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I really loved The Surgeon's Mate--I know I've read it at least once before but it's wonderful to lose one's mind, because then everything is fresh and new.
I laughed over so many things that I wanted to share and ask about, but I'd read in bed and by next morning, with all the chores, I never riffed back through the pages to see what was what. It ends on such a happy note and I agree with those who wrote that perhaps POB meant it to be the end of the series, winding up those three last books.
I've been belly laughing through the first chapters of the The Ionian Mission--and when do we officially begin that? I wonder if I saw all the humor the first time(s) around. I felt a stab to the heart for poor Tom Pullings when Jack flubbed the chance of boarding the "Jemmapes." As POB writes, Pullings would have had certain promotion from a successful action, his only possible chance with so many ahead of him, with no pull nor interest nor influence. Jack realizes it, but doesn't discuss it, just goes on to ask about casualties in a hard voice. I guess that must be, when one is in command, but it is hard. At least Jack doesn't dwell on these things, as I would, which is really the sin of the world, to do the re-re's.
Stephen's discourses upon nautical affairs would perhaps be plausible to lubbers new to the books, but they are hilarious to those who've learned a little, with A SEA OF WORDS at hand. I loved the passages where the Grand Parade in Gibraltar is described, with the flow of crowds in various costume and the "Worcester's" liberty-men in their black hats with the ship's name embroidered on the ribbon, watchet-blue jackets, spotless white duck trousers and little shoes.
I also am thankful to the Lissuns for pointing out the links between POB's references to animals and then an ensuing action or situation. This is especially noticeable when Professor Graham is inquiring whether Stephen, as a naval surgeon and well placed to do so, might be interested in gathering information. As he speaks, Stephen has a Gibraltar ape in view, as well as a vulture, and "the distant ape shook its fist at the vulture: the enormous bird tilted and gliding sideways crossed the strait to Africa without a movement of its wings--a fulvous vulture..." and then Stephen explains beautifully how ill equipped he is to gather such information and disguise his motives. "...without a movement of his wings."
That's as far as I've got, and am looking forward to this voyage with pleasure. I think I notice so much more not only because it's been pointed out, but because there are finally others to share the treasures with.
Have I missed the Gunroom....Life keeps happening and there are only 16 waking hours in my day.
Linnea
"The nautical mind," said Graham, "Hoot, toot."
In IM, Stephen asks if there are any walnuts, and Jack replies that there must be, if Killick has not blown out his kite with them. *What* does that mean? I used to think I knew, but I don't. I assume it might mean if Killick hasn't stuffed his stomach. [At this point, when Jack finds the half sack of walnuts left, he cracks six together in his massive hand. Aha, a MASSIVE hand. We'll have to check out Russell Crowe's hands.]
Also, ships are lying about, already with yards crossed, so in the context it means they're ready for sea. What, pray tell, does that mean? Yards crossed? Aren't yards always at right angles to the masts? A Sea of Words is no help.
Actually, there are masses of things I look up in that book, excellent as it is, that aren't there: Latin quotations, etc. I imagine that writing a book like that is like keeping house--no one sees all the work that you have done, but they notice that you didn't holystone the deck. Or cross the yards, or gluppit the prawling strangles.
~~ Linnea Hoot toot, the nautical mind.
On Sun, 5 May 2002, Linnea wrote:
What, pray tell, does that mean? Yards crossed?
Crossed here means that they are already at their working positions on the masts. For longer port breaks the yards would be unshipped from the masts and stowed on deck.
Pawel
--
Pawel Golik
http://www.gen.emory.edu/cmm/people/staff/pgolik.html
Currently at 33°48'53"N 84°19'25"W
Home is at 52°12'25"N 21°5'37"E
VERY MILD SPOILER
While reading about Mowett's reprise of his poetry, particularly "Th'impervious horrors of a leeward shore", I was reminded of an article that I cut out of Newburyport Daily News on April 6. It is one of a series called "Blake Hughes sketchbook" with articles and illustrations by said Blake Hughes. This one tells about the Choate Bridge in Ipswich, MA, over which Rte. 1 A travels.
In the 1640's a wooden bridge was built over the Ipswich River on this site which, by the 1760's had become insufficient for the growing traffic. Col. John Choate, was county treasurer at the time a new bridge was voted upon, and he decided to build a two-arched stone bridge, even though he had never seen one.
Wags in Ipswich circulated the story that Choate kept a horse saddled so that he could quickly take off for Canada if the bridge collapsed when the wooden supports were removed. When the bridge was dedicated, the article says, the following poem was recited by "a Mr. Clark, a blind resident of Rowley."
"Behold this bridge of lime and stone!
The like before was never known
For beauty and magnificence
(considering the small expense)
How it excels what was projected!
When faithful men are put in trust
They'll not let all the money rust.
But some advance for public good
Is by this fabric understood.
And after this it will be wrote
"In honor of brave Col. Choate"
It was his wisdom built the same
And added lustre to his fame
That filled the country with renown
And did with honor Ipswich crown."
The article finished by noting that the Choate Bridge is said to be the oldest stone arch bridge in English-speaking North America.
Jean A.
Ch. 11, page 355, first paragraph:
"....for the gun-crews to take possession of the massive brutes that had been Jack's stable companions."
I presume it should be "table companions," the massive brutes being the guns that shared his cabin.
Does anyone have a non-Norton edition?
Is there a page of errata for POB?
EB
32º 33'N
94º 22'W
It's "stable companions" in Harper Collins. I think that is consistent with the "massive brutes" being the guns...imagine the backs of large horses in a stable...and the cabin not too different from a stable either.
Kevin in TO.
43° 38' 44" N
79° 22' 33" W
You could be right but doesn't 'stable' fit in ok also?
People who have spent time toghether in the same confines are often referred to as stable companions(as in horses sharing a stable) -here the analogy is extended to guns.
Personally I feel that stable fits better than table particularly as he calls the guns 'brutes' which has animal connotations.
However knowing my record here the next post will be from someone with a early edition confirming 'tables' is correct!!
alec
53 23 N 006 35 W
OK. Stable it is. Thanks to you and to Alec for replying.
EB
32º 33'N
94º 22'W
You can rest easy, Alec. The original William Collins edition of IM refers to the guns as Jack's "stable-companions." So the later HarperCollins and Norton editions are correct.
BTW, some of the early books such as IM had cover designs that proclaimed "A Jack Aubrey Story" in large letters.
Don Seltzer
I would think that stable companions in the sense that horses share a stable would be quite appropriate. "Table companions" is a redundantism - one shares bread at a table.
A few thoughts on The Ionian Mission in the context of the series as a whole, as I think we've started:
(Minor spoilers for Master and Commander follow, and medium spoilers for the first half of IM)
In this book, as with the others, music plays a key part in communicating to the reader what O'Brian wishes us to feel.
At the start of the book, Jack is assigned to the command of his first ship of the line, notoriously badly built (a mere parenthesis, we are told frequently), and to the difficult task of blockading Toulon. We also later discover that the second in command is Harte and Jack finds he is to convoy a shipload of parsons.
This nigglyness is reflected in the music Jack and Stephen play, with its complex argument 'so close and deep, that I can scarcely follow it yet, let alone make it sing.' (HC p48)
Jack's dissatisfaction extends through the book with Stephen's late arrival, Jack's unsuccessful actions, the embarrassing fireworks, the blight afflicting his roses, the nagging threat of Wray, his discovery of a physically reduced Admiral (for the reader, the pug biting Jack and Harte, but not Stephen), and his cold. The luckless Pullings' often repeated disappointed looks are all that is needed to convey to the reader how out of sorts Jack is: ' "Dowse the battle-lanterns." As he spoke he saw Pullings' face and the cruel disappointment on it: ... Jack Aubrey had misjudged the situation, one that might never arise again in Tom Pullings' whole career.'
