25 ms·

Read the novels and forget everything else

143 points by samclemens 2mo ago

nchmy 2mo ago
Was hoping this would be an essay saying they started reading novels - ideally classics - and ignoring all other forms of "media".
abixb 2mo ago
Good reminder. As a percentage, most of my 'reading' has been outputs of frontier AI models. Need to increase my ratio of consuming human-written and human-produced text. Sometimes I fear drifting away from the 'core reality' of everyday life here in the US Midwest given how much I use AI.
genghisjahn 2mo ago
[removed] made the mistake of assuming the contents of the article before reading it. My comment does not apply.
- nine_k 2mo ago
  To comfortably indulge in all that, inherit old money.
magicmicah85 2mo ago
I loved the Peter Weir adaptation and was always hopeful there would be more, particularly with that ending leaving it open like that. I picked up the first book recently so that I could read through it on vacation. I do tend to agree with Jan Morris in that only people who knew the author have reason to care about his personal life. Of course there are limits, and given the author has been dead for 26 years and the events he is accused of happened 70+ years ago, O'Brian can no longer atone for his past misdeeds. I'm not certain if knowing that O'Brian was a horrible family man will change my enjoyment of the first book, but that remains to be seen. I may not even get through reading it due to other factors, anyway. I was curious if his family ever wrote about him and his son Richard Russ did in below article. I think this gives a good insight into how his son felt about his father, and particularly how his mother felt until her death. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/28/fiction.film https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/28/fiction.film
- ComputerPerson 2mo ago
  I haven't read Master and Commander and likely never will after reading this article. I couldn't get over the bad taste in my mouth I don't think. Fortunate for you to have read the book before the article. Too many good novels that weren't written by dispicable people.
  - defen 2mo ago
    I think it's a mistake to dismiss them just for that reason. He's been dead for 26 years, and you can get the books second-hand, so it's easy to acquire them while ensuring no money goes to him or his estate if that's what you're worried about. They're an absolutely fantastic set of novels, full of joy and adventure and excitement and humor and astonishing erudition.. Tom Stoppard admired him (as mentioned in the article) and Thomas Pynchon even wrote him into a brief scene in Mason & Dixon.
    - vvbull 2mo ago
      If I can find more media than I could ever possibly consume that a) I'll love to death, b) has a fan community who loves it with me, and c) is written by authors I don't viscerally reject, why would I ever compromise on those? Vanishingly few works are so good, so life altering, that I'd need to set aside my qualms with the author to read them. Like, I'm sure master and commander is a fine series of books. I'm sure it's many people's favorite series. There's no lack of historical fiction out there though. And more of it is being written every day. It's not dismissing the work, but it's more like making it a low priority. Once I've consumed all the high priority media ahead of it, I'll read it, it's just.... the amount of high priority media is effectively infinite.
      - defen 2mo ago
        None of his personal failures leak through into his books. It's not like reading someone who injects their abhorrent philosophy or ideology into their book and you're worried it will rub off on you. Imagine if you found out tomorrow that the author of your favorite book ever was an awful person - I don't see why that would change how you feel about the book. Anyway - yes there is a ton of content out there, more than enough for 100 lifetimes. If you have two hours and eighteen minutes the movie Master And Command: Far Side of the World does the source material good justice and is an excellent film in its own right. It's quite true to the books so it is probably a good predictor of whether you'd enjoy the books.
devindotcom 2mo ago
Excellent books, full of understated spectacle and really excellent wordplay. If you get into them you may want to pick up "A Sea of Words" as a guide to some of the more esoteric terminology. Pretty much guaranteed you'll be stumped quite a few times in every book.
- Insanity 2mo ago
  One of the great things about reading on the Kindle is that you can just highlight the esoteric words and the dictionary will explain it to you. Or you can use wikipedia if you need more info. It's genuinely a great feature, especially when reading in non-native languages. (Can also translate the words then as needed)
  - philipkglass 2mo ago
    I read the whole series on the Kindle about 10 years ago and the obscure nautical words were not in the Kindle's internal dictionary. It would try to connect to an online service to look up those words, but that doesn't help if you are on an airplane. Has the dictionary grown more comprehensive in newer Kindle models?
    - squigz 2mo ago
      No. I had to find a more complete dictionary to properly enjoy them. (I also added some fantasy dictionaries like for LoTR)
- squigz 2mo ago
  > full of understated spectacle The scenes with shipwrecks always stood out to me. One ship was lost during a storm with all hands, and he simply ended the chapter with something like "My god, 600 men..." > really excellent wordplay. I am a rather simple man, like Jack. One of my favorites remains: “Two weevils crept from the crumbs. ‘You see those weevils, Stephen?’ said Jack solemnly. ‘I do.’ ‘Which would you choose?’ ‘There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.’ ‘But suppose you had to choose?’ ‘Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.’ ‘There I have you,’ cried Jack. ‘You are bit – you are completely dished. Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!” - I've found myself cracking up with Jack so many times. A truly excellent series that I'm actually currently re-reading :)
qsera 2mo ago
I want to know, or care, about zero details about an artist, except their name, (so that I can find their other works). period.
ChrisMarshallNY 2mo ago
