PREVIEW： Chronicles #10 ｜ Master and Commander with Beau Dade
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Summary
Admiral Dade joins us to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first novel in the Aubrey Maturin series, 'Master and Commander' by Patrick O'Brien. We talk all about the novel, the man behind it, and the man who wrote it.
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to the 10th episode of Chronicles, where as a bit of fun, we thought
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we'd celebrate by covering Master and Commander, the first novel in the Aubrey Maturin series
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by Patrick O'Brien, and here to help me along and talk all about naval warfare and the fun
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It's been a long time since I'd actually read it, and then I've revisited it in preparation
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One thing I will just say, though, off the bat, is I had a look through a lot of online
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forums for just people who are fans of the series, and a lot of them don't even rank this
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I was going to say, there's a load of them, aren't there?
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So this is not regarded as the strongest start, actually, in the world.
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It is an opening of a much, much longer saga, sure.
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In my mind, I put Hornblower, Master and Commander, and Sharp together, because, of course, they're
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all sort of 19th century in the Napoleonic era stuff.
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I was always a Hornblower man myself, because Hornblower was written long before these.
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These were written in, what, like the 70s, 80s, 90s?
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Forrester, who wrote Hornblower, he passed away in 1966.
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So everyone was really looking to fill that hole that Hornblower had left behind.
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And when this first came out, the reviews were not kind at all.
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Well, O'Brien must have read, I've never seen O'Brien in an interview, but he will have
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I can only imagine he's a massive Hornblower fan.
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But the fact that it's set in that sort of the classic late 18th century or early 19th
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century age of sail, and he's a brilliant Royal Navy hero, there is sort of a similar
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Let's, before we actually talk about the story itself, and let's just discuss a little
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Because the guy actually had a very, very interesting life.
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So he was born in Buckinghamshire, and he was actually English.
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Like, the 30s or during the war or something like that?
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And he, apparently he had a friend, quite a wealthy friend, who had a yacht.
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So that was his first time having some experience on a ship from quite a young age, which left
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Then from there, in World War II, he went on to work for British intelligence during the
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And from there, he obviously went on to have a very, very successful career as a novelist.
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I've never really looked up Patrick O'Brien, the man.
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You must please forgive me for the whiplash and deceptions, Beau, but I was somewhat counting
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on your ignorance here because, in fact, everything I just told you was a lie.
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The reason that I told you that is because that's what he told the world.
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So that was the official story of his life from him, right until his 80s.
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If you're going to make up a backstory for yourself, saying, yeah, I was in intelligence
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and very, very hush hush, can't tell you about it, but I was basically a spy.
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So there was an expose on him back in 1998, so just two years before he died in his mid-80s.
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And in this expose, they revealed the fact that actually he had been born not Patrick O'Brien,
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who obviously by the name, everyone had just assumed he was Irish, but rather he'd been
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born Robert Patrick Russ, and he lived most of his life in abject poverty.
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He mostly lived around London and Sussex, and he failed the entrance examination for Dartmouth Naval College.
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And then had a three-month stint in the RAF before not really being up to scratch for it.
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He wrote a children's novel in about 1930, and he also went on to write a novel called,
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I think it was The Golden Ocean, based on the voyages of George Anson from the 18th century.
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But everything, and even the intelligence services claim, turns out that what he wasn't, rather,
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Having said that as well, though, he was also a deeply private man, and I think that...
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So in 1945, he changed his name officially to Patrick O'Brien by deed poll.
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It's like being called Paddy O'Flanagan or something.
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I wonder why, if he's from London and Sussex or whatever, I wonder why he decided to do that, of all things.
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However, the larger point is that he wasn't a charlatan, and he did write all of these books.
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And what's even more incredible about his life was that right up until his 70s, he was very, very poor.
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He was writing these for decades before they started to actually gain some sort of recognition, and he started to be invited to the fancy dinners and to give speeches and all those sorts of things.
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So how you always say about was he famous in his own time, the answer on this occasion is only just, really.
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Because a lot of it, I feel like, I don't know if C.S. Forrester was, but you get the feeling from Hornblower and from Master and Commander that they genuinely, genuinely know these ships inside out.
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Well, what he lacked in experience, he obviously made up for an enormous historical appetite for the era.
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And you get this a lot through the series, of course.
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The historical fictions work, the way Aubrey just weaves himself through actual historical events, such as the Battle of Algericus.
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Two battles of Algericus towards the end of this particular novel.
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And, but one of the things as well that's also just something worth mentioning about his life that, and this is not embellishment, I promise you, this is, this is a truth.
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He went on to marry a woman called Mary Tolstoy.
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And the Tolstoy was directly related to the writer.
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Um, she had already married into the Tolstoy family.
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And then since meeting O'Brien in London during World War II, the two had divorced from their original marriages and ended up marrying one another.
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And living next to the Pyrenees for the rest of their lives, really.
