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August 18, 2004

MASTER AND POSEUR?

Apparently, Patrick O'Brian couldn't paddle his way out of a bathtub.

It appears that the man who wrote so brilliantly and so accurately about naval warfare and life aboard ship during the Napoleonic wars did not actually know how to sail. The claim is made in an article by a wealthy American businessman called Tom Perkins in the current edition of the sailing magazine Yachting World.

Posted by TEV at 12:30 AM |

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» O'Brian's Last from Tom Watson
As much as he created Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey, Patrick O'Brian invented himself. Since his death four years ago in Dublin, O'Brian and his biography have been exposed as fiction every bit as inventive and complex as the written [Read More]

Tracked on September 06, 2004 at 02:58 PM

Comments

CompassRose

Poseur? How? I'm sure he couldn't have performed emergency surgery on board a ship with nineteenth-century equipment, either. He was a novelist, and, it would seem, a good researcher. That's what a novelist DOES -- creates a fictional world. He (or she) doesn't have to live it.

Methinks some people have been watching too much reality tv.

Posted by: CompassRose | August 18, 2004 at 05:00 AM

TEV

OK, three point merit mention here:

1) Fair enough. But when a novelist also makes actual claims to have done something (versus having merely written about it, as in your example), well, that's called "lying." I find no evidence of any claims made by O'Brian that he was conversant in shipboard medicine but much in which he said he could sail.

2) Please do note the question mark. That's a handy grammatical tool that indicates the interrogative form, suggesting uncertainty or a request for information. Headlines reflect the gist of the piece in question, not editorial judgment. (They're kinda handy that way.)

3) Apparently, O'Brian fans are - like their hero - rather humorless prats. (That's an editorial judgment.)

Happy sails!

Posted by: TEV | August 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM

CompassRose

I hope by number 3 you refer to that wealthy American businessman-type.... since I am clearly not sufficiently a "fan". I've read the books, but have not delved deeper into the personal and autobiographical claims of Mr. O'Brian. (I've learned my lesson about that -- just 'cos I like someone's work, doesn't mean I'll like them. And if I don't like something about them, it taints my enjoyment of the work. So much for Orson Scott Card...)

But still, I honestly don't give a damn whether or not the man knew his hoist from his lanyard, as long as he can write rousingly about it. Just like I don't care how many fish Hemingway actually caught, or how big they were. But people seem so keen that fictive personalities, creative personalities, be as thrilling in real life as they are in fantasy -- and I'm sad to see this spreading from Hollywood actor-types over to authors.

Posted by: CompassRose | August 19, 2004 at 05:03 AM

Ed

Humorless? You better watch out for that whoopie cushion, Sarvas. :)

The important thing is whether or not you believe the world invented. And having read a good chunk of the Aubrey-Maturin novels, I believed in them. The nautical vernacular, the meticulous detail, the sailor intonations. What next? James Baldwin not entitled to write about Caucasians? Helen Keller silenced because she couldn't see the typewriter? Ernest Hemingway not entitled to write about life because he offed himself?

This is the kind of preventive logic one expects out of Jesse Helms.

Posted by: Ed | August 19, 2004 at 10:09 AM

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