That can be difficult, depending on who the "author" may be. I still love Apple, even though Steve Jobs was a ... shall we say ... complicated ... man; but I have a problem, watching certain movies or TV shows, because the actors or producers got up to some unsavory hijinks.
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  Pretty much every single person whose name is commonly known or read about in history books is complicated in that way. Some clearly have no saving graces but most have some mix of admirable and unsavory qualities, especially if you judge them in their own time.
nabbed 2mo ago
>And then it all went bad. The Daily Telegraph, following up on biographical discrepancy in a BBC documentary, uncovered proof that Patrick O’Brian…was not Patrick O’Brian. About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial things, e.g., how they looked). I remember mentioning that to a co-worker, when discussing a band I had just learned about and enjoyed, and he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person. I figured if the person was bad enough, the information would get to me somehow.
- SanjayMehta 2mo ago
  > he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person Does your friend use a smartphone? He could be funding very bad people. https://voiceofenvironment.com/2019/06/21/conflict-minerals-smartphone-dark-side/ https://voiceofenvironment.com/2019/06/21/conflict-minerals-...
- JoeDaDude 2mo ago
  The "human connection to the artist" is believed to be important by some, but I disagree. People tend to create an image of a musician and are too often disappointed because, for example, they disapprove of the musician's lifestyle (the expression sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll exists for a reason), or because of disagreement with the social or political causes the musicians support. Occasionally, fans follow an artist for their commitment to their art later to discover they sell out, like their style changes to pursue mass appeal, or they sell their work to become a jingle for sugar pops or similar. I think it is best to appreciate an artist's creation and leave it at that. To quote a film, I think it is best to "separate the art from the artist".
  - Nursie 2mo ago
    I don't, especially when the artist flows into the art. Take H.P. Lovecraft. Very big name in supernatural horror, created Great Cthulu and various other tropes that survive and are influential to today. Famously misogynistic and racist. Particularly on the racism side it's not really even fair to say he was 'of his time', it seems to go beyond that. And it's all there in the fiction. Fear of the other, racist tropes about clothing and appearance and mistrust of women. The works are pretty amazing, he spins an atmosphere so well. His ideas of horrors beyond time and space are well realised (with a lot of emphasis on what is not seen) and his dreamy fantasy sequences really work and draw me into a dreamlike state. But they're all run through with racist stereotypes about people (or demons) with darker skin or racialised features. Does this mean no Cthulu for anyone? I don't believe that's a good answer either, but I also don't believe one should consume the art in ignorance. (And I very much enjoyed reading Lovecraft Country a few years back)
msla 2mo ago
Forgetting the infelicities of Patrick Russ is reasonable because he's both dead and his estate isn't (to my knowledge) funneling money from the sale of his books to odious causes. Would that I could say the same about other authors.
tclancy 2mo ago
He is a completely flawed man. The books are borderline flawless (will admit when I reread them now I skip the last 2 or 3 because he clearly felt the creep of time and started killing off characters I loved deeply). >O’Brian as “an artificer” whose work lacked the “frisson” one finds “in the presence of creative greatness” Absolutely zero idea what that even means. The books are wonderful as escapist superhero stuff, as an entry into British history and as a study of human relationships. "Jane Austen on the high seas" isn't far from the truth. The books track an incredible friendship, a couple of hard-won marriages and the meaning of work. A lot of what I learned/ think about the management of multi-person projects is influenced by Jack Aubrey: you don't necessarily have to be right, but you have to decide if you're going to lead. And trying to manage a team larger than can fit in a longboat is a hard road to choose. The article skips my favorite funny line, "Your friend has a singular genius for striking the wrong note."
- ekelsen 2mo ago
  I think the quoted sentence is basically saying his work is workman like and doesn't cause the chills that reading something truly great does. (I don't agree)
  - wahern 2mo ago
    I think she's betraying that her knowledge of his personal character colors her interpretation and experience of his work: > Why, then, does his work not give me the ultimate frisson I get when I feel I am in the presence of creative greatness, and which constantly moves me as I read the pages of Leo Tolstoy? I think it is because in Tolstoy I know I am confronting fundamental truths, expressed in fiction that has grown organically out of human life, out of history, and out of the author's heart. In O'Brian, on the contrary, I am reading the work of an artificer, a contriver of genius and, well, a liar. From https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/03/biography https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/03/biography (link posted elsewhere, though not before I had to resort to using ChatGPT to dredge it up).
    - tclancy 2mo ago
jvandonsel 2mo ago
Despite reading the entire series twice, I never understood the porcupine line. Can someone ELI5?
- tclancy 2mo ago
  It’s Jack talking through his hat again. I think he’s trying to determine if a woman is married or not and when it turns out they having a roving eye, he conflates “porcupine” (no idea what a porcupine-lay might be) with “concubine”.
  - BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
    I think "lay" might be as literal as we would use it now.
    - js2 2mo ago
      It's probably slang for "line of work: occupation": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay See 3b under its noun definition. So: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.” Translates to: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the concubine-occupation, the roving-line [of work], if you understand me.” Then Jack, not wanting to embarrass Heaven for his malapropism, intentionaly reuses "porcupine" incorrectly.
