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Feb 04, 2012

Stephen rated it:

This story posed a bugger of a ratings quandary for yours truly.

While reading it I was bouncing around between everything from a bountiful 5 star rating for pure quality of writing, hefty historical detail and superbly drawn characters, all the way south to a skimpy 2 star for less than engaging plotting, iceberg-like pacing and noticeable lack of emotional resonance. Finally, in my best impression of Solomon, I settled on a solid, if not quite ebullient, 3 stars based on the fact t More...

37 comments like (62 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2011

Brad rated it:

ii. I'm at it again, but this time I opened up my Aubrey-Maturin reread by listening. It took a month of commuting, but it was worth the time and the patience, and though I have gleaned no new insights into Master and Commander, my enjoyment of the audio experience was more than fulfilling enough.

O'Brian wasn't a big fan of the audio versions of his books, nor of the men reading them: “To revert to my ideal reader: he would avoid obvious emotion, italics and exclamation marks like th More...

12 comments like (28 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2011

K.D. rated it:

Now, this is my favorite maritime historical novel. It has just dislodged Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdhal and Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen. The reason: the detailed and vivid writing of Patrick O'Brian (1914-2000). How could a trained pilot write a 20-novel Aubrey-Maturin (yes, this is 411-page book is just the first) about naval warfare during Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) with such details and jargons as if he was from the era? R More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2009

Jon rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Leighton rated it:

I'm putting this volume on my list to represent the entire twenty-volume series, which I've almost finished now. If you saw the Peter Weir movie, my impression was that the period detail was nice and Russell Crowe was well-cast but the rest of the film really didn't convey what is wonderful about Patrick O'Brian's mind.

These are naval adventure stories, set mostly aboard a British man-of-war during the Napoleonic conflicts. In those respects they are like C.S. Forester's Horatio More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2010

Eric_W rated it:

In Master and Commander, the first of the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, Jack gets his first command. It's the Sophie, a seventy-eight-foot sloop with a crew of more than eighty. It's a wonder where they stuck them all. It's also the beginning of the friendship between Jack and Stephen Maturin, who becomes the ship's surgeon. They don't get off on the right foot, however, as Maturin castigates
Jack for tapping his hand out of rhythm during a chamber concert. Rather than come to b More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2008

Joe rated it:

"Never mind maneuvers - go straight at 'em!" This describes the main character's temperament perfectly. But when combined with his alter-ego's more calculating nature, the POV is entirely human and utterly compelling in it's contradictions, flaws and dramatic leverage.

This book had everything in it that I love in great books.

The sentence structure and wordplay were so dexterous and pleasing that I chuckled at its art and cleverness. I learned later that Mr. " More...

5 comments like (8 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2009

Ron rated it:

Merits three and a half, but I've got to quit competing with Santa Claus.

Good story, well told. I'm sure all the nautical stuff is accurate but laid on so heavily that it sometimes obscured the story and characters. And it's the development and relationship of those characters which makes Master and Commander worth reading.

And it is worth reading.

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2007

Joey rated it:

Hmmmm. I don't quite know what I think of this book, and I really don't know if I'm going to take the plunge into the second installment of the series. The naval jargon is just a wee bit over the top, oftentimes leaving the non-sailing reader completely confused and weighed down with feelings of inadequacy. Nonetheless, the tales related are interesting and the cast of characters deep and well developed. Still, I never woke up with the insatiable urge to pull on my topcoat and head to the qu More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2009

pete rated it:

i honestly dont give all my books 5 stars but this book which starts a series of 21 is among my all-time favorite historical novels. set in the 1800's they describe many of the events that occured with the british in their maritime wars with various countries including france, the u.s., the dutch and the spanish. adventuresome, suspenseful and often humerous...seafaring stories don't get much better than this.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 22, 2009

Tracy rated it:

The first scene had great promise, and sections of prose throughout the book were striking. The main characters were also endearing. However, I felt greatly handicapped by my ignorance of nautical terminology. Much of the time, especially in the rather pivotal battle scenes, I had incredible difficulty following what was going on. As a result, I was never really fully drawn into the story.

post-script: I don't understand why Russel Crowe was cast for the part of Aubrey. I haven't s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2009

James rated it:

Based partially on the movie, and mainly on the review of my friend Brad I threw audio version of Master & Commander on my iPod, and am very glad that I did.

