H.M.S. Surprise, by Patrick O’Brian

I’m almost done with H. M. S. Surprise , the third novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series – haven’t been writing much about my journey with the series -but I will. I’ve just been busy surviving, and recuperating from my week in Chicago. It’s not been an easy adjustment.

I finished Post Captain last Saturday, on my almost 10-hour wait to get onto a flight – ANY flight – at O’Hare. Thank goodness I had another book to start right away – Christine Falls by Benjamin Black (aka John Banville) – little did I know that my wait at the airport would be so long that I finished Christine Falls – a dense novel, over 300 pages long – that day! I still hadn’t boarded the plane when I finished Christine Falls! Fantastic book, by the way. I’ll write about it sometime. Dublin, 1950s. Magdalen laundries. Morgues. Intrigue. Catholic Church. Awesome characters. A real noir. I loved it.

When I got home, I decided to pick up HMS Surprise – because I’m into the series now, I have to keep going! They are the best possible kinds of books I could read at this point in my life. Escape. But not drivel. Deep. But not off-puttingly so. Intellectually arduous – they make me think, I do not find the books “easy” – I have to concentrate. This is good.

Anyway, my experience of the series made me think of the piece David Mamet wrote in The New York Times, an elegy for Patrick O’Brian when he died in 2000. I remember reading it back then – I think I read it in the actual newspaper, not the website – and it brought tears to my eyes, even though I had not read any Patrick O’Brian by that point. It was just a tribute – from one artist to another – and it really really moved me. I have never forgotten it. Just tracked it down – it is, thankfully, available online:

The Humble Genre Novel, Sometimes Full Of Genius, by David Mamet