Jack's unhappiness is contrasted with the ship's evident happiness, and Stephen's contentment. The whole ship enjoys the initial exercise with the fireworks, but for Jack the enjoyment quickly wears off, and later in the book Jack overrules Pullings, and the fleet is treated to a display which shakes both Jack and Tom.
One of the primary reasons for Jack's unhappiness in this book is the trouble he is once again in with his creditors. Jack takes the command in a attempt to free himself from some of the worries of domestic life, but on the voyage recalls a Latin tag to the effect that 'no ship can outsail care' (proof of Jack's early ambition to go to sea here, too). Earlier in the book Jack also mangles the usual cliché: "and knit up the ravelled sleeve of care with sore labour's bath?" (48)
Several times in the first half of the book Jack disappoints his crew, despite their evident happiness, and the old Sophies bear bruises from having to defend their captain's honour from the hands who have not served with Jack before.
Geographically and in terms of characters, the comparisons with Master and Commander are obvious: the return to the Mediterranean, and Port Mahon, the 'melting, amorous' Mercedes, and the Crown, Jack's old adversary, Harte, and all of Jack's old youngsters: Babbington, Pullings and Mowett, busily reciting the poetry we heard in Master and Commander.
But the port is changed, almost deserted, with none of the bubbling, jolly, drunken life we experienced in MC. In the hall of the Crown, O'B does one of his lovely deserted scenes, reminiscent of the one in The Surgeon's Mate, with emphasis on the two longcase clocks. Jack finds an empty Crown, with dogs whose features he recognises, but do not know him.
However, all is put right when the unchanged Mercedes appears, still very affectionate. All is going to plan, and Jack is beginning to return to his former self when Stephen interrupts them, and whisks Jack off to a 'swampy' intelligence rendezvous, with a few ill-advised words on marriage-breach, recalling the unhappy period in Post-Captain when they vied for Diana.
The hurried departure from Mahon leads the older hands to believe that something is afoot, as in the old days in MC. This quickly spreads around the ship, and even the officers look expectant. 'Jack noticed it of course, just as he noticed Pullings' eager, questioning eye, and with a pang he realised that he was going to disappoint them again.' (206)
In IM, the first lieutenant acts as a barometer for Jack's state of mind more than in any book since MC, with its wonderful 3-way relationship between Dillon, Jack and Stephen (as an aside, I wonder if O'B had known he was going to write a long series, would he have still killed JD off?). However, in IM, Jack does not go to any lengths to be friendly towards Pullings, and one point Jack feels he cannot stand even Pullings' company, and walks off the quarterdeck alone. There is strong contrast between the meek and submissive Pullings' and Jack's steamroller attitude. A more aged Jack has the instant respect of his 1st Lt, and goes to no trouble to maintain it. Jack now has the respect and awe due to command, but without Stephen he has less humanity.
This is backed up by O'B/Jack's musing over the amount of space he now has, and the loneliness of command, a repeat of similar in MC, when Jack completes his first tour of the Sophie. O'B/Jack also feels more insecure than since he first took command of the brig, noticing a certain loss of awe at the wardroom table, and Jack wonders about his lack of recent success in comparison to the swashbuckling piratical events of his youth. ' "I have almost forgotten what a prize is like," said Jack; but then the fine piratical gleam died out of his eyes' (163)
Music again features here: 'Now when the fiddle sang at all it sang alone: but since Stephen's departure he had been rarely in a mood for music' (154)
The Ionian Mission comes at the end of the long plot arc beginning with Desolation Island and concluded in The Surgeon's Mate. An even longer theme comes to an end in that book too, with Stephen's marriage of Diana. O'Brian is now holding characters who, bar a few troublesome creditors, are happily settled with Jack's time in frigates 'pretty well up'. O'Brian uses this parenthesis to get the necessary blockage duty episode out of the way, but also uses it to reflect on age and isolation, beginning the long period in the canon preoccupied with Jack's service career and ageing. At the end of the first major segment, O'Brian revisits the first book in the series, and assesses the change in his characters, and perhaps in himself, although, like Homer, we see little of the man behind the tale.
Ok. That's my first broadside into this month's Group read, and a fascinating book it is. When writing this kind of post, you suddenly seem able to think of more and more interconnected examples, and the whole theme of the book slots into place. This accounts for the somewhat long and rambling nature of the post, even though I have had to miss out some other thoughts (Stephen's friendship with Martin for example, and its affect on JA) that occurred to me. Feel free to respond to just one of the things I've said, or all of it, and apologies for the length!
Samuel Bostock.
52°17'37" N, 1°09'40" E
Samuel Bostock's post was just wonderful--I *felt* those themes but certainly didn't realize them nor articulate them to myself as you have done. I regret that I've already read most of IM (for at least the 2nd time) and hadn't your insights on hand to begin with!
I've really enjoyed The Ionian Mission this time around and wonder if I saw all the humor the first time I read it.
I think POB would have made a great film director; his settings are so real and one feels that one has really been "there," wherever he decides is "there."
One visual effect that seemed overwhelming to me, besides being hilarious, was the build-up of the mumps cases and the crew's avoidance of Stephen, as he might spread the terrible infection. Professor Graham finds that he cannot after all attend the performance of the Oratorio. Jack forces himself to stand by the patients for 3 entire minutes when he visits the sickbay in his capacity as Captain--and he tended to avoid his friend Maturin " who wandered about in a most inconsiderate way, as though he did not mind spreading infection--as though it were all one to him if the entire ship's company piped like choir-boys rather than roaring away in this eminently manly fashion..." The climax to all these little vignettes is when Jack is keeping the quarterdeck in foul weather, avoiding Stephen, and he spends some time pondering on the Worcester's seaworthiness and how he might frap her, when the lookout calls 'Sail ho! Sail on the larboard quarter.'
"Jack plunged across the deck to the lee rail....he and Mowett, who had the watch, stood there searching the thick grey squall of rain.
" 'Just abaft the mizen backstay sir,' called Pullings from the maintop, where he too had been sheltering from Dr. Maturin: and the veil parting both Jack and Mowett cried out 'Surprise!' "
I laughed out loud when I "saw" Pullings on the maintop--it was a scene as if set in "Mr. Roberts" for comedic effect. We think Jack is quite alone except of course for the necessary seamen, and suddenly the camera zooms onto Pullings.
I'm too tired tonight to develop all the humorous themes in IM and hope that others will do so. I'm finding that not only is it almost impossible to keep up with the Gunroom, but it's also impossible to write up all the ideas that come so fleetingly when I read, and then take so much time to post.
~ Linnea
Pete wrote:
I'd best hurry. I've only just started Desolation Island, The Surgeon's Mate has three cassettes to go, and I've barely glanced at Ionian Mission.
Well, Pete, when we start getting posts from you about the POB magnum opus "The Desolate Mission of the Ionian Surgeon's Mate to the Island on the Far Side of the World," we will know that you have finally gone off the deep end! But keep us informed on your progress.
--Steve
I'll probably start going backwards next. Some of these books are really good, you know?
I noticed that the ship "Kitabi" from "The Ionian Mission" becomes the "Katibi" in "Treason's Harbour."
- Susan
=====
To learn about "The Port-Wine Sea," my parody of Patrick O'Brian's wonderful
Aubrey-Maturin series, please visit http://www.sea-room.com
And here's another one: In IM, we encounter the word "puddings" as a nautical term, seemingly as a replacement for "puddenings." "Puddings" is first used by Stephen, but then by the officers and POB himself--is this another slip, or is he being sly with us again?
