Books

Day four: Master and Commander

One of the all time heavyweight champions of historical fiction. Bill Bryson calls it his favorite escapist reading. Keith Richards shouts it out at the end of his book Life.

There are a bunch of red flags on this book for me:
- this book is the first in a series of 20
- it’s a historical seafaring adventure
- it was written in the 60s but uses period language
- it’s laden with esoteric jargon

Given the red flags, I expected a cheap swashbuckling novel hiding its poor writing behind unfamiliar language. But the exact opposite is the case. The whole series is outstanding.

The prose is excellent, once you get your head into it. The character development is first rate and continues throughout the series. The stories are subtle and nuanced in a way you’d never expect from historical military fiction.

O’Brian is the John Williams of his niche. You’d never mention them in the same breath as confirmed masters like Beethoven or Jane Austen, but we should.

Five stars easy