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lynndyre about this, but haven't mentioned it otherwise--I finally, FINALLY have been reading the Aubrey-Maturin books!
I haven't finished the series, but I'm well along--in the middle of The Letter of Marque, which is 12 of 20 (or 21 if you count the final unfinished book). It's utterly weird that it took me so long--I've always loved Age of Sail as a setting, I first fell for the Hornblower books at age 10 or 11, I've read many true historical tales of sailors' lives. Heck, I've even read AND enjoyed Moby Dick, more than once! Add on top of that how much I absolutely love the Master & Commander movie, and you'd think I'd have read them all long ago.
But no! It took me soooo long to get my figurative teeth into them. I tried Post Captain (book 2) first, sometime in the later 1990s--the idea was that it started out more like a landlocked comedy-of-manners, which would give me a head start before going to sea and having to face a lot of complicated terminology. And I've read and enjoyed Austen, so, why not this?
But I kept bouncing off Post Captain, over and over. I owned the paperback, and every year or two would open it again and give it another try, but even once I had made it through, I never felt connected to it. And the sea terminology was not the problem! (Hornblower had given me some of the basics, plus just a general absorption of knowledge from everything else age-of-sail-related I'd ever read or seen, plus the O'Brian books do a good job of contextualizing the technical terms even when they're complex).
But then early this year I think, or late last year, I went back and tried the first book in the series, Master and Commander. And click! I connected, I fell right in, and then I kept going, and read/enjoyed Post Captain this time, and then proceeded onward.
I think what in retrospect was a problem for me trying Post Captain first, was that Jack and Stephen are at odds--and such serious odds!--for so much of the book. And because I hadn't thought to stop and try Master & Commander first, I didn't have a foundation for their friendship, as a starting point before seeing the issues with Diana almost bring them to a deadly confrontation.
Once M&C had given me their first meeting, and then how quickly they get over that and bond together, I had an anchor to support me through the tribulations of Post Captain--and then when they are reconciled later in Post Captain, I could bracket off the near-duel as the aberration it was, and sail merrily off to bask in Jack-and-Stephen (and Jack/Stephen) through all the books to come.
I am so totally loving them. And some I've already read twice, first in print and then listening to the audiobook. (Fellow audiobook listeners--it's funny, at first I thought I'd never get comfortable with Patrick Tull, with the heavy thickness of his voice and his idiosyncratic rhythms with such long pauses--but now he is absolutely my jam. And when I've had to listen to Simon Vance, when he's the only one I can get my hands on, I sigh wistfully all the way through and wish for Tull. I thought Vance would be my favorite, as I've heard him narrate the Temeraire books--but no. He does such a comic-walrus Jack, and a completely non-Irish Stephen, and just in general doesn't suit me the way Tull does. Go figure!)
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it, in case anyone else out there ever wants to talk about 'em! I haven't finished Letter of Marque yet, but it's already made me literally mist up and get teary, and I think you know which scene that was. SNIFF!
lynndyre about this, but haven't mentioned it otherwise--I finally, FINALLY have been reading the Aubrey-Maturin books!I haven't finished the series, but I'm well along--in the middle of The Letter of Marque, which is 12 of 20 (or 21 if you count the final unfinished book). It's utterly weird that it took me so long--I've always loved Age of Sail as a setting, I first fell for the Hornblower books at age 10 or 11, I've read many true historical tales of sailors' lives. Heck, I've even read AND enjoyed Moby Dick, more than once! Add on top of that how much I absolutely love the Master & Commander movie, and you'd think I'd have read them all long ago.
But no! It took me soooo long to get my figurative teeth into them. I tried Post Captain (book 2) first, sometime in the later 1990s--the idea was that it started out more like a landlocked comedy-of-manners, which would give me a head start before going to sea and having to face a lot of complicated terminology. And I've read and enjoyed Austen, so, why not this?
But I kept bouncing off Post Captain, over and over. I owned the paperback, and every year or two would open it again and give it another try, but even once I had made it through, I never felt connected to it. And the sea terminology was not the problem! (Hornblower had given me some of the basics, plus just a general absorption of knowledge from everything else age-of-sail-related I'd ever read or seen, plus the O'Brian books do a good job of contextualizing the technical terms even when they're complex).
But then early this year I think, or late last year, I went back and tried the first book in the series, Master and Commander. And click! I connected, I fell right in, and then I kept going, and read/enjoyed Post Captain this time, and then proceeded onward.
I think what in retrospect was a problem for me trying Post Captain first, was that Jack and Stephen are at odds--and such serious odds!--for so much of the book. And because I hadn't thought to stop and try Master & Commander first, I didn't have a foundation for their friendship, as a starting point before seeing the issues with Diana almost bring them to a deadly confrontation.