ridgeguy 2mo ago
Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C. After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare. I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill. Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- squigz 2mo ago
  > Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me. This bothered me in ways I cannot currently put into words.
  - kombookcha 2mo ago
    Such an abrupt, visceral sense of revulsion after an otherwise pleasant anecdote. Like finding a used band-aid at the bottom of your plate of comfy stew.
- z500 2mo ago
  > Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me. That's what you took away from that?!
DHPersonal 2mo ago
I had a similar author shock when I learned James Herriot’s books were not the autobiographies I thought they were but instead were the fictionalized compilations of stories from multiple veterinarians. I had such a great time reading the books as a young man and was dismayed to learn they weren’t authentic. I appreciated learning the truth but wondered if perhaps believing the lie would’ve been better for something relatively unimportant.
- SanjayMehta 2mo ago
  A practising vet introduced me to Herriot. He told me they were like PG Wodehouse but with animals. Surely the enjoyment they provided was that counts: why stress out over "authenticity." (Banksy comes to mind for some reason: he vandalises property over various causes and no one questions his authenticity. Does anyone think he's suffered like the caricatures he depicts?)
  - DHPersonal 2mo ago
    I think they remain enjoyable even as fictional; I just would’ve preferred having them described that way to me at the start rather than the pretense of them being autobiographical.
- the_af 2mo ago
  I dunno. In the case of Herriot, whose books I utterly love, I only half believed in my teenage years they were truly autobiographical (too funny, too neat to be true), and I wasn't surprised when I found they weren't. Well, they have some tidbits from his actual life, but yeah, a blend of multiple stories, some from others, some made up. I still believe they are undiminished as books and enjoy them from time to time. Some things hit harder when you know stuff from his real life, for example those stories about depressed people (I remember the story of the young man who takes his own life when his dog dies, and how cheerful he seemed) and then I read the real Herriot suffered from depression. So I guess he was somewhat writing about himself? Also, somewhat contradicting what I said above, the stories might be fictional but they ring true of the English countryside and the farmers of the transitional time Herriot describes. That the stories aren't literally true doesn't detract from that. It's a bit like what American author Tim O'Brien explores in his writings, that verosimilitude can be as important, if not more, than actual truth.
WalterBright 2mo ago
I've rarely read anything that had so many words I had never heard of!
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  I started reading the first book (and since stopped as I wasn't ready for the detailed nautical terminology), but one thing really jarred me was, in this section of very dry terminology when setting up a ship for sail, the use of the 'olde' terminology for 'cut splice'. It's great that he uses the time specific terminology, but it threw me because I really wasn't expecting that word at that time. It's become my favourite knot to reference though, because I'm still a child.
- jasone 2mo ago
  If you enjoyed that experience, read The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (5 books, 1-2 and 3-4 commonly printed as combined volumes: Shadow & Claw, Sword & Citadel, The Urth of the New Sun). I re-read them this spring, and they remain among the top ~3 series I've ever (re-)read.
jimbob45 2mo ago
I had no idea floccinaucihipilification was a real word. I saw it in a fake spelling bee for a commercial decades ago and assumed it was just a comically long fake word.
- dmurray 2mo ago
  It was invented as a comically long fake word, but gained enough currency to be used in real writing, though in a tongue-in-cheek way. It's a Latin calque. I'm sure the spelling should be floccipaucinihil... from pauci, few and nihil, nothing - you and the reviewer have used spellings that differ from this and from each other, but I doubt O'Brian did.
SV_BubbleTime 2mo ago
I find it difficult to understand the immaturity of not being able to separate the art and artist. It’s really not difficult. I think some of it is performative for signaling to one’s peers that they are on the “right side” of some issue or imagined virtue.
- munchler 2mo ago
  It's not about immature people being unable to separate art from artist because it's difficult. The issue is whether it's the right thing to do. I feel pretty confident that I could describe to you a case (either real or hypothetical) where you would reject an artist based on their personal behavior, rather than their art. You would find it quite difficult in such a case to separate the two. So the question is where to draw the line, and everyone answers that question differently.
- delis-thumbs-7e 2mo ago
  What you are doing is not maturity, but compartmentalisation. If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia, or Roman Polanski’s repeated rape accusations, you are choosing willful ignorance, especially since often the artist’s status and fame make their criminal behaviour possible and provides them shelter from prosecution. I myself am far from innocent of this. For more than 20 years Polanski has been, and in many ways still is, my favourite film maker. Repulsion, Tenant, Chinatown etc. are masterpieces of cinema. But they are inherently, even on plot level (at least in the case of Chinatown) intertwined with the horror of his actions. There is no virtue signalling in my personal connection to his set of work (who would even care anyway), but for me to continue pretend I know nothing about his behaviour or that it doesn’t directly inflect upon his work would be deeply dishonest.
  - colinb 2mo ago
