Though wary of being branded an enthusiast, in the
Johnsonian sense – or an anorak – I often feel a
case could be made for these being the best historical novels there have ever been.
However, an argument could equally be put forward for their exclusion from that canon, on the simple grounds that they require at least a modicum of nautical knowledge and sailing instincts to be fully enjoyed – thus preventing large parts of the world’s population from understanding their depths, and subtleties, and gentle humour.
Certainly I never recommend them to landlubber
friends. No disrespect, but we all have our literary limitations – my own particular bugaboo,
for instance (I'm sure I have many others), is a complete inability to get to
grips with The Magic Mountain, “Thomas Mann’s opus about curiously symbolic
people in a curiously symbolic sanatorium in the curiously symbolic Alps” (Russell Baker dixit). And I have long since stopped being ashamed or feeling
guilty about it. Fuck Thomas Mann.
So, landlubbers, enjoy the Locatelli (mentioned right at the beginning of the first novel, though the specific piece mentioned seems to be inexistent – a slip by the author not caught by the editor. The one above serves to get the mood).
But forget O'Brian. Read The Magic Mountain, instead. I am told it's a marvellous book.
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