----------------------
a complacent pragmatical worldly fellow (HMSS p. 196) . . .
Steve Ross
30° 24' 32"N
91° 05' 28"W
Previously we've observed how O'Brian uses Stephen's ignorance of nautical terminology to explain things to the reader that we will have to understand on background later on in the book.
In "The Ionian Mission," I believe POB uses the same tactic to explain a theoretical concept early on that he'd like to explore in greater depth after we've had time to digest the concept, time for it to sink into background a bit.
On page 53 (Norton paperback), Stephen explains to Jack the difference between moral philosophy and natural philosophy. Professor Graham is a professor of moral philosophy. For purposes of this story, he should have been a professor of politics, or Turkish studies, or Eastern civilizations, but POB put him into moral philosophy for a reason.
(Jack speaking): "Moral philosophy. How does that differ from your kind, Stephen?"
"Why, natural philosophy is not concerned with ethics, virtues and vices, or metaphysics. The fact that the dodo has a keel to her breastbone whereas the ostrich and her kind have none presents no moral issue; nor does the dissolution of gold by aqua regia. We erect hypotheses, to be sure, some of us to a most stupendous height, but we always hope to sustain them by demonstrable facts in time: these are not the province of the moralist. Perhaps it might be said that your moral philosopher is in pursuit of wisdom rather than of knowledge; and indeed what he is concerned with is not so much the object of knowledge as of intuitive perception - is scarcely susceptible of being known. Yet whether wisdom can be any more profitably pursued than happiness is a question. Certainly the few moral philosophers I have known do not seem to have been outstandingly successful in either, whereas some natural philosophers, such as Sir Humphrey Davy . . ."
This same issue takes on considerable heat later in the book. It would distract from the passion of the argument if it had to be explained on page 329, but after page 53 we understand the difference enough to follow the argument.
Grame is berating Jack on page 329 for having ceded a political advantage:
"If an invaluable opportunity was lost the country through frowardness and ignorance it was of little or no comfort to an injured public to fasten the responsibility upon some particular one of its servants. It was the duty of those engaged in warfare, and above all in the political side of warfare, to consider the situation with the impartiality of a natural philosopher watching the action of spirits of salt upon hartshorn, of the electric fluid on a dead frog's thigh; all sentiment and personal preference must be laid aside; and other purely objective and informed opinion must be sought. Throughout this inauspicious day however Captain Aubrey had been clearly guided by his personal likes and dislikes and by the fact that these people called themselves Christians; he had made up his mind on sentimental grounds."
This argument would possibly be confusing to the reader had not POB planted the distinction between natural philosophy and moral philosophy in our minds 275 pages ago. So here we have the professional moral philosopher exhorting Jack to be more like the natural philosopher, added to the humor of Graham's loud outbursts accusing Jack of raising his voice, and the general situation of Graham trying to bully Jack Aubrey into recanting his action. I suppose POB is also having fun with Graham's Scottish characteristics. A nifty technique, used once again to subtle advantage!
- Susan
From The Ionian Mission, which we've scarcely begun to discuss: "Marriage was once represented as a field of battle rather than a bed of roses, and perhaps there are some who may still support this view; but just as Dr Maturin had made a far more unsuitable match than most, so he set about dealing with the situation in a far more compendious, peaceable and efficacious way than the great majority of husbands."
This deals with the long-awaited marriage of Stephen Maturin and Diana Villiers. The previous seven books deal with the pursuit of Diana by Stephen, and now that they are finally wed, the reader is agog to find out how this ill-matched pair go together.
For the reader who hasn't had the pleasure of reading the previous books, there is a different hook in there. What sort of marital conflict is this book about, and what steps did Dr Maturin take?
This opening contrasts with that of TMC, where Jack Aubrey, the other half of the Aubrey/Maturin pair, has finally married Sophie Williams (Diana's cousin). The opening sentence is pure Austen, but all it does is set the scene: "Captain Aubrey of the Royal Navy lived in a part of Hampshire well supplied with sea-officers, some of whom had reached flag-rank in Rodney's day while others were still waiting for their first command."
The ending of HMSS has Jack racing home to a blissful, prosperous, white-picket fence married existence with his beloved Sophie, whom he has pursued for years. But as we read on into TMC, we find that there are all sorts of problems with their marriage.
The rows of cabbages that Jack fondly imagines in his kitchen garden are there, but sadly chewed by caterpillars and scarce worth the picking. The house is small and crammed with noisy relatives. The fruit trees don't bear and the cow refuses the bull, a situation we find is reflected in the marital chamber. It is one of the most sustained humorous passages in the canon - I cannot begin to do it justice - and when we find a similar situation apparently set up four books later, we read on in anticipation.
And once again, a few pages further on, we find the opening to a tale which is not concluded until many books later, for Jagiello allows Diana to drive the Swedish Ambassador's coach, which of course she does with skill and éclat, earning admiring glances from Jagiello, the man who turned The Gentleman's Relish out of his bed.
And as we eventually discover, Like Jack's, Stephen's marriage isn't quite what he had intended.
SPOILER for later books!
Stephen's marriage and POB's gentle humor:
*Because* Stephen has made an unsuitable match, he is more flexible about his marital arrangement and therefore his marriage is happier than Jack's. He is more available to his wife living in a different house than he would be if they lived together--less abstracted by his need to dissect people literally and figuratively, more interested in socializing, etc.
I must protest the implication in Pete's otherwise sterling post that Diana had any untoward relationship with Jagiello. Indeed we learn that though he helped her flee London, she was not interested in dallying with him.
Why he is interested in her and not the Gentlemen's Relish--remember back in the previous volume, Jagiello is talking about the impossibility of men and women being friends? "Women are the yews of the world" etc? He thinks that in Diana, because of her talent with horses and her other boyish skills, he has found a woman who is not going to seem foreign to him.
But she doesn't want to fool around with Jagiello because when she seems available, her heart is broken and she is not.
I know a lot of people who fantasize about marriages like Stephen's and Diana's--partner is lover and best friend, but gives you space to live by yourself in the way you always have. I wouldn't like it, being of a clingier disposition myself.
Ruth A.
On Thu, May 16, 2002 at 11:46:21PM +1000, Pete the Surgeon's Mate wrote:
And as we eventually discover, Like Jack's, Stephen's marriage isn't quite what he had intended.
Well hell, *mine* isn't quite what I expected! And this is my second.
--
Jeffrey Charles
N 37* 69' 30"
W 122* 44' 06"
GPG Public Key: http://www.zoiks.com/jeff/gpg.html
I'm pleased to see that Stephen is no longer addressing her as "Villiers". I had meant to raise that point in the group discussion of SM. The new Diana immediately began calling him Stephen, while he persisted in calling her Villiers. Even Jack was calling her Diana. Stephen only slipped up two or three times, during moments of emotional agitation (pursued by French assassins, struggling with a marriage proposal, etc).
Now, in IM, he has moved on to a fairly neutral "my dear", while she continues to refer to him as Stephen.
Don Seltzer
In a message dated 5/16/02 11:11:42 AM Central Daylight Time, ruthie@WORLD.STD.COM writes:
his marital arrangement
You know, if he's still not married in the Church to her, and they share a bed on occasion, which I assume they do, he is in mortal sin and cannot receive Communion.