    I too thought of Polanski (Roman, not Zac) while reading these threads. I’m not sure the comparison or perhaps, the parallel holds though. PO’b may have been a bad husband. Or he may have been married to a bad wife. Or maybe they were both a bit rough. I don’t know an any real evidence either way, and life has taught me that it’s hard to see inside the truth of other people’s relationships. I have trouble enough with my own, and I’m present in real-time! Polanski R is not the same thing. He drugged and raped a child and was defended for decades by people who ought to know better because of his directorial genius. I don’t dispute that genius. I just can’t watch his movies again without feeling a little sick. All of this to say, judging Polanski for being a monster is not the same as judging PO’b for being a jerk. I reread the Aubrey-Maturin novels every four or five years and they enrich my life on every occasion. And I don’t feel even slightly bad about it. (Disappointingly, I did lose an argument over a big family dinner several years ago when it turned it that tracklement is a neologism. Imagine my embarrassment!)
vixen99 2mo ago
I'm afraid the examples of 'his finest comedy' are so 'dry' I'm missing it completely. My loss I guess.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  You're not the only one. I have read somewhere that there is a whole separate book that explains the nautical terminology used in the books, which was recommended as a reference to keep by ones side whilst reading the books. I wonder if it also applies to porcupine-lay or roving line. I just ran it past an LLM and it provided a decent explanation. Also see @tclancy's reply to @jvandonsel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149969
BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
I'm slowly collecting this set of novels from various second-hand book shops, and I'm looking forward to reading them in order, most likely some time in retirement. I'm happy not to know anything about the author, reading is all about the suspension of disbelief, so I will continue to let myself have that outlet. The movie is one of my all time favourites.
- squigz 2mo ago
  I thought the movie was pretty good, but I really wished I enjoyed it more. I think the casting of Jack and Stephen both really didn't work for me. I really hope they make more movies about them though.
niemandhier 2mo ago
I liked Master and Commander, I still prefer C.S. Forrester’s “Hornblower” books. Forrester is the Andy Weir of naval warfare with sailing ships. Even the tiny technical details are well researched.
fergie 2mo ago
> O’Brian’s ear for dialogue produced some of his finest comedy. From The 13 Gun Salute (1989): > > “A lovely young woman indeed, Heaven,” said Jack. “Mrs Heaven, if I do not mistake?” > “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.” > “There is a great deal to be said for porcupines, Heaven: Solomon had a thousand, and Solomon knew what o’clock it was.” > > Or from The Yellow Admiral (1996): > > Stephen nodded, and with a curiously knowing look, his head on one side, he asked, > “Can you foretell the dark of the moon with reasonable accuracy?” > “I believe so,” said Jack. “Her motions are of some importance in navigation you know, and we learn them quite early.” I didn't get either of these jokes.
- saimiam 2mo ago
  I got the second one. Jack’s saying that since he’s a seafarer, navigating by the moon is important. It’s standard British-understatement-as-comedy trope.
  - jimnotgym 2mo ago
    Funnily enough I think it is much less funny out of context. It is an in-joke that Stephen has picked up very little of nautical life, despite being on ship for many years.
  - defen 2mo ago
    I just read this one. The other thing that's going on is that Stephen has a secret mission that requires him to be put on shore in France, so he wants to do that during a new moon. The question is Stephen's adorable way of "encrypting" that question so as not to reveal the mission to the rest of the crew. Imagine that you were in a big meeting and you wanted an excuse to leave, so you whispered to your co-worker "Do you think my phone can receive messages in this room?" And he replied "Phones are the foundation of modern telecommunication infrastructure and we're in a large city, I assure you that you will promptly receive any messages that are sent to you."
- edflsafoiewq 2mo ago
  "Porcupine" confused with "concubine".
jimnotgym 2mo ago
I don't get this examination of the character of the man, an extremely private man, behind the books. I don't think he ever held himself as an example to people. He didn't claim to be a role model. He stayed private, so private that every time we see an article like that we just get the same tiny snippets. We have little idea what he was really like and frankly i have little interest. Great books, the end
jimnotgym 2mo ago
Well after that article and these comments, I need to burn a lot of books, art and music that I once loved. I used to love Millais' 'Ophelia', but he now seems arrogant and even bedded his patrons wife. The scandal. On the fire. I used to love the Rolling Stones, but it seems they took drugs and held concerts organised by an organised crime group. On the fire. Master and Commander was one of the most touching and uplifting reads of my life, all at a tragic time for me. But he left his wife, didn't like talking about his past and wrote under a book de plume, it seems. On the fire. I loved Oscar Wilde's work, but the rogue was a jail bird, and very arrogant. On the fire Can we compile an approved list of quality works from faultless individuals? I don't want to be sullied by their human faults...AI slop to the rescue
- matwood 2mo ago
  I'm not religious, but this quote often comes to mind in these situations, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone." Clearly everyone else is perfect, and only these authors had faults.
mafm 2mo ago
I read the books, and enjoyed them in the early 2000s. I was quite amused to see the article on O'Brian in Yachting World in 2004 when I was halfway through the series. I don't have a link to the yachting world article, but the BBC article seems to be a reasonable summary of what I think I remember reading in yachting world: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3570988.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3570988.stm I think the yachting world and BBC article were following up on Tom Perkins original story published in latitude38: https://www.latitude38.com/features/O%27Brian.htm https://www.latitude38.com/features/O%27Brian.htm
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

