, through a vague and uncertain adolescence to a complex, compromised adulthood, shot through with artistic sensibility and the myriad impulses that make a man.
Patrick O'Brian's signature combination of narrative flair, intuitive sympathy and psychological insight make this a fascinating exploration of how passive resistance can be a form of courage and what it truly means to be a hero.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
O'Brian's Bleaker Side
18 April 2006
Format:Hardcover
The dust jacket of this reissued novel shows a man with raised arms standing in a field. It is dusk. Above him, trailing vapour from its wing-tips, flies a Spitfire - the emblematic World War Two British fighter plane. The publisher, it seems, would have us believe we are about to embark on an action-packed espionage tale set in Occupied France (shades of Charlotte Gray perhaps?). Not quite.
About thirty-five pages of this novel are set in a Gestapo prison in wartime France, the other three hundred odd contain an intensely introvert account of a man's lonely and ultimately failed attempt to construct a life with some meaning and value to it. It is a bleak and almost harrowing third-person narrative of a near-destitute artist, part of the flotsam of pre-war Fitzrovia, a troubled, emotionally crippled man with some distinctly unpleasant acquaintamces; a man left with few ethics or values who spends his time trying to exist on next to nothing so that he can devote all his mental energy to his painting. Mr. O'Brian knows about painting and the passages relating to the artist's struggle with his (lack of) materials and the problems of spacial and colour arrangement on the canvas are, actually, compelling. Also compelling the advice about how to forge a Utrillo and the descriptions of pre-war Chelsea and the seedy misfits who peopled it. I'm sure today's inhabitants of this now luxurious quarter would be horrified at what went on there a mere sixty years ago.
Mr. O'Brian also draws some fine word pictures, in particular of the pre-war aristocracy. The protaganist falls in love with a young aristocrat who has decided to patronise him and provide him with some income. She is beautiful, naturally, with the almost ludicrous self-confidence that often accompanies people with both fortune and pedigree. The author records with discreet bitterness the megalomania, the casual promiscuity and the anti-semitism of the pre-war nobility and also its contempt for the Royal Family and the instant loathing for anything not reactionary and conservative. However he also, rather peevishly, describes the disarming kindness and concern he was shown.
It is said that O'Brian was involved in wartime espionage and also that much of his life was spent in straitened circumstances while his writing received only tepid enthusiasm from the publishers of the day. It is a fact that he married an aristocrat so we can assume there is a measure of autobiographical material in this work.
In any case we know that O'Brian's career ended in pyrotechnic critical acclaim with, of course, the concomitant financial rewards and this earlier work serves to put his later success into an interesting perspective.
This book has much to offer and it is unfortunate that the publisher has attempted to persuade the public that it is something that it is not. Perhaps it is a good thing that Patrick O'Brian is not around to see the way in which this work has been reissued. But then again, he might well have enjoyed the irony of seeing one of his bleaker more introspective works got up to look like a wartime adventure novel .
About thirty-five pages of this novel are set in a Gestapo prison in wartime France, the other three hundred odd contain an intensely introvert account of a man's lonely and ultimately failed attempt to construct a life with some meaning and value to it. It is a bleak and almost harrowing third-person narrative of a near-destitute artist, part of the flotsam of pre-war Fitzrovia, a troubled, emotionally crippled man with some distinctly unpleasant acquaintamces; a man left with few ethics or values who spends his time trying to exist on next to nothing so that he can devote all his mental energy to his painting. Mr. O'Brian knows about painting and the passages relating to the artist's struggle with his (lack of) materials and the problems of spacial and colour arrangement on the canvas are, actually, compelling. Also compelling the advice about how to forge a Utrillo and the descriptions of pre-war Chelsea and the seedy misfits who peopled it. I'm sure today's inhabitants of this now luxurious quarter would be horrified at what went on there a mere sixty years ago.
Mr. O'Brian also draws some fine word pictures, in particular of the pre-war aristocracy. The protaganist falls in love with a young aristocrat who has decided to patronise him and provide him with some income. She is beautiful, naturally, with the almost ludicrous self-confidence that often accompanies people with both fortune and pedigree. The author records with discreet bitterness the megalomania, the casual promiscuity and the anti-semitism of the pre-war nobility and also its contempt for the Royal Family and the instant loathing for anything not reactionary and conservative. However he also, rather peevishly, describes the disarming kindness and concern he was shown.
It is said that O'Brian was involved in wartime espionage and also that much of his life was spent in straitened circumstances while his writing received only tepid enthusiasm from the publishers of the day. It is a fact that he married an aristocrat so we can assume there is a measure of autobiographical material in this work.
In any case we know that O'Brian's career ended in pyrotechnic critical acclaim with, of course, the concomitant financial rewards and this earlier work serves to put his later success into an interesting perspective.
This book has much to offer and it is unfortunate that the publisher has attempted to persuade the public that it is something that it is not. Perhaps it is a good thing that Patrick O'Brian is not around to see the way in which this work has been reissued. But then again, he might well have enjoyed the irony of seeing one of his bleaker more introspective works got up to look like a wartime adventure novel .
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Oh, get off the high seas for a moment...
12 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have enjoyed and admired all of Partick O'Brian's works, and this novel also served as a pleasurable read. Yes, I agree, thirty-odd pages of bleak Naiz prisoner stuff is a bit of a slog for an introduction, but "prison" is what the book is about- the artificial prisons we construct for ourselves and those that circumstances trap us within. No, this is not an adventure novel, unless self-discovery may be called an adventure, but it is a good read for those who want to visit another time and commune with a character seeking the solution to the maze he finds himself trapped in.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Of COURSE it isn't an Aubrey/Maturin novel
20 May 2010
Format:Paperback
I went into this book knowing that it wasn't about a couple of guys rollicking about on the high seas. Unfortunately, many others don't seem to snapped to this fact and are disappointed when their favorite author turns out to be a three-dimensional human.
I was stunned by this book. It was a work of art, and I felt privileged to have been able to read it. After all, O'Brian could have just pushed his thoughts aside and penned another "action" novel for the masses.
As much as I love Jack and Steven, I'm glad he didn't.
I was stunned by this book. It was a work of art, and I felt privileged to have been able to read it. After all, O'Brian could have just pushed his thoughts aside and penned another "action" novel for the masses.
As much as I love Jack and Steven, I'm glad he didn't.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
