{"id":7852,"date":"2008-03-14T09:04:43","date_gmt":"2008-03-14T13:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7852"},"modified":"2015-06-06T08:36:21","modified_gmt":"2015-06-06T12:36:21","slug":"hms-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7852","title":{"rendered":"H.M.S. Surprise<\/i>, by Patrick O’Brian"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m almost done with H. M. S. Surprise <\/a>\"\"<\/i>, 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.<\/p>\n

I finished Post Captain<\/a>\"\"<\/i> 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 – \"17172293.JPG\"Christine Falls<\/a>\"\"<\/i> 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<\/i> – a dense novel, over 300 pages long – that day! I still hadn’t boarded the plane when I finished Christine Falls<\/i>! 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.<\/p>\n

When I got home, I decided to pick up HMS Surprise<\/i> – 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.<\/p>\n

Anyway, my experience of the series made me think of the piece David Mamet wrote in The New York Times<\/i>, 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:<\/p>\n

The Humble Genre Novel, Sometimes Full Of Genius<\/a>, by David Mamet<\/p>\n

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