143 points by samclemens 2mo ago

nchmy 2mo ago

Was hoping this would be an essay saying they started reading novels - ideally classics - and ignoring all other forms of "media".

abixb 2mo ago

Good reminder. As a percentage, most of my 'reading' has been outputs of frontier AI models. Need to increase my ratio of consuming human-written and human-produced text. Sometimes I fear drifting away from the 'core reality' of everyday life here in the US Midwest given how much I use AI.

genghisjahn 2mo ago

[removed] made the mistake of assuming the contents of the article before reading it. My comment does not apply.

nine_k 2mo ago
To comfortably indulge in all that, inherit old money.

magicmicah85 2mo ago

I loved the Peter Weir adaptation and was always hopeful there would be more, particularly with that ending leaving it open like that. I picked up the first book recently so that I could read through it on vacation. I do tend to agree with Jan Morris in that only people who knew the author have reason to care about his personal life. Of course there are limits, and given the author has been dead for 26 years and the events he is accused of happened 70+ years ago, O'Brian can no longer atone for his past misdeeds. I'm not certain if knowing that O'Brian was a horrible family man will change my enjoyment of the first book, but that remains to be seen. I may not even get through reading it due to other factors, anyway. I was curious if his family ever wrote about him and his son Richard Russ did in below article. I think this gives a good insight into how his son felt about his father, and particularly how his mother felt until her death. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/28/fiction.film https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/28/fiction.film

ComputerPerson 2mo ago
I haven't read Master and Commander and likely never will after reading this article. I couldn't get over the bad taste in my mouth I don't think. Fortunate for you to have read the book before the article. Too many good novels that weren't written by dispicable people.
- defen 2mo ago
  I think it's a mistake to dismiss them just for that reason. He's been dead for 26 years, and you can get the books second-hand, so it's easy to acquire them while ensuring no money goes to him or his estate if that's what you're worried about. They're an absolutely fantastic set of novels, full of joy and adventure and excitement and humor and astonishing erudition.. Tom Stoppard admired him (as mentioned in the article) and Thomas Pynchon even wrote him into a brief scene in Mason & Dixon.
  - vvbull 2mo ago
    If I can find more media than I could ever possibly consume that a) I'll love to death, b) has a fan community who loves it with me, and c) is written by authors I don't viscerally reject, why would I ever compromise on those? Vanishingly few works are so good, so life altering, that I'd need to set aside my qualms with the author to read them. Like, I'm sure master and commander is a fine series of books. I'm sure it's many people's favorite series. There's no lack of historical fiction out there though. And more of it is being written every day. It's not dismissing the work, but it's more like making it a low priority. Once I've consumed all the high priority media ahead of it, I'll read it, it's just.... the amount of high priority media is effectively infinite.
    - defen 2mo ago
      None of his personal failures leak through into his books. It's not like reading someone who injects their abhorrent philosophy or ideology into their book and you're worried it will rub off on you. Imagine if you found out tomorrow that the author of your favorite book ever was an awful person - I don't see why that would change how you feel about the book. Anyway - yes there is a ton of content out there, more than enough for 100 lifetimes. If you have two hours and eighteen minutes the movie Master And Command: Far Side of the World does the source material good justice and is an excellent film in its own right. It's quite true to the books so it is probably a good predictor of whether you'd enjoy the books.

devindotcom 2mo ago

Excellent books, full of understated spectacle and really excellent wordplay. If you get into them you may want to pick up "A Sea of Words" as a guide to some of the more esoteric terminology. Pretty much guaranteed you'll be stumped quite a few times in every book.

Insanity 2mo ago
One of the great things about reading on the Kindle is that you can just highlight the esoteric words and the dictionary will explain it to you. Or you can use wikipedia if you need more info. It's genuinely a great feature, especially when reading in non-native languages. (Can also translate the words then as needed)
- philipkglass 2mo ago
  I read the whole series on the Kindle about 10 years ago and the obscure nautical words were not in the Kindle's internal dictionary. It would try to connect to an online service to look up those words, but that doesn't help if you are on an airplane. Has the dictionary grown more comprehensive in newer Kindle models?
  - squigz 2mo ago
    No. I had to find a more complete dictionary to properly enjoy them. (I also added some fantasy dictionaries like for LoTR)
squigz 2mo ago
> full of understated spectacle The scenes with shipwrecks always stood out to me. One ship was lost during a storm with all hands, and he simply ended the chapter with something like "My god, 600 men..." > really excellent wordplay. I am a rather simple man, like Jack. One of my favorites remains: “Two weevils crept from the crumbs. ‘You see those weevils, Stephen?’ said Jack solemnly. ‘I do.’ ‘Which would you choose?’ ‘There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.’ ‘But suppose you had to choose?’ ‘Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.’ ‘There I have you,’ cried Jack. ‘You are bit – you are completely dished. Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!” - I've found myself cracking up with Jack so many times. A truly excellent series that I'm actually currently re-reading :)

qsera 2mo ago

I want to know, or care, about zero details about an artist, except their name, (so that I can find their other works). period.

