Treason's Harbour is an Aubrey.Maturin entry that understandably frustrates some readers, especially if read in isolation. Much of the novel occurs onshore in Malta and deals with Stephen's espionage machinations; seemingly vital events occur off-stage; a particularly random death is presented matter-of-factly; and, finally, just as you're preparing for thr thrilling hundred pages or so of conclusion, O'Brian ends the tale, like the middle volume of a trilogy. Of course, if you've read the prior eight entries in the series you're well-prepared for these quirks and will be unfazed.

Meanwhile, it contains one of my favorite exchanges ever, between Stephen and Professor Ebenezer Graham:

I have no patience with Emmanuel Kant. Ever since I found him take such notice of that thief Rousseau, I have had no patience with him at all--for a philosopher to countenance that false ranting dog of a Swiss raparee shows either a criminal levity or a no less criminal gullibility. Gushing, carefully-calculated tears, false confidences, untrue confessions, enthusiasm--romantic vistas.' His hand moved of itself to his cigar-case and came away disappointed. 'How I hate enthusiasm and romantic vistas," he said.

'Davy Hume was of your opinion,' said Graham. 'I mean with regard to Monsieur Rousseau. He found him to be little more than a crackit gaberlunzie.'

Amen, brother.

(Reviewed:04-Sep-23)

Grade: (A-) Orrin C. Judd

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Patrick O'Brian Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Patrick O'Brian
    -
    -OBIT: Patrick O'Brian: Prolific novelist whose voyage into privacy meshed with the odyssey of his sea-going characters (January 8, 2000, The Guardian )
    -ESSAY: Full Nelson: Outmanned and outgunned, the British flummoxed the French. (PATRICK O'BRIAN, 4/18/99, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: Cast away Three years after his death, his acclaimed seafaring novels are still bestsellers and have just been made into a blockbuster movie. But recent revelations about how Patrick O'Brian abandoned his family have cast a shadow over his work. (Richard Russ, November 28, 2003, The Guardian)
    -IN MEMORIAM: PATRICK O'BRIAN: Senior Correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth is in San Francisco, remembering a man who wrote about the sea. (Online Newshour, January 10, 2000)
    -OBIT: Patrick O'Brian: Prolific novelist whose voyage into privacy meshed with the odyssey of his sea-going characters (Guardian, January 8, 2000)
    -FEATURED AUTHOR: Patrick O'Brian: With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times
    -PODCAST: Good Story 275: Master and Commander (2003)
    -PODCAST: ACF Middlebrow #38 Master And Commander: Titus & Peter Robinson & John Yoo talk about Master & Commander, the Peter Weir seafaring adventure movie, about the Aubrey-Maturin novels on which it was based, about the charm of military adventures & the series we've been reading. (Titus Techera, ACF Podcast)
    -ESSAY: An Author I'd Walk the Plank For (Richard Snow, January 6, 1991, NY Times Book Review)
    -ESSAY: The Humble Genre Novel, Sometimes Full of Genius (David Mamet, 1/17/00, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: A Master and the World He Commands: Pondering Patrick O'Brian and his nautical novels, before Russell Crowe takes over. (MAX HASTINGS, November 7, 2003, Wall Street Journal)
    -OBIT: Patrick O'Brian, Whose 20 Sea Stories Won Him International Fame, Dies at 85 (FRANK J. PRIAL, 1/07/00, NY Times)
    -OBIT: Gone Aloft (Derek Brown, 1/07/00, The Guardian)
    -Featured Author: Patrick O'Brian: With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times
    -ESSAY: Full Nelson: Outmanned and outgunned, the British flummoxed the French. (PATRICK O'BRIAN, NY Times)
    -INTERVIEW: Conversations/Patrick O'Brian; In the Glare of the Short-Toed Eagle, Or What You Read Is All You'll Get (FRANCIS X. CLINES, November 14, 1993, NY Times)
    -INTERVIEW: The Seas of Adventure Still Beckon a Storyteller; At 83, Patrick O'Brian Journeys Into History (FRANK J. PRIAL, October 19, 1998, NY Times)
    -PROFILE: Patrick O'Brian: The author of the wildly popular 18th century seagoing saga created, out of his own life, a fiction nearly as elaborate. (IAN WILLIAMS, 1/13/00, Salon)
    -APPRECIATION: The Humble Genre Novel, Sometimes Full of Genius (DAVID MAMET, 1/17/00, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: The real master and commander: The swashbuckling novels of Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forester owe much of their inspiration to one man: Lord Cochrane, a seafaring scot whose life was marked by adventure, adulation and scandal. David Cordingly reports (David Cordingly, 02 Sep 2007, The Telegraph)
    -REMEMBRANCE: Master and Deceiver: Patrick O'Brian, the celebrated author behind the new film "Master and Commander", has been branded a callous, deceitful and arrogant bully. His stepson, Nikolai Tolstoy, says the truth is much more complex (Nikolai Tolstoy, 11/30/03, Times of London)
    -ESSAY: Nautical novelist 'couldn't even sail' (James Landale, 8/16/04, BBC News)
    -ESSAY: Cruising with Patrick O'Brian - The Man and the Myth (Tom Perkins, Latitude 38)
    -FAN SITE: The Gun Room: @HMSSurprise.org: which it's the Patrick O'Brian list of the world!
    -APPRECIATION: An Author I'd Walk the Plank For (Richard Snow, January 06, 1991, NY Times)
    -INTERVIEW: The HistoryAccess.com Interview: Geoff Hunt (Bob Frost, 1993)
    -ESSAY: Science at sea: What the novels of Patrick O'Brian can teach us (Stephen Curry 6 April 2008, LabLit)
    -REVIEW: of Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian (Jan Morris, The Observer)
    -REVIEW: of Patrick O'Brian: The Making of a Novelist by Nikolai Tolstoy (Joseph O'Connor, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Patrick O'Brian: the Making of a Novelist by Nikolai Tolstoy (John Lanchester, The Telegraph)
    -REVIEW: of Patrick O'Brian: The Making of a Novelist by Nikolai Tolstoy (Rachel Cooke, The Observer)
    -REVIEW: of Patrick O'Brian: The Making of a Novelist by Nikolai Tolstoy (Max Hastings, The Telegraph)
    -REVIEW: of The Aubrey/Maturin books: Master and Commander & The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O'Brian ( Danny Yee, dannyreviews.com)
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    -REVIEW: of the Collected Short Stories of Patrick O'Brian (Dinah Birch, TLS)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVES: Aubrey Maturin series (Ex Libris Reviews)
    -ARCHIVES: Patrick O'Brian (NY Times)

Book-related and General Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Treason's Harbor
    -ENTRY: Treason's Harbour (The Patrick O'Brian Wiki)
    -The Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project
    -PODCAST: The Lubber's Hole (A Patrick O'Brian Podcast)
    -
    -
    -TRIBUTE: APPRECIATION (Ken Ringle, January 8, 2000, Washington Post)
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    -REVIEW: of Treason’s Harbour by Patrick O’Brian (Jo Walton, Tor)
    -REVIEW: of Treason’s Harbour (Grub Street Hack)
    -REVIEW: of Treason’s Harbour (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Treason’s Harbour (Ramblings of a distracted mind)
    -REVIEW: of Treason’s Harbour (Shelf Love)
    -REVIEW: of Treason’s Harbour (Dorothy Borders, The Nature of Things)