I think the first thing I appreciated about the book was O'Brian's engaging, yet efficient, style that kept the story moving along at a steady pace. Not only was the pacing crisp and the style absorbing, but O'Brian managed to pack in enough detail to keep naval aficionados happy, yet was accessible to landlubbers like me with mi More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 14, 2009

Hazel rated it:

I come to O'Brian rather late. I'll admit that I assumed these would be boys' adventure stories. And after that Hollywood treatment starring Russel Crowe, I dismissed the Aubrey/Maturin books altogether. Thus does Prejudice lead us to miss out on good stuff. But thanks to a recommendation from Goodreads, I ordered this from the library and was immediately absorbed and delighted. I still don't know a mainsail from a mizzen, but O'Brian's characters are intriguing and his use of language absorbing More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 22, 2009

Kelly rated it:

You know, I've often been annoyed by the fact that so many times, I never get to experience something the way it was intended, or to its fullest. Because someone else always gets there first, and someone's else's eyes are always put in front of mine before I get the chance to do it for myself (I recall writing a very emotional paper on Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring, the Chevalier book and the movie that followed along these lines. Yeah, I was a silly teenager). I often see the parodies of More...

20 comments like (27 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2007

Sam rated it:

Master and Commander, the first book of the Aubrey-Maturin series is one of my favorite books ever.

The entire series is a great read for anyone who likes the history of England, or of science, or of naval warfare. It also includes lots of great characters and plot twists. I would not however recommend the whole series to everyone. A certain proclivity toward all-out adventure stories is needed to fully enjoy all twenty-ish volumes.

Master and Commander is different in th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 24, 2008

Kathy rated it:

This is my all-time favorite series. All are rich in historical detail, from the minutia of life in the British Royal Navy to the politics of the time (during the Napoleonic wars). O'Brian makes that history come alive through the eyes of his strong central characters and the quality of the writing, including a healthy dose of dry wittiness. Many people say that Master and Commander starts off slowly, but 50 pages or so into it they start to get hooked and end up reading the entire series (20 More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Brigid rated it:

This series is one of my favorite books - in the sense that it can be viewed as one long novel - of all time. I re-read these, starting sometimes from the beginning, sometimes from somewhere else and then circling back, about once a year. I tend not to read past book 15 or 16, since the later ones aren't as good.

O'Brian has perfectly recreated the British navy of the early 19th century, down to the most astonishing details. His books provide a perfect complement to Jane Austen, who l More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2008

Arne rated it:

This is the first book of my favorite book series of all time. It's 20 books long, but I read the whole thing twice. People who love these books are like a cult. I found out about them through a Lewis Lapham column in Harper's. He talked about how he was sitting on an airplane and saw the person sitting next to him had just started reading the first book, and just said "You are so lucky. I wish I could be starting the series again for the first time." The story of a sea captain in the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Casper rated it:

After the sad and tragic endings you often find in "serious" literature this book comes as a welcome change. I'd already seen the movie Master and Commander a few times and really liked it, so the book was on my to-read list for quite some time. On the one hand it's an old-fashioned adventure novel, with sea battles, comradeship and exotic travels, but on the other hand it's actually a very well-written book. It demands your attention, that is to say you can't just skip through the pag More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 10, 2011

Simon rated it:

I loved the film, and really, really wanted to love this book (with plans to go on and read others in the series) but with the exception of perhaps the first chapter, I found the first hundred pages to be sheer drudgery. O'Brian is obviously a brilliant writer and scholar, but the lengths to which he luxuriates in nautical lingo - coupled with the already flowery (however beautiful) vernacular of the time - rendered the text incredibly inaccessible in terms of a casual read. I'm years out of sch More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2008

Michael-Evans rated it:

I've read the first eight of this series so far. I was hooked by this, the first one. The action is splendid. I wasn't at all familiar with the world of the book, but I really got into it. There is such a great amount of effective detail. I like the main characters so very much. And in this book O'Brian does odd things that I like, for instance he has a unique way of describing unfolding events indirectly as characters react to them in their dialog, and he will change time and place with nothing More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 11, 2008