ChrisMarshallNY 2mo ago

That can be difficult, depending on who the "author" may be. I still love Apple, even though Steve Jobs was a ... shall we say ... complicated ... man; but I have a problem, watching certain movies or TV shows, because the actors or producers got up to some unsavory hijinks.

SoftTalker 2mo ago
Pretty much every single person whose name is commonly known or read about in history books is complicated in that way. Some clearly have no saving graces but most have some mix of admirable and unsavory qualities, especially if you judge them in their own time.

nabbed 2mo ago

>And then it all went bad. The Daily Telegraph, following up on biographical discrepancy in a BBC documentary, uncovered proof that Patrick O’Brian…was not Patrick O’Brian. About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial things, e.g., how they looked). I remember mentioning that to a co-worker, when discussing a band I had just learned about and enjoyed, and he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person. I figured if the person was bad enough, the information would get to me somehow.

SanjayMehta 2mo ago
> he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person Does your friend use a smartphone? He could be funding very bad people. https://voiceofenvironment.com/2019/06/21/conflict-minerals-smartphone-dark-side/ https://voiceofenvironment.com/2019/06/21/conflict-minerals-...
JoeDaDude 2mo ago
The "human connection to the artist" is believed to be important by some, but I disagree. People tend to create an image of a musician and are too often disappointed because, for example, they disapprove of the musician's lifestyle (the expression sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll exists for a reason), or because of disagreement with the social or political causes the musicians support. Occasionally, fans follow an artist for their commitment to their art later to discover they sell out, like their style changes to pursue mass appeal, or they sell their work to become a jingle for sugar pops or similar. I think it is best to appreciate an artist's creation and leave it at that. To quote a film, I think it is best to "separate the art from the artist".
- Nursie 2mo ago
  I don't, especially when the artist flows into the art. Take H.P. Lovecraft. Very big name in supernatural horror, created Great Cthulu and various other tropes that survive and are influential to today. Famously misogynistic and racist. Particularly on the racism side it's not really even fair to say he was 'of his time', it seems to go beyond that. And it's all there in the fiction. Fear of the other, racist tropes about clothing and appearance and mistrust of women. The works are pretty amazing, he spins an atmosphere so well. His ideas of horrors beyond time and space are well realised (with a lot of emphasis on what is not seen) and his dreamy fantasy sequences really work and draw me into a dreamlike state. But they're all run through with racist stereotypes about people (or demons) with darker skin or racialised features. Does this mean no Cthulu for anyone? I don't believe that's a good answer either, but I also don't believe one should consume the art in ignorance. (And I very much enjoyed reading Lovecraft Country a few years back)

msla 2mo ago

Forgetting the infelicities of Patrick Russ is reasonable because he's both dead and his estate isn't (to my knowledge) funneling money from the sale of his books to odious causes. Would that I could say the same about other authors.

tclancy 2mo ago

He is a completely flawed man. The books are borderline flawless (will admit when I reread them now I skip the last 2 or 3 because he clearly felt the creep of time and started killing off characters I loved deeply). >O’Brian as “an artificer” whose work lacked the “frisson” one finds “in the presence of creative greatness” Absolutely zero idea what that even means. The books are wonderful as escapist superhero stuff, as an entry into British history and as a study of human relationships. "Jane Austen on the high seas" isn't far from the truth. The books track an incredible friendship, a couple of hard-won marriages and the meaning of work. A lot of what I learned/ think about the management of multi-person projects is influenced by Jack Aubrey: you don't necessarily have to be right, but you have to decide if you're going to lead. And trying to manage a team larger than can fit in a longboat is a hard road to choose. The article skips my favorite funny line, "Your friend has a singular genius for striking the wrong note."

ekelsen 2mo ago
I think the quoted sentence is basically saying his work is workman like and doesn't cause the chills that reading something truly great does. (I don't agree)
- wahern 2mo ago
  I think she's betraying that her knowledge of his personal character colors her interpretation and experience of his work: > Why, then, does his work not give me the ultimate frisson I get when I feel I am in the presence of creative greatness, and which constantly moves me as I read the pages of Leo Tolstoy? I think it is because in Tolstoy I know I am confronting fundamental truths, expressed in fiction that has grown organically out of human life, out of history, and out of the author's heart. In O'Brian, on the contrary, I am reading the work of an artificer, a contriver of genius and, well, a liar. From https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/03/biography https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/03/biography (link posted elsewhere, though not before I had to resort to using ChatGPT to dredge it up).
  - tclancy 2mo ago

jvandonsel 2mo ago

Despite reading the entire series twice, I never understood the porcupine line. Can someone ELI5?

tclancy 2mo ago
It’s Jack talking through his hat again. I think he’s trying to determine if a woman is married or not and when it turns out they having a roving eye, he conflates “porcupine” (no idea what a porcupine-lay might be) with “concubine”.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  I think "lay" might be as literal as we would use it now.
  - js2 2mo ago
    It's probably slang for "line of work: occupation": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay See 3b under its noun definition. So: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.” Translates to: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the concubine-occupation, the roving-line [of work], if you understand me.” Then Jack, not wanting to embarrass Heaven for his malapropism, intentionaly reuses "porcupine" incorrectly.

ridgeguy 2mo ago

Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C. After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare. I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill. Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.