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The Pyrenees were in Spain or in Southern France or something?
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Lived there in a quiet little village for decades and decades until his wife passed away in 98, I believe it was.
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And O'Brien spent his final year, perhaps aptly, in Ireland, in Dublin, where he died.
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So, now that we've said all of that about O'Brien himself and his very curious life, let's start talking about the novel itself.
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So, one thing to say is that collectively, all 20, 21 if you count the manuscript that he was working on when he died, all 20 novels are collectively known as the Aubrey Maturin series.
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And I think that's very, very apt, rather than because it really is their story, more than any naval engagement, more than any event that happens to one or two of them.
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Really, it's that brotherly bond that the two share, not obviously literal brothers, but as close to brothers as you can get.
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It's the strength of their relationship and the way that they continually get each other out of these terrible situations and always support one another.
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That really is the heart and soul of the series.
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Well, that first book opens with them meeting, doesn't it?
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And it's interesting because actually, when they very, very first meet, Aubrey's a bit annoyed with Stephen, isn't he?
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Because I think one of the great things about it, the thing I love, I think that's great about it, is that Aubrey, who's really the main character, I mean, it is a joint thing and it is about their relationship and their brotherly relationship.
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But really, it's Lucky Jack, who's the main character.
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He's an affable, likeable, well-meaning, warm-hearted type person.
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And so very quickly, they just strike up a great friendship and off we go.
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Because one of the things I think a lot of people have got, or I certainly have got a bit of a preconception that in real life, in real history, a lot of sort of 18th century captains or early 19th century captains will very often be sort of very strict taskmasters, perhaps even cruel.
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There's like the classic sort of Captain Blyer stereotype.
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Some would have been very pleasant, affable, nice guys.
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I'm sure some would have been, but a lot wouldn't have been.
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And anyway, when you read the book, and if you watch the Russian Crow film, it's made apparent pretty straight away that this isn't a cruel master.
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And as I say, even affable, got a sense of humour, all that.
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One of the things as well, just to make a distinction from the film in two ways, is that first of all, unlike in the film, where it has a very focused plot, and the mission is to find the French Acheron,
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and capture or sink it, in this, the story is much more meandering.
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He takes his, he's given, obviously, his charge, and he's promoted to master and commander.
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But what he can be given is charge of a 14-gun sloop called the Sophie.
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I mean, it doesn't stand a chance against a first-rater.
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It's still be able to blow up most things on the sea, if he wanted to.
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So that's another thing, I think, is not a parallel with Hornblower, is the first book starts, and he's already a captain.
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His first, he's a lieutenant, and then he receives the promotion at the beginning.
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Yeah, but he's already hoping for his own command.
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And, yeah, sorry, this is his first command, isn't it?
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So, basically, it starts with him being a captain.
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The first book, he's, in Hornblower's case, he's like a boy, a ship's boy, or a midshipman.
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It's been a long time since I read the first Hornblower book.
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But, like, Sharp starts where he's not even a private, or it starts where he's a private.
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Whereas this, we're straight into he's the master.
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Well, I think my master and commander is a good name, because there's this idea that
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the captain of a ship, I mean, it's still the case now, but not as much as in the early
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You'll never be more powerful than a captain on a ship.
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And, I mean, it doesn't really, it says that a few times, but it doesn't sort of really stress
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And that's another thing I would say about O'Brien's writing.
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And there's a reason why these are adored by their fans and why the film got made out
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of it, because they're very, very well written.
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Whatever that magic is to paint a picture and to paint a story where it's just a light
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touch here and just a flick of the paintbrush there, masterfully done.
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I think most of all through the conversations is the conversations, those calms between the
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Because one of the other things to say is that when I return to reading this in preparation,
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those particular first three chapters, once he gets on the ship, it's very, very heavy.
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All of it is just, and you're like, I don't know what this means.
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And O'Brien's obviously sensible of this too, because when Stephen comes aboard, Mr.
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Mowat gives him the whole, oh, well, that's what, you know, that's a starboard.
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And he just talks you through just an exposition dump of everything about what is the ship.
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But that's the bit that's most hornblower-like for me, because that's what hornblower is,
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And so, but you get that right at the beginning.
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And it's a great literary device that the doctor, surgeon, doesn't, isn't familiar, hasn't
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ever been on ship, certainly never been in the service.
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And so, doesn't know hardly anything about sailing.
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And so, that's used, him asking questions, like, what's that?
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One of my favourite parts of that conversation is where Stephen asks him, he says, look,
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could you explain this to me all in plainer words?
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And he's like, Mowat's like, no, these are the words.
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So, the film starts where he's, Captain Jack is a bit depressed because he hasn't got a
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And then he gets one, like, in the first chapter or two.
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Which also turns around because he and Stephen started on such frosty terms because of their
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Upon receiving his commission, Jack just decides to bury the hatchet.