Don't know how much POB thought this would affect Stephen; he does not talk about it, or have Stephen talk about it, other than to be unhappy that Diana won't consent to the Church marriage.
pragmatical and absolute, [FoW8]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
On p. 25 of the Norton edition, Jack's family is still aboard as he prepares to proceed to sea, and the children are causing a bit of trouble:
"But George's full-moon face was anxious and preoccupied; he whispered into the seaman's hairy ear. 'Can't you wait?' asked the seaman. George shook his head: the seaman shipped off the pantaloons, held the little boy well out over the leeward rail and called for a handful of tow. "On the poop itself Jack was still gazing through the innumerable masts . . . "
Don't you just love it?
-----------------
Giving up on playing Little Dutch Boy with the Group Read ...
Steve Ross
30° 24' 32"N
91° 05' 28"W
Interesting this, for before moving from England to the USA 9 years ago, I had never heard the word 'poop' used in the kid's feces sense, not never. So I wonder whether it possible that this is a wholly accidental pun by POB?
Yet a moment with my big, fat OED reveals that of 50 or so shades of meaning, a relatively rare one is an equivalent of 'toot' (as in blowing a horn, not drug inhalation!) - in the 1730s an extended meaning of 'break wind' has emerged, and by 1903 it's a vulgar expression amongst children for defecation (though 'pooh' is more often heard in England).
But, whilst it's to be expected that the old master did indeed know his stuff, I still wonder whether the pun would still have slipped by his then mostly British readership. Has 'poop' crept more fully into British English in recent years?
Gary
The motor car went poop-poop-poop,
As it raced along the road;
Who was it steered it into a ditch?
=Ingenious= Mr. Toad!
recollected, perhaps not quite accurately, from THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
Another US meaning: tired. "Whoosh! I am =pooped=."
"Poop" is also the preferred term among most dog-owners for what their dogs do. And for which you would use a "pooper-scooper."
I've heard "dooky" in some quarters, which makes me feel quizzical about the character in the new STAR WARS movie whose name is apptly Dooku.
If this is a joke, sir, a God-damned pleasantry, I am not amused. [HMSS 377]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
Do you know how to get out of an elephant's stomach?
Run around 'till your pooped!
According to the review in my local paper, which was particularly critical of several of the names in the movie, most notably Dooku, Lucas has regularly let his children come up with the names for the accessory characters in the Star Wars movies. This one, I gather, is particularly unfortunate. But I haven't seen it yet.
Bob Fleisher
Houston, TX
The story of the art thief's mother is timely, for in reading The Ionian Mission we find a host of Bach treasures mouldering away in a pantry, of which Jack removes a few to play aboard ship.
Including "a vast great St Mark Passion", a vast great loss.
And Bach indeed wrote this work, and fragments survive. Much of it has been "resurrected", I find.
"On these occasions, and Stephen had known many of them, Jack was as it were removed, a stranger... a hard, strong face, calm but intensely alive, efficient, decided, a stern face, but one that in some way expressed a fierce and vivid happiness." IM p. 66 Norton pb
I love that description.
pragmatical and absolute, [FoW8]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
I believe he wore the equivalent of Patton's war face or battle face at those times. 'tis wonderfully evocative.
J.C.
Some people would tell you that Russell could do this standing on his head, but I think he'd have to bend over backwards.
It's wonderfully evocative, 'tis true. But Patton is certainly not who *I* think of when I read that description of Jack. (Or worse, George C. Scott as Patton.) And never, never will.
Marian
For humor, I like the passage on p. 58, Norton pb, in which Stephen describes the emetic effects of antimony; but Jack wants to know what will be the effect of antimony in gunpowder.
"Alas, I am wholly ignorant of these things. But if we may go by analogy, it should cause the piece to vomit forth the ball with more than common force."
Oh, ha, ha, ha. Whether Stephen is really showing his (oft-times) ignorance here, or pulling Jack's leg a trifle, it's funny either way.
Again on p. 41 we have both the pleasure of Stephen showing a kindness in his cross-grained way ("Do not presume to contradict me... I am afraid we shall have to refuse you") and the humor of Jack wishing he could tell a fond parent that he cannot take on an infant young gentleman and the nature of his duties "precludes -- precludes my acting as a goddam dry-nurse" !
On p. 36 Ananias, the Gosport wine-merchant, is described as thoroughly adulterating the so-called port, ending with "a false date and a flaming lie by way of a label."
=People, Animals, Ships, and Cannon= identifies this Ananias, but fails to bring in the allusion I am sure POB was making, to one of the most celebrated of Biblical liars, the Ananias whose story may be found in the Book of Acts, Chapter 5.
Deeply, obstinately ignorant, self-opinionated, and ill-informed,
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
I sometimes think that a bent for cryptic crosswords is a help in getting everything out of PO'B's books that he put in.
Yes, I too loved the antimony analogy. A similar joke is used in FOW, when the officers of La Fleche are discussing the US President and Stephen offers his views, which surprise and interest his listeners.
I'm afraid that when waiting at Portsmouth with Jack for Stephen to turn up, which he does at the last possible second, I could not help but be reminded of Susan Wenger's million-dollar book The Port-Wine Sea, which takes this one step further.
But has anybody noticed that while everyone is looking at their watches and counting off the seconds and being dreadfully concerned about time, Pullings calls for a keg of sweet-oil (mmmmm, sweet-oil) ahead of time. Sure enough, it is Stephen's *timepiece* which is soaked
Cheers, Peter
I'm sure you're right, Mary, that O'Brian was alluding to the biblical Ananias. That's certainly what I thought of when I first read that passage; and what anybody in the early 19th century would have thought of if someone named Anaias was a notorious liar; or liar of any kind, for that matter.
Marian
Jack, invited to dine in the wardroom, is informed of the approach of the Dryad. He says he will come on deck after dinner, adding "It would be a pity to waste a crumb of this glorious treacle-crowdy".
Sounds like it should be some kind of delicious sticky pudding - but the only reference I could find on the Web was to a Scottish cheese called crowdie "A simple white cheese made from the whey of slightly soured milk seasoned with salt and a touch of pepper. Rolled in oats and served." Doesn't sound as though it would be eaten with treacle!
Anyone have any ideas?
Elaine Jones
Walsall, England
52° 36' 01" N 1° 55' 46" W
How about this-I see that crowdy/crowdie is also 'porridge'
http://www.bd-andalucia.es/cueva/cv1m28.html
I wonder where the cook was from or did Stephen slip him an old Catalan recipe!!!
Well it was worth a try.
alec
53 23 N 006 35 W
While I've been sitting here wondering about Stephen's distaste for "bonny-clabber." The OUD informs me it is an Anglo-Irish word meaning milk naturally clotted on souring. I knew clabber, of course, but "bonny" is derived from an Irish word for "milk," as doubtless Alec knows.
A porridge with treacle sounds rather like the Stateside "Indian pudding" which made with corn (maize) meal and molasses.
A sad, brutish grobian, [IM, p45]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
Making my way gradually through IM, I've come to the part where Jack leaves the Worcester to be refitted and returns to H.M.S. Surprise.
One of his regrets is that the Worcesters will be unable to perform the oratorio they had been rehearsing. And it occurred to me that there may have been a great nautical fiction cross-over opportunity that was lost.
Considering:
Suppose the performance of the oratorio included instruments, and suppose one of the instruments had been a horn: it stands to reason that someone would need to blow that horn, and who would that be, except --
'Oratorio 'Ornblower
?
John Finneran
One passage I particularly like is on pp 294-295, where Jack asks the elderly messenger what the Bey has been hunting. "Jews", comes the terse answer.
