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Review
'… full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein… Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.' James Hamilton-Paterson
'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.' Kevin Meyers, Irish Times
'In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real first-rater.' Mary Renault
'I never enjoyed a novel about the sea more. It is not only that the author describes the handling of a ship of 1800 with an accuracy that is as comprehensible as it is detailed, a remarkable feat in itself. Mr O'Brian's three chief characters are drawn with no less sympathy that the vessels he describes, a rare achievement save in the greatest of writers of this genre. It deserves the widest readership.' Irish Times
Review
“Robert Hardy has a consummate knack of giving timbre and atmosphere to everything he reads. That’s not to dimiss O’Brian’s skilfully constructed adventures, where the dialogue and politics are of a very high order of authenticity.”
Time Out 5/2/97
'… full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein… Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.' James Hamilton-Paterson
‘If O’Brian’s novels have become a cult, this is because they are truly addictive… They are, quite magnificently, adventure yarns whose superb authenticity never distracts from the sheer thrill of the action.’
Caroline Moore, Sunday Telegraph
‘This is no mere sea story. It is history as it must have felt… Take up these books and you will share their dangers, taste their food and wine, tremble through their terrible battles, and understand for the first time the exacting and harsh nature of life in the Napoleonic era… Perhaps best of all is O’Brian’s mastery of the English language. He plays it like an orchestra, somehow bringing the rich, powerful speech of the period back to life.’
Peter Hitchens, Daily Express
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Sir Joseph Blaine, a heavy, yellow-faced man in a suit of grey clothes and a flannel waistcoat, walked down St Jams's Street, across the park, and so to the Admiralty, which he entered from behind, opening the private door with a key and making his way to the large, shabby room in which he had his official being. Read the first page
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No one else that I have come across wrote with such finely drawn enthusiasm. The well-rounded characters of The Yellow Admiral will leave you yearning for more no mater how slowly you read it.
One can read the Holmes/Watson books in any order; the characters never change, and I don't recall references by Doyle to previous events, such as those backwards glimpses O'Brian slyly slips to us steady fans from time to time that must sail right over the heads of hit-and-run readers.
With not a molecule of discredit to her genius intended, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot remained the same character through 25 stories, and I'm not aware of any maturation of Miss Jane Marple. Of course, Agatha Christie probably felt that her readers preferred the familiarity that the sameness of characters provided.
What gives me the feat tha! ! t The Yellow Admiral might be the final Aubrey/Maturin episode? Diana never once jumps the traces; Jack mends all his fences at home; Sir Joseph Blaine is very much back in control in his seemingly obscure but influential position with "the Committee;" and Stephen has lived through a volume without a crisis. Then, just as Jack Aubrey has gotten used to the idea of building the Chileans a navy, while on a little respite in Funchal, Madeira, with his family and almost everyone else dear to him, he receives an urgent dispatch from Lord Keith of the Admiralty, advising him that Napoleon has escaped from Elba. Writes Keith: "You are to take all His Majesty's ships and vessels at present in Funchal under your command, hoisting your broad pennant in 'Pamone,' and . . . proceed without the loss of a moment to Gibraltar, there to block all exits from the Straits by any craft soever until further notice. And for so doing the enclosed order shall be your warrant."
A! ! t the bottom of Keith's letter was a handwritten note from ! dear, dear Queenie, an important figure in Jack's youth and during his career, now married to Lord Keith: "Dearest Jack -- I am so happy for you -- love -- Queenie."
So the Chileans must develop their navy without the services of Captain Aubrey. And there will be no yellow admiral in the person of Lucky Jack Aubrey.
Thus, with this pristine conclusion, I fear that we have seen the last chapter in the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey, Royal Navy, and his loyal friend and invaluable companion Stephen Maturin. But O'Brian will be writing, that's for sure. And if his next work is another splendid biograpy, a fine story on another subject, short stories, whatever he writes will be a thrill for me to read.
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