Treason's Harbour (1983)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. Amen, brother. (Reviewed:) Grade: (A-) Tweet Websites:-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) - -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) - -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) |
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