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squigz 2mo ago
> Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me. This bothered me in ways I cannot currently put into words.
- kombookcha 2mo ago
  Such an abrupt, visceral sense of revulsion after an otherwise pleasant anecdote. Like finding a used band-aid at the bottom of your plate of comfy stew.
z500 2mo ago
> Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me. That's what you took away from that?!

DHPersonal 2mo ago

I had a similar author shock when I learned James Herriot’s books were not the autobiographies I thought they were but instead were the fictionalized compilations of stories from multiple veterinarians. I had such a great time reading the books as a young man and was dismayed to learn they weren’t authentic. I appreciated learning the truth but wondered if perhaps believing the lie would’ve been better for something relatively unimportant.

SanjayMehta 2mo ago
A practising vet introduced me to Herriot. He told me they were like PG Wodehouse but with animals. Surely the enjoyment they provided was that counts: why stress out over "authenticity." (Banksy comes to mind for some reason: he vandalises property over various causes and no one questions his authenticity. Does anyone think he's suffered like the caricatures he depicts?)
- DHPersonal 2mo ago
  I think they remain enjoyable even as fictional; I just would’ve preferred having them described that way to me at the start rather than the pretense of them being autobiographical.
the_af 2mo ago
I dunno. In the case of Herriot, whose books I utterly love, I only half believed in my teenage years they were truly autobiographical (too funny, too neat to be true), and I wasn't surprised when I found they weren't. Well, they have some tidbits from his actual life, but yeah, a blend of multiple stories, some from others, some made up. I still believe they are undiminished as books and enjoy them from time to time. Some things hit harder when you know stuff from his real life, for example those stories about depressed people (I remember the story of the young man who takes his own life when his dog dies, and how cheerful he seemed) and then I read the real Herriot suffered from depression. So I guess he was somewhat writing about himself? Also, somewhat contradicting what I said above, the stories might be fictional but they ring true of the English countryside and the farmers of the transitional time Herriot describes. That the stories aren't literally true doesn't detract from that. It's a bit like what American author Tim O'Brien explores in his writings, that verosimilitude can be as important, if not more, than actual truth.

WalterBright 2mo ago

I've rarely read anything that had so many words I had never heard of!

BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
I started reading the first book (and since stopped as I wasn't ready for the detailed nautical terminology), but one thing really jarred me was, in this section of very dry terminology when setting up a ship for sail, the use of the 'olde' terminology for 'cut splice'. It's great that he uses the time specific terminology, but it threw me because I really wasn't expecting that word at that time. It's become my favourite knot to reference though, because I'm still a child.
jasone 2mo ago
If you enjoyed that experience, read The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (5 books, 1-2 and 3-4 commonly printed as combined volumes: Shadow & Claw, Sword & Citadel, The Urth of the New Sun). I re-read them this spring, and they remain among the top ~3 series I've ever (re-)read.

jimbob45 2mo ago

I had no idea floccinaucihipilification was a real word. I saw it in a fake spelling bee for a commercial decades ago and assumed it was just a comically long fake word.

dmurray 2mo ago
It was invented as a comically long fake word, but gained enough currency to be used in real writing, though in a tongue-in-cheek way. It's a Latin calque. I'm sure the spelling should be floccipaucinihil... from pauci, few and nihil, nothing - you and the reviewer have used spellings that differ from this and from each other, but I doubt O'Brian did.

SV_BubbleTime 2mo ago

I find it difficult to understand the immaturity of not being able to separate the art and artist. It’s really not difficult. I think some of it is performative for signaling to one’s peers that they are on the “right side” of some issue or imagined virtue.

munchler 2mo ago
It's not about immature people being unable to separate art from artist because it's difficult. The issue is whether it's the right thing to do. I feel pretty confident that I could describe to you a case (either real or hypothetical) where you would reject an artist based on their personal behavior, rather than their art. You would find it quite difficult in such a case to separate the two. So the question is where to draw the line, and everyone answers that question differently.
delis-thumbs-7e 2mo ago
What you are doing is not maturity, but compartmentalisation. If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia, or Roman Polanski’s repeated rape accusations, you are choosing willful ignorance, especially since often the artist’s status and fame make their criminal behaviour possible and provides them shelter from prosecution. I myself am far from innocent of this. For more than 20 years Polanski has been, and in many ways still is, my favourite film maker. Repulsion, Tenant, Chinatown etc. are masterpieces of cinema. But they are inherently, even on plot level (at least in the case of Chinatown) intertwined with the horror of his actions. There is no virtue signalling in my personal connection to his set of work (who would even care anyway), but for me to continue pretend I know nothing about his behaviour or that it doesn’t directly inflect upon his work would be deeply dishonest.
- colinb 2mo ago
  I too thought of Polanski (Roman, not Zac) while reading these threads. I’m not sure the comparison or perhaps, the parallel holds though. PO’b may have been a bad husband. Or he may have been married to a bad wife. Or maybe they were both a bit rough. I don’t know an any real evidence either way, and life has taught me that it’s hard to see inside the truth of other people’s relationships. I have trouble enough with my own, and I’m present in real-time! Polanski R is not the same thing. He drugged and raped a child and was defended for decades by people who ought to know better because of his directorial genius. I don’t dispute that genius. I just can’t watch his movies again without feeling a little sick. All of this to say, judging Polanski for being a monster is not the same as judging PO’b for being a jerk. I reread the Aubrey-Maturin novels every four or five years and they enrich my life on every occasion. And I don’t feel even slightly bad about it. (Disappointingly, I did lose an argument over a big family dinner several years ago when it turned it that tracklement is a neologism. Imagine my embarrassment!)