"Pray ask the Effendi whether the pelicans nest here," said Stephen, after the slightest pause. "I am aware that the Turks have a great kindness for the stork, and never molest her; perhaps their humanity may extend to the pelican, there being a superficial resemblance."
Is Stephen diplomatically changing the subject - or is he passing comment on the equality of races and religions, thinly disguised by reference to the animal world?
I love that "after the slightest pause". I can almost hear the infinity of wheels and cogs spinning in Stephen's mind as he thinks of an appropriate response to avoid Jack's being laid by the lee and still be able to express some degree of reproach.
Elaine Jones
Walsall, England
52° 36' 01" N 1° 55' 46" W
And perhaps there's a touch of humor here - maybe POB set up this joke in a previous book when Jagiello said (I don't have the exact words) that women were the "ewes" of the world, and Jack thought it would be odd if women were the rams of the world, but it turned out that Jagiello meant "Jews" but pronounced it wrong. Maybe the Bey was hunting sheep, since they'd be dining on sheep soon, but Effendi's correct pronunciation was misunderstood by Jack and Stephen, and POB chuckled quietly to himself and didn't explain?
- Susan
That sounds more likely to me. I hadn't ever heard that Muslims hunted Jews, or indeed had any great dislike for them. Not in that century, anyway, though certainly when Himself was writing IM, that was not the case.
And yes, it would complement the earlier misunderstanding in SM very nicely.
Susan said:
Maybe the Bey was hunting sheep, since they'd be dining on sheep soon, but Effendi's correct pronunciation was misunderstood by Jack and Stephen, and POB chuckled quietly to himself and didn't explain?
... and misunderstood by me. Bravo, Susan. Spot on, as usual!
Elaine Jones
Walsall, England
52° 36' 01" N 1° 55' 46" W
Heheehe nice one John-
mmmmmmmmm reminds me-
I have made a habit recently of giving links which I've come across and feel are interesting.
This practice - is as Stephen might say an 'unattractive style of conversation' as it merely places another person's opinion or concept in front of those who may already have read it. And it may be seen to be a substitute for original thought, of which there is an abundance here.
So I'm going to try real hard to discontinue doing it-and I am also working equally hard at the moment to limit my contributions to POB related material only(up to a point).
However(you were waiting for that 'however' wern't you) before I do desist I am going to point the way to this article which I found interesting because of the 'ornblower connection an the comparisons made.
http://www.salon.com/people/obit/2000/01/13/o_brian/
Last one -and apologies if it's familiar to some.
promise
alec
It was those indefatigable Jesuits who discovered coca (for the West, that is) and quinine - "Jesuit bark" from the cinchona plant. And surely they had something to do with "St. Ignatius' beans" which Stephen feels the prisoner might have taken too much of? (IM, p. 109)
I started to ask the List about these, then directed myself to Google, where I found this selection from the 1911 British Pharmaceutical Codex. The URL and a quote in part follows:
http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/bpc1911/strychnos-igna.html http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/bpc1911/strychnos-igna.html
Constituents.—The seeds contain from 2.5 to 3.0 per cent. of alkaloid, about two-thirds of which consists of strychnine and one-third of brucine. They contain therefore rather more strychnine than nux vomica.
Action and Uses.—St. Ignatius beans have the medicinal properties of nux vomica seeds. They are used principally as a bitter and as a tonic. The tincture is added to mixtures or given as drops; in Continental practice a more concentrated preparation (1 in 2) is used under the name "Gouttes Amères de Baumé." The powdered drug may be administered in cachets or pills with other stomachics and digestives. In cases of poisoning by St. Ignatius bean, the antidotes for strychnine should be administered.
Strychnine! Yow!
For intelligence, there is nothing like a keen-witted, handsome woman, [DI 2]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
The antidotes for strychnine, being, I believe, glycine. Not sure what a good source of that would have been in the relevant period, though. Anyone able to enlighten me?
Heather
wearing her pharmacologist scraper, which it needs a good brushing though
Gelatin. Which you would get by boiling a neat's foot!--EB
Her Majesty's Chief Medical Officer thinks you should just stick a tube down the patient's throat:
There is no specific antidote for strychnine poisoning. Treatment involves urgently establishing and maintaining a clear airway and ensuring adequate ventilation. This may be difficult if muscle tone is increased or convulsions are occurring and it may be necessary to paralyse the patient before an endotracheal tube can be inserted. Clearly this step requires preparedness for assisted ventilation.
http://www.doh.gov.uk/cmo/cmo00_02.htm
In a message dated 5/30/2002 8:57:37 AM Central Daylight Time, colonel_tanner@YAHOO.COM writes:
Her Majesty's Chief Medical Officer
Is this something like our US "Surgeon General"?
it may be necessary to paralyse the patient before an endotracheal tube can be inserted.
Which is done with a derivative of curare I recently learned - one nasty drug on top of another!
I do not pretend to teach you to sail your sloop or poop or whatever you call the damned machine...[HMSS 76]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
In chapter 7, Stephen is landed on the coast of Languedoc for a secret meeting with French royalists. Not far from Collioure, POB is likely describing a coastal marsh that he was quite familiar with, probably walking the same path along the dyke, and hunting water fowl from the same shooting blind.
This passage also brings to mind two of POB's short stories, "Dawn Flighting' and 'On the Bog,' which, although set in Ireland, describe similar nocturnal passages through the coastal mud flats and reeds, separated from the sea by a dyke.
Don Seltzer
The cover of the Collins first edition of IM was a detail from the Thomas Butterworth painting of the July 5, 1808 battle between the frigate Seahorse, Capt. John Stewart, and the Turkish Badere-i-Zaffer, Capt. Scandril Kichuc Ali, and the Alis Fezzan, Capt. Duragardi Ali. As William Clowes' description of the battle shows, POB very closely followed the actual ship maneuvers.
"... the Seahorse was near enough to the Badere-i-Zaffer to hail her and order her to surrender. The Turks paid no attention to the demand, whereupon the Seahorse poured a double-shotted broadside into the Badere-i-Zaffer's lee quarter at a range of only twenty yards, and a close action began.
The Seahorse was to windward, as it was important that the Turks, with their enormous number of men, should not be permitted to board. The Badere-i-Zaffer was slightly before her port beam, and between her and the Alis Fezzan, which latter ship was then unable to engage. The larger frigate, after a few minutes firing, attempted to run on board the Seahorse, but the maneuver was foiled by the British ship luffing and tacking astern of her. This brought the Seahorse upon the Alis Fezzan. Three broadsides were poured into the smaller Turkish ship with so much effect that her guns were silenced. The powder under the forecastle exploded, and the vessel was set on fire. After this, the Alis Fezzan seemed to have had enough, for she retired amidst dense clouds of smoke, which entirely hid her from view. The Badere-i-Zaffer, which had fallen to leeward, with almost every one of her sails shot to rags, was again closed by the Seahorse at about 10:35, and engaged broadside to broadside. A little later, the Turk attempted a second time to board, collecting 300 or so men on her forecastle. The Seahorse, however, shot ahead of her and cleared her, though the Turkish ship's bowsprit fouled and carried away, the gaff vangs and mizen mast standing rigging. The Seahorse's stern chasers poured a terrible fire into the would-be boarders .... The Turkish captain had hitherto shot, or threatened with death, all those who suggested surrender. He was at length seized by his own men, and the colours were lowered."
Don Seltzer
Very interesting, Don. Thanks for sharing it.
Throughout the canon it is apparent that that the British people have a very high opinion of their navy - for obvious reasons. Jack often comments on the necessity for winning battles against the odds in order to maintain good opinion from the Admiralty and the public.