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And what you get here is, I think, Stephen wants purpose and meaning, and he's very, very
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And Jack, obviously, one of the things that you see about Jack that separates him from his
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film counterpart in this novel is that, of course, by the time that you get to a film,
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Jack is already a very, very established captain.
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Whereas with this, it's him figuring things out as he comes.
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One of the things is about just trying not to be too over familiar with his juniors on
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You know, it's like stopping himself from holding his hand out to shake someone's hand
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when he shouldn't, or just giving too much praise.
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You know, just keeping that commanding distance.
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And Stephen, you see more and more, he comes to depend on Stephen and rely on his friendship
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because he's the one person that he can just be on there with, not directly under his command.
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There's a great line in there, I think, where he says something like, when he first goes
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to see the ship, and then when he, like, everything seems okay, more or less, and he leaves again,
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and he says something like, the whole ship collectively let out a sigh of relief when
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Because they're all on, like, effectively, like, a dress parade.
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But, you know, everything's got to be absolutely squared away, ship shape, and look, it's absolute
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best, and all the men, their most rigid attention, and all that sort of thing.
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And then when he leaves, they can all just sort of, ah, but he knows, having already gone
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And, yeah, he's a good captain, a good man, and, yeah, if anything, he has to stop himself
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But he always strikes the balance perfectly, though.
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Because as well as being, as I've said a few times here, he's, like, a nice guy, he does,
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He always, he always plays the situation perfectly.
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Um, yeah, yeah, so he gets orders, what, what happens next?
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Because, yeah, Stephen's just a bit of a loose end.
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And he's, like, do you want to, yeah, although at first it says, he offers him it just as
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a joke, as an aside, like, expecting Stephen to accept, and Stephen's, like, oh, actually,
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doesn't explicitly say it, but he's, like, actually, I've got nothing going on in my life.
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Yeah, maybe that's the best thing for me right now.
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And, yeah, so Stephen comes aboard, and the first mission, I believe it is, because that's
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what I was going to say, rather than just one single mission being the pot of this novel,
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Jack receives lots and lots of different orders.
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And so there are lots of things that go on, honestly, so many that it probably doesn't
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even make sense to go through them all individually, but just rather talk about themes and just major
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As the, as the story goes on, just because there are so many little missions and side
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But the, the chief one, of course, is that he is to, there's a convoy that he has to protect.
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And one of the first things as well is just to say that in preparing, well, let's talk
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about some of the other crew members and then we'll, so James Dillon is probably the most
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You've got, because he is pure Irish through and through, ultra paddy.
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And one of the things that comes out is that he, Dillon and Steven already know each other.
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Um, they don't know that that's not something they actually admit to Jack, um, to begin with.
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And the reason for that is that they were both a part of the United Irishman movement, revolutionary
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So this is the age of, um, the, the big question of home rule in Ireland.
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Well, one of the bigger themes, I think beyond just sailing and fighting Frenchmen beyond
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that theme is probably one of the biggest themes in this novel.
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If anyone doesn't know, there was just this whole question for like a generation or more
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in, in England, in Westminster of whether or not Ireland should have home rule or really
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they should do, or it's sort of inevitable at some point, how are we going to actually
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You know, like letting India have home rule or be independent.
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We're not going to try and keep you under our boot forever, Mongol style.
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So it's going to happen, but it's going to be a complicated, weird, difficult process.
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So anyway, that was sort of the real politics at that time.
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And one of the things that I think that, um, it's not, obviously it does many things.
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One, it just brings real political color to the time that the novel is set in, but also
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it allows the novel to ask questions about, uh, loyalty to the institution, to the Navy,
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to the Royal Navy, against your own personal individual beliefs and, you know, political
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And so, because Dylan doesn't want to like Jack.
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Because Jack is an Englishman and represents everything that he's rebelling against.
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And he and Stephen have this conversation with one another.
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In fact, it's one of the ones that I, I bookmarked.
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So they're having Dylan and, um, Stephen are having this conversation with one another.
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And he says, without the revolution in France gone to pure loss, I was already chilled beyond
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And now, with what I saw in 98 on both sides, meaning in Ireland, the wicked folly and the
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wicked brute cruelty, I have had such a sickening of men in masses and of causes that I would
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not cross this room to reform parliament or prevent the union or to bring about the millennium.
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But man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me.
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He is inhuman and I have nothing to do with nations or nationalism.
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The only feeling I have for what they are, are for men as individuals.
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My loyalties, such as they are, are to private persons alone.
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And Dylan asks him, well, patriotism will not do.
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It says, my dear creature, I have done with all debate.
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But you know, as well as I, patriotism is a word.
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And the one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous,
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or my country is always right, which is imbecile.
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And so this is Stephen's position, right, in the novel.
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And the brilliance of having that be Stephen's position, of course, is that it enormously contradicts
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Who loves the Navy, loves the service, believes what it's fighting for.
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