vixen99 2mo ago

I'm afraid the examples of 'his finest comedy' are so 'dry' I'm missing it completely. My loss I guess.

BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
You're not the only one. I have read somewhere that there is a whole separate book that explains the nautical terminology used in the books, which was recommended as a reference to keep by ones side whilst reading the books. I wonder if it also applies to porcupine-lay or roving line. I just ran it past an LLM and it provided a decent explanation. Also see @tclancy's reply to @jvandonsel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149969

BLKNSLVR 2mo ago

I'm slowly collecting this set of novels from various second-hand book shops, and I'm looking forward to reading them in order, most likely some time in retirement. I'm happy not to know anything about the author, reading is all about the suspension of disbelief, so I will continue to let myself have that outlet. The movie is one of my all time favourites.

squigz 2mo ago
I thought the movie was pretty good, but I really wished I enjoyed it more. I think the casting of Jack and Stephen both really didn't work for me. I really hope they make more movies about them though.

niemandhier 2mo ago

I liked Master and Commander, I still prefer C.S. Forrester’s “Hornblower” books. Forrester is the Andy Weir of naval warfare with sailing ships. Even the tiny technical details are well researched.

fergie 2mo ago

> O’Brian’s ear for dialogue produced some of his finest comedy. From The 13 Gun Salute (1989): > > “A lovely young woman indeed, Heaven,” said Jack. “Mrs Heaven, if I do not mistake?” > “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.” > “There is a great deal to be said for porcupines, Heaven: Solomon had a thousand, and Solomon knew what o’clock it was.” > > Or from The Yellow Admiral (1996): > > Stephen nodded, and with a curiously knowing look, his head on one side, he asked, > “Can you foretell the dark of the moon with reasonable accuracy?” > “I believe so,” said Jack. “Her motions are of some importance in navigation you know, and we learn them quite early.” I didn't get either of these jokes.

saimiam 2mo ago
I got the second one. Jack’s saying that since he’s a seafarer, navigating by the moon is important. It’s standard British-understatement-as-comedy trope.
- jimnotgym 2mo ago
  Funnily enough I think it is much less funny out of context. It is an in-joke that Stephen has picked up very little of nautical life, despite being on ship for many years.
- defen 2mo ago
  I just read this one. The other thing that's going on is that Stephen has a secret mission that requires him to be put on shore in France, so he wants to do that during a new moon. The question is Stephen's adorable way of "encrypting" that question so as not to reveal the mission to the rest of the crew. Imagine that you were in a big meeting and you wanted an excuse to leave, so you whispered to your co-worker "Do you think my phone can receive messages in this room?" And he replied "Phones are the foundation of modern telecommunication infrastructure and we're in a large city, I assure you that you will promptly receive any messages that are sent to you."
edflsafoiewq 2mo ago
"Porcupine" confused with "concubine".

jimnotgym 2mo ago

I don't get this examination of the character of the man, an extremely private man, behind the books. I don't think he ever held himself as an example to people. He didn't claim to be a role model. He stayed private, so private that every time we see an article like that we just get the same tiny snippets. We have little idea what he was really like and frankly i have little interest. Great books, the end

jimnotgym 2mo ago

Well after that article and these comments, I need to burn a lot of books, art and music that I once loved. I used to love Millais' 'Ophelia', but he now seems arrogant and even bedded his patrons wife. The scandal. On the fire. I used to love the Rolling Stones, but it seems they took drugs and held concerts organised by an organised crime group. On the fire. Master and Commander was one of the most touching and uplifting reads of my life, all at a tragic time for me. But he left his wife, didn't like talking about his past and wrote under a book de plume, it seems. On the fire. I loved Oscar Wilde's work, but the rogue was a jail bird, and very arrogant. On the fire Can we compile an approved list of quality works from faultless individuals? I don't want to be sullied by their human faults...AI slop to the rescue

matwood 2mo ago
I'm not religious, but this quote often comes to mind in these situations, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone." Clearly everyone else is perfect, and only these authors had faults.

mafm 2mo ago

I read the books, and enjoyed them in the early 2000s. I was quite amused to see the article on O'Brian in Yachting World in 2004 when I was halfway through the series. I don't have a link to the yachting world article, but the BBC article seems to be a reasonable summary of what I think I remember reading in yachting world: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3570988.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3570988.stm I think the yachting world and BBC article were following up on Tom Perkins original story published in latitude38: https://www.latitude38.com/features/O%27Brian.htm https://www.latitude38.com/features/O%27Brian.htm

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