Was it truly common for British ships to beat more/larger ships in battle? Or was it a case of a few legendary stories that caused them to be larger- than-life? I've gotten the feeling from the canon that it was relatively common, but am miserably ignorant of the actual history of that time (beyond a biography of Nelson, I've read nothing, nothing).
Nathan, wishing to be a kid again with oceans of reading time
I think that this is an accurate portrayal. During the wars of 1793 - 1815, the RN consistently won battles in which they were outgunned, and it became the public expectation that they would continue to do so. In one-on-one engagements between ships of roughly equal class, the British record was particularly impressive. In 19 years of warfare against the French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Turks, Russians, and assorted smaller states, the RN won scores (hundreds?) of such single ship engagements, but lost only six.
However, in the first months of the War of 1812, the RN fought three single frigate and three sloop battles with the Americans, and lost all six of them. The shock of the public and the RN as portrayed in FOW was real, as was the national jubilation when the Shannon broke the losing streak with a victory over the Chesapeake.
Don Seltzer
Just to reinforce Don's point, the fact that USN frigates of the time were more akin to 4th-rate liners than to conventional frigates - 50 guns up to 32lbs vs. 32-38 guns up to 18lbs - was no sort of extenuating circumstance in British eyes.
µ
Mark Iliff
51º27'46"N
57'42"W
The Royal Navy really was very good indeed during the Nelson era. Between 1793 & 1802 they lost about 57 warships taken & 5 destroyed in action. Against this, fighting against France, Spain, Holland & Denmark, they took roughly 430 enemy warships (279 French) & destroyed a further 136 enemy warships (99 French).
British ships were, routinely, expected to beat larger enemy vessels & very often did. This was largely the reason there was such a fuss when they lost some single ship actions during the War of 1812 to the then tiny USN.
This was due to the fact that the three most important ships in the USN, were extremely large, strongly built, well manned & well armed ships, probably the most powerful Frigates in the world at that time. In addition some RN ships Captains, with ever fewer enemy ships keeping the seas, had become more concerned with spit & polish than Gunnery, which was what largely won sea battles.
Ted
Sorry, Ted, I can't resist the temptation to respond. Although the two American 44's, Constitution and United States, gathered most of the laurels, it should also be remembered that the American sloops of war, typically of 16 - 18 guns, had an even higher rate of success against their British counterparts during the war.
And over on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, American squadrons totally defeated comparable British ships, in the worst RN defeats since Jack Aubrey lost four ships at Grand Port.
Don Seltzer
Well Don I did go on to say, in a bit you 'snipped', something along the lines of 'in addition to the fact that some British Captains had started to attach more importance to 'spit & polish' than gunnery, which was what really won naval battles.'
I think it is true to say that it was the US Frigate victories that caused such upset in Great Britain & also fair to say -as someone else all ready has- that the US Warships concerned were far more strongly built, had more & larger guns, & carried bigger crews (as did many US ships of the time) than just about all contemporary Royal Navy Frigates, & that they were far more powerful than a standard British 36 or 38.
I tend to agree with those British figures of the time who deplored the fuss made by the public & who pointed out that the USN run of success at sea lasted about as long as it took the Royal Navy to re-deploy enough resources, from Fighting Napoleonic France, to neutralise it.
None of this takes away from the skill or bravery of the Captains & crews involved. It might have been interesting to see what might have happened in a fair fight between one of the big American Frigates & an RN 40, though perhaps it would not have been, since, in all the actions where things were fairly closely matched, both sides suffered too many casualties.
Ted
Kutali is fictional, but it bears a certain resemblance to the town of Cattaro in Montenegro. In December 1813, Capt. William Hoste and the men of the frigate Bacchante hoisted cannon up the steep cliffs overlooking Cattaro, forcing the surrender of the French garrison.
It was Sir Edward Pellew who actually served as CIC of the Mediterranean fleet in 1813, watching Admiral Emeriau's ships in Toulon. However, Admiral Thorton is clearly modelled on Admiral Collingwood, Nelson's friend and second in command at Trafalgar. After Trafalgar, Collingwood assumed command of the Mediterranean fleet, spending nearly five years on the station trying to coax the French out for a decisive battle. In declining health, he repeatedly requested to be relieved of his command, but the Admiralty considered him indispensable.
The chase scene of chapter 8 is largely fictional, although there are some similarities to a small breakout of French ships, including the Robuste, in Oct. 1809, intending to supply Barcelona. A squadron of Collingwood's fleet, including the Sultan and Leviathan chased them back eastward.
Collingwood died the following year, never having returned to England.
Don Seltzer
1) Someone earlier spoke of the behavior of animals or birds in the Canon as reflecting and pointing up the behavior of the humans. There is perhaps an example of this on p. 78 (Norton pb). Stephen is watching a Gibraltar ape and a fulvous vulture, and a pitch is made to him to join the Government intelligence service, by a man he rather dislikes, Professor Graham.
"The distant ape shook its fist at the vulture:" (Stephen's annoyance?) "the enormous bird tilted and gliding sideways crossed the strait to Africa without a movement of its wings" (the smooth way Stephen eludes the proposition?) - I can't decide which animal - or both - represents our hero.
2) They reach Mahon, "catching the back-eddy by Cuckold's Reach (a spacious stretch in these warm latitudes)." p, 197 Surely an allusion to the other matters of matrimonial infidelity & lusts of the flesh which get an outing in these chapters, not just to a stretch of water. Warm latitudes, indeed.
3) pp. 258-259. I immediately felt the force of the double meaning behind the Admiral's remark, "I am leaving this station very shortly, you know:" -- and knew that POB had intended it when he comments: "the Admiral's meaning would have been clear to a man with even less religious sense than Jack Aubrey and the tone of unaffected humility and resignation moved him deeply." How many of our modern authors dare to speak seriously of humility and resignation? This was a good passage, good indeed.
4) Haven't had time to look into the archives, but someone inquired with distress about the Effendi's remark that the Bey had been hunting "Jews" in the marshes (p. 294), and someone else replied soothingly that this could be the same misunderstanding of "Jews" for "ewes" as in a well-known statement of Jagiello's.
Not so, I think. Graham here is -translating- the Effendi's answer from Turkish (or Arabic, but I think Turkish), so there is no opportunity for the misunderstanding to arise.
POB is making a point about tolerance, but perhaps a somewhat off-target one. Though they were under restrictions and discrimination in the Turkish Empire, just as Christians were, Jews mostly lived in safety of their lives and their (limited) liberty. The almost rabid, Nazi-like anti-Semitism that is being fostered against Jews in much of the Moslem world today is a later development.
We might remember that POB is writing of an age in which Jews (or Moslems for that matter) could not teach in an English university or serve in an English Parliament.
On the whole I did not like this book too much. Throughout its course, Jack Aubrey is living on a diet of disappointments and worries, varied by very few successes - one of them, of course, the successful action which is brilliantly described at the end.
Possible SPOILER if you haven't finished the book
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So the IONIAN MISSION ends on a high note, but not written as most other authors would have done it. The famous POBian understatement comes in here: Jack thinks Pullings dead: Jack fights like a demon with a "cold, hard face": Jack learns that Pullings is NOT dead... all of it almost thrown away, the author leaves you to feel the shocks for yourself.
A sad, brutish grobian, [IM, p45]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
Excellent post, Mary. The passage with Admiral Thornton is terriby effective, I thought, and very much affects Aubrey.
On the 'Jew' passage, (p. 294), wasn't the original question about the paragraph immediately following, where Stephen "after the slightest pause" replies "Pray ask the Effendi whether the pelicans nest here." Why did Stephen pause? What took a few seconds to register in his mind? It sounds like he processed something and concluded that 'jew' didn't mean the obvious.