Cheryl rated it:

Patrick O'Brian's absolutely brilliant Aubrey/Maturin series begins with this wonderful tale of the meeting of the two main characters. Every book in this series is equally marvelous. O'Brian's characters are rich and real, life on land and at sea are both captured in solid and exciting detail. Sailing and battle sequences of these novels may be somewhat difficult to firmly grasp for those not familiar with sailing terms and tactics (although a read of Seamanship in the Age of Sail or The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2008

Deb rated it:

If you love tallships and the sea, adventure, humor, history, I can't think of any to match these for pure enjoyment. I'll borrow my comments on the Aubrey/Maturin series from literary critic Stephen Becker: Certain authors we read because they enlarge us, because they offer experience, wisdom, beauty of language, a sense of fate and the only defense, a sense of humor. I am one of your surly pragmatic polygot landlubbers, and I read and reread him [Patrick O'Brian] with awe and gratitude. Hi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 06, 2008

MS rated it:

I don't normally like reading fiction, especially of the non-classic variety, but this came highly recommended. I really enjoyed it, but I have a nerdish fascination with the great sailing warships of that era. This book really gets into the nitty-gritty of seamanship aboard an English naval vessel in the time of Nelson. I will probably end up reading the rest of the series, and my longtime wish to take a long voyage on a sailing ship has been reinforced. Aside from all that, this is just a More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 03, 2008

Jacob rated it:

I re-read this recently on the train to Christmas. Without a doubt the Aubrey/Maturin novels are my favorite writing. I find so much of myself in both the protagonists, and O'Brian is such a good hand with character that I know everyone in the books as if we had just had dinner last night.

And beside that, Lord, the scholarship! The music! The pleasantest way I know to learn geography and history, a naturalist's delight, glorious bawdy puns and literary word-play, the humongous quant More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 03, 2007

Lee rated it:

This'll be my third time through the fabulous series that reads like one gigantic novel. British navy stories during the Napoleonic wars may not sound very exciting, but these books are amazing -- the only problem is that there are only 20 of them. They are so complex and so rich in detail that three times through is not sufficient to get all that's there.

If Jane Austen had a brother who wrote about the Navy, this is what those books would sound like.

I love spending tim More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 28, 2011

Dhe rated it:

quando uscì al cinema il film "Master and Commander" fui fra le prime spettatrici. amo le ricostruzioni storiche delle battaglie, amo il mare e mi era sembrato una buona unione fra le due cose. solo dopo aver visto il film (che mi lasciò entusiasta) scoprì che era tratto da una serie di romanzi, inutile dire che il giorno dopo il libro "primo comando" era già sullo scaffale. peccato che lì è rimasto per anni (considerate che il film uscì nel 2003...) e solo di recente mi è fi More...

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Feb 12, 2009

Charles rated it:

As gripping and as salty a read as I'd always heard it to be, with a unique twist on the genteel society as revealed by balls and romances, which normally only makes saccharine the dusky gunpowder smell of colonial conquest and empire-building.

Perhaps other readers, more familiar with the genre than I, can simply put the two halves together without incident - Captains step aboard a disease-ridden ship, witness legs and arms torn off, are blanched in choking smoke and splashed with bloo More...

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Jan 12, 2009

Ken-ichi rated it:

Picked this up due to a slowly rising interesting in 19th century naturalism. I guess I’m also not averse to swashbuckling and arcane nautical nerdery. Ten pages in and already one animal sighting: a hoopoe!

Aaaannnd done

Wow, that was much better than expected. Now I keep wanting to pepper my conversation with words like “larboard” or “fo’c’s’l,” which is sadly difficult in my current situation. The absurd civility of all the mayhem is also quite funny. Example, from a sce More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

manyhighways rated it:

My dad has raved about the series for years and, since the movie was the best film I saw in 2003, I figured I ought to get around to reading them at some point.

My dad was, of course, right. The book is spectacular. The opening pages detail the first meeting between Captain-to-be Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, a physician with no naval experience. Despite a rocky (and funny) beginning, the two soon become fast friends and Aubrey invites Maturin to be the surgeon aboard Sophie, the More...

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