Once M&C had given me their first meeting, and then how quickly they get over that and bond together, I had an anchor to support me through the tribulations of Post Captain--and then when they are reconciled later in Post Captain, I could bracket off the near-duel as the aberration it was, and sail merrily off to bask in Jack-and-Stephen (and Jack/Stephen) through all the books to come.
I am so totally loving them. And some I've already read twice, first in print and then listening to the audiobook. (Fellow audiobook listeners--it's funny, at first I thought I'd never get comfortable with Patrick Tull, with the heavy thickness of his voice and his idiosyncratic rhythms with such long pauses--but now he is absolutely my jam. And when I've had to listen to Simon Vance, when he's the only one I can get my hands on, I sigh wistfully all the way through and wish for Tull. I thought Vance would be my favorite, as I've heard him narrate the Temeraire books--but no. He does such a comic-walrus Jack, and a completely non-Irish Stephen, and just in general doesn't suit me the way Tull does. Go figure!)
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it, in case anyone else out there ever wants to talk about 'em! I haven't finished Letter of Marque yet, but it's already made me literally mist up and get teary, and I think you know which scene that was. SNIFF!
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Date: 2016-04-12 09:08 pm (UTC)Glad you're enjoying.
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Date: 2016-04-13 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-12 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-13 03:35 pm (UTC)Plus now I also have the comfort of their personalities and their bond having evolved--they understand each other much better, and are more forgiving, as time goes along. Later Jack and Stephen are not at all at the same risk of that snippy duel-based interaction where it only takes one scrape of friction to flare up into Total Unstoppable Fire, where one wrong word leads to YOUR FRIENDS MAY FIND ME AT THE GRAPES SIR GOOD DAY. It doesn't take long for them to reach a better space in their dynamic, where they understand each other (even if not themselves!) so much better. And instead of the flaring into fire there would be realization and apology on the part of the insulter, and forbearance on the part of the insulted, and they'd have some coffee and toasted cheese and move on with their lives.
Jack! and Stephen! <3 <3 <3
This is my internal monologue almost constantly. "Oh, STEPHEN. ♥____♥" "Oh, JACK. ♥____♥" Repeat ad infinitum.
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Date: 2016-04-13 02:29 am (UTC)I stalled out about halfway through The Wine-Dark Sea, and keep meaning to go back and start that one over, then get through the rest. Someday, I hope.
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Date: 2016-04-13 03:45 pm (UTC)I still have a handful more before Wine-Dark Sea, so you never know, I might stall out there too. If I do, my usual strategy then is to try the audiobook--those often get me through things that my eyes got tangled in. (If you ever want to listen to any of the audiobooks I have, just let me know!)
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Date: 2016-04-13 12:55 pm (UTC)I think I once recommended to you starting with Post Captain, for which I apologize! Because I had M&C under my belt (and had read the rest of the series) I hadn't given due thought to how difficult Post Captain is for presenting their relationship. Eek, so sorry for that!
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Date: 2016-04-13 04:09 pm (UTC)I admit, I never have warmed up to Diana, though there have been a couple of scenes where for a moment I felt very warmly toward her. I suppose there are kinds of people/characters that some people like, that I just don't. And she remains consistent to herself, which means that my inability to warm up to her remains consistent too. *g*
No apologies necessary! At all! I heard that advice from everybody everywhere, for reals, including at work. And I can totally see where it's coming from--given someone who's read Austen, it would make perfect sense to offer her a more potentially Austenish (set on land, concerned with romance) hook into the series. I don't think my bad grasp of the Jack-Stephen dynamic could have been expected, and you're not responsible for that!
Like for instance, why didn't I have that problem with their first meeting, since it also follows the friction-leads-to-duel-challenge framework? I hooked into that just fine, conflict and all. So you know, with me, WHO KNOWS what my deal is. And also, who knows why I waited so very long to try anything other than the one thing that hadn't worked. :D
These books sure know how to give me regular helpings of the Hurt/Comfort. Or at least the Hurt and implied Comfort, and I can spin out the Comfort further in my imagination. (*cough*) I mean not even going into Jack's Offscreen Languishing In Stephen's Castle from Post Captain, or the Torture Rescue in HMS Surprise with so much desperate worrying om nom nom--I was thinking the other day that if I were the person who used the term "whump", then The Far Side of the World would get a subtitle like, LET'S WHUMP STEPHEN. The amaaazing sequence where he falls off the ship and Jack saves his life and looks after him as they float there together for hours and hours and hours etc.? And then later the accident and the coma?? It's so ficcy in the best sense. (Sorry, Stephen. :D ) And of course Jack gets his turns to suffer, though he's so physically resilient (even with pieces of him getting blown off and stitched up all the time :D ) that the worst pain ends up being emotional--Letter of Marque oh my god. I really did tear up!
In short, I will say Better Late Than Never. \o/