I have wondered if there is some second meaning of 'jew' which connects to this 'pelican' statement, or if perhaps there is some word Turkish (or Arabic word) that Graham has mistranslated. Is 'jew' a local name for a kind of pelican? I know there is a fish called a 'jew fish'; perhaps there is a 'jew pelican'?
"Pelican" apparently also has a symbolic connection with Christ, represents self-sacrifice, and perhaps has a Masonic symbolism as well, but I can't see how any of that might fit in.
Rowen
I can't comment to all of Rowen's post, but may be able to add something re: the pelican. If it had a symbolic connection to Christ, that no doubt related to the 18th century view (still held in Stephen and Jack's early 19th c.) that the pelican would self-sacrificially pluck its own breast, drawing blood to feed its young. (Which doesn't entirely answer questions about the POB context.)
How do I know this? Handel, again. In his oratorio *Joseph and His Brethren* there's an aria "Ah jealousy, thou pelican," whose text is:
Ah jealousy, thou pelican,
That prey'st upon thy parent's bleeding heart!
Though born of love, love's greatest bane,
Still cruel! wounding her with her own dart.
Some 20th c. commentators have made ribald comments about this, ignorant of the 18th c. meaning of the image.
Marian
Mary S wrote:
Not so, I think. Graham here is -translating- the Effendi's answer from Turkish (or Arabic, but I think Turkish), so there is no opportunity for the misunderstanding to arise.
I knew I should have stuck to my guns on this one! The fact that Graham is translating into English swings it for me, although I didn't dare speak up for myself at the time in the face of a well-reasoned explanation of the Jews for ewes misunderstanding. Thank you, Mary.
Elaine Jones
Is 'jew' a local name for a kind of pelican? I know there is a fish called a 'jew fish'; perhaps there is a 'jew pelican'?
Sounds specious to me. The pelican has a rather large beak, you know.
In a message dated 6/10/02 12:31:47 PM Central Daylight Time, Rowen84@AOL.COM writes:
On the 'Jew' passage, (p. 294), wasn't the original question about the paragraph immediately following, where Stephen "after the slightest pause" replies "Pray ask the Effendi whether the pelicans nest here." Why did Stephen pause? What took a few seconds to register in his mind? It sounds like he processed something and concluded that 'jew' didn't mean the obvious.
I took it to be the "slightest pause" most of us do when we hear something that shocks us; then, if we can't afford to speak out - after all, they need the Bey's help at this point - we may change the subject, as Stephen did.
A sad, brutish grobian, [IM, p45]
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
In a message dated 6/10/2002 2:03:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, rxbach@EARTHLINK.NET writes:
Why did Stephen pause? What took a few seconds to register in his mind
I think he was somewhat shocked by the remark, and bit his tongue, holding back a rejoinder,realizing that this was a regional natural statement and any thing he said would jeopardize his position with the Arab.
John B
Rowan wrote......
I have wondered if there is some second meaning of 'jew' which connects to this 'pelican' statement,
There is another word, phonetically almost the same as Jew, that fallible memory tells me refers to the guards of the temple, and is connected with the heirachy of freemasonry.
Peace
John
Hmmm. I was the someone who replied soothingly, but I am reconsidering. Possibly the clue that is niggling at my theory is that (somewhere in that book) Jack Aubrey sipped a glass of Chian wine. POB wrote a short story called "The Chian Wine" and it was about a Jew-baiting village. The short story was written perhaps 10 years before the novel, but possibly it was in his mind.
- Susan, wavering, wavering, wavering
And a great short story it is too - one of his very best imho. Set, I guess, in and around Collioure itself. Chilling.
Gary
At 12:18 PM -0400 6/10/2, Stolzi@aol.com wrote:
On the whole I did not like this book too much. Throughout its course, Jack Aubrey is living on a diet of disappointments and worries, varied by very few successes - one of them, of course, the successful action which is brilliantly described at the end.
I also do not care so much for IM, ranking it one of my less favorite of the canon, for reasons similar to Mary. But I think that it contains a crucial turning point in the canon as a whole.
By the time of IM, POB had almost written himself into a corner. It was 1813 or so, and Jack had progressed in seniority to the stage where he could only expect to command a ship of the line on boring blockade duty (what a great animal metaphor when the Worcester comes off the Toulon blockade, tacking back and forth endlessly over a small patch of ocean, to encounter the rhinocerus being exercised on deck in a similar fashion). POB did not wish to deviate from the history of the times to create fictious fleet battles (nor did he ever show much inclination to include them earlier in the canon when given the opportunity), and neither was he going to send Jack off on unrealistic independent cruises in a ship of the line.
So POB is inspired to bring back the Surprise, one of only two ships that Jack has really loved. In rereading the canon, it is hard to believe that in the first seven books, Surprise appears only once. When Jack reassumes command in chapter 9, the whole mood changes. Jack is once again happy and youthful, his other cares seem to shrink, and we sense that his luck has changed. But more than that, I can imagine that POB himself is writing with more joy. And this spirit carries on in the rest of the canon, as he contrives in various ways to keep Jack and his small community away from the rest of the war.
Don Seltzer
Very well put Don. I think you are in the right of it. The last two Aubrey-Maturin's are not up to some of the earlier ones, but 'The Far Side of the World' &, for different reasons 'The Reverse of the Medal' are two my favourites.
Ted
Don's observations interest me because I've been one of those who feel that POB's last three or four books lack the energy, inventiveness and joy of the canon through TWDS. I'd always put this down to POB's age, tiredness, and his publisher's demands for more material. But in the last four books POB returned to the real naval world and real time. Did these limitaitons affect his work?
Gerry Strey
Madison, Wisconsin
From page 210,
"There you have the whole shooting-match. Fore and foretopmast staysails, of course, inner jib, outer jib, flying jib, spindle jib, and jib of jibs". He explained to Stephen at some length that after long experimentation he had found this answer best with the Worcester's present trim and with the present light breezes: he named a large number of other staysails, the spanker and the driver, pointed at the total absence of square sails on the>main and their rarity elsewhere, and assured Stephen earnestly that by so shifting the centre of rotation he was able to make good a course as close as six true points..."
I wondered if POB might have been practising a bit on us with all of those jibs, so I asked John Harland what he made of the passage. He kindly responded with the following:
******************************
It is significant that both Lever and Steel, writing in the Aubrey era, content themselves with describing a foretopmast staysail and jib. According to James Lees, the Flying Jib was introduced in 1794. Smyth (The Sailor's Word-Book) offers:
"Jib-of-jibs; A sixth jib on the bowsprit only known to flying-kite-men: the sequence being storm, inner, outer, flying, spindle, jib-of-jibs." We might have expected Foretopmast staysail between 'Storm' and 'Inner Jib' but there you are.
David MacGregor considers the spindle-staysail at length in an article 'Spinnaker and Spindle' in *Mariner's Mirror* 51 (1965) 341-2. They seem to have been used in East Indiamen, of the 1820 era, and the reference is probably to the spindle of the weather-vane. Examples of main-spindle staysail and mizzen spindle staysail are mentioned, so there is no reason to think a spindle-jib could not have been set also. It could also be called a jib-topsail, because its tack would be a considerable distance from the flying-jibboom end.
The great exponent of triangular staysails was Sir Henry Heathcote, whose *Treatise on Staysails* was published in 1828. I have attached a plate from this, which shows what he calls Topgallant and Royal Jib' ....ie jib topsails. However, I can't remember seeing a contemporary paintng showing these set. On page 72 of David MacGregor's *Fast Sailing Ships* there is a picture of the East Indiaman LONDON, under an immense press of sail, but no jib topsails.
William John Huggins (1781-1845) produced a wonderful watercolour of the East Indiaman ESSEX, reproduced on page 201 of MacGregor's *Merchant Sailing Ships 1775-1815*. [A sketch based on this, done by Mark Myers is to be found on page 164 of *Seamanship in the Age of Sail*. The story is that Huggins produced this for the amusement of this children, who wanted a painting of a vessel 'with every possible sail set'.
'Jib-topsails' were set in smaller vessels ....for instance Thames Barges, and in this case the foot ran up and back more or less in line with the forestay.
A warship's jib [Standing-jib, in contradiction to Flying-Jib] could be handled, even when of very large size, Mossel's book on rigging mentions a Large-, Middle- and Small-jib. Switching these around would have been child's play in a man-of-war with their very large crew. The leverage exerted by the jib could also be varied by changing the position of its traveller on the jibboom, Inner and outer jibs of smaller dimensions were a more convenient arrangement in merchantmen.
A fore staysail ( or storm staysail) was not particularly useful in the ordinary way, since by the wind it was in the wind-he weather half of the forecourse. I believe its main usefulness was primarily as storm canvas. This seems to be confirmed by comments in Steel's *Elements of Mastmaking, Sailmaking, etc* where he says it was made of heavy canvas, whereas other staysails were made of light canvas. Lever comments that it was rarely issued except to warshps .....something that POB picks up, when Mowett catalogs the sail plan for Stephen in M&C (page 96). My guess is that Sophie, as a brig as compared to a snow] of that era, would indeed have set a mainstaysail, but not a fore-stayssail, except perhaps in bad weather. In contemporary paintings one rarely if ever sees a forestaysail, photographs attest to the use of this sail in American whalers, so it would be foolhardy to insist it was *never* used as regular canvas.
The weather clew of a main course was commonly hauled up with a quartering wind, and it was taken in entirely with the wind aft. POB's "total absence of square sails on the main" is puzzling in the context given here, and I can't guess what he had in mind.
--
John H Harland
Kelowan B C
I have wondered if there is some second meaning of 'jew' which connects to this 'pelican' statement,
There is another word, phonetically almost the same as Jew, that fallible memory tells me refers to the guards of the temple, and is connected with the heirachy of freemasonry.
This is Marja, wondering -- if the Bey spoke in Turkish to the translator, and used the Turkish word for "Jew" or the Turkish word for something else that the translator said "Jew" for ...
Maybe the translator was practising upon Stephen? He did not like SM overmuch, I recall. Or maybe the translator (SFN sorry, forgot name) just wanted to see how SM would react to this outrageous statement, knowing SM would have to be diplomatic.
I can see SM giving (Graham?) a very steady look during that significant pause.
Marja, Capt's Clerk
Why not take it at face value? Ismail Bey was a particularly nasty sort, who actually was hunting for Jews in the marsh (certainly an unlikely spot to be hunting ewes, if one were to hunt sheep at all). POB was making it clear what the various possibilities were in store for the decent folk of Kutali. As for the pelican, Babbington had told the Doctor of a prodigious kind of Pelican that he had recently seen off Zante. And about the same time, Mustapha's ship was seen chasing a Greek felluca, whose crew ended up as corpses, "some headless, some with their throats cut, some impaled, and three roughly crucified, Saint Andrew fashion..."
Maybe Stephen was genuinely interested in the pelican, and used the remark to gentlely change the subject. Or maybe there is some subtle symbolism regarding Ismail Bey and Mustapha being birds of a feather.
Don Seltzer
At the beginning of Chapter Two is a scene that a few other lissuns have already commented on:
Pullings is reading new crew members into the Worcester, and there is an unfortunate English gardener named Yeats who is pressed, and begs to be let off, since his impressment will ruin his business and impoverish his family. Stephen examines him and pretends to find an incipient hernia, which obligate the Navy to refuse him. (The scene is pp. 40 - 41, Norton pb).
I've been toying around with the idea that PO'B may have been making some sort of play on his character Yeats and the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. I didn't come up with anything definite, but some thoughts along this line:
*It fits in with the general poetry theme in this book (with the great poetry contest between Rowan and Mowett).
*There may be a subtle tweaking of Irish nationalism. Irishmen (and most others) immediately associate the name Yeats with Ireland, but, as this scene shows, it is actually an English name. If I remember correctly, WBY's family were actually Anglo-Irish (i.e., English who settled in Ireland, sometimes becoming "more Irish than the Irish" over the generations).
I was hoping to find some sort of reference to Yeats' poetry in the scene, and had a few ideas, though nothing too conclusive.
*Yeats is a gardener. Gardens appear occassionally in Yeats' poetry (e.g., "Down by the Salley Garden").
*From IM: "'Well, I am sorry for it, Yeats', said Pullings. But the law is the law: any man that has used the sea may be pressed.' In case like this some officers would make observations about the necessity for manning the fleet, about serving -- preserving -- the country, even about patriotism, for the general edification of the ship's company". This has some similarities to:
"Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,"
from Yeats' poem "An Irish Airman Forsees His Death"
The greatest parallels I saw were with the poem "The Host of the Air".
In this poem a man named O'Driscoll sees a vision of his wife Bridget, and he also sees various dancers and old men, who are actually fairies, who try to get him to eat and drink with them, not knowing that if he does he will be drawn away with them to their fairy land forever; but Bridget takes him away by the sleeve, preventing him from eating or drinking their food, though she is herself drawn away. And there's also a mysterious piper who appears at the beginning and end of the poem.
Here are the parallels I saw:
* PO'B's scene also begin and ends with music (if you stretch things a bit): right before this scene, at the end of Chapter One (p. 38), Jack and Stephen are preparing a musical interlude; and right after the scene comes the line: "In the great after-cabin, the Captain's drawing-room, music room, refuge and delight,..." (p. 41)
*Yeats is in danger of being drawn away into the RN, just as O'Driscoll could have been drawn away into the fairy land, but he is saved by the intervention of Stephen, as O'Driscoll was saved by the intervention of Bridget, and (phrasing this carefully to avoid commiting a spoiler) there is a reason (which will become clear in later books) to associate the name Bridget with SM.
*Finally, there is Stephen's advice: "you are to drink very little ale or wine, and no strong waters at all; you are to forswear tobacco, that nasty vice, and are to be let blood three times a year": just as O'Driscoll escapes by not eating or drinking, Yeats does the same (with the bits about tobacco and bleeding thrown in by PO'B for good measure).
Here's the complete poem:
The Host of the Air
by W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) from The Wind Among the Reeds. 1899.
O'DRISCOLL drove with a song
The wild duck and the drake
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night-tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.
He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place,
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face.
The dancers crowded about him
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine
And a young girl white bread.
But Bridget drew him by the sleeve
Away from the merry bands,
To old men playing at cards
With a twinkling of ancient hands.
The bread and the wine had a doom,
For these were the host of the air;
He sat and played in a dream
Of her long dim hair.
He played with the merry old men
And thought not of evil chance,
Until one bore Bridget his bride
Away from the merry dance.
He bore her away in his arms,
The handsomest young man there,
And his neck and his breast and his arms
Were drowned in her long dim hair.
O'Driscoll scattered the cards
And out of his dream awoke:
Old men and young men and young girls
Were gone like a drifting smoke;
But he heard high up in the air
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
John Finneran
The Anglo-Irish were not just "English" Irish but also Irish families who had adopted the Anglican faith to ease their upward mobility by becoming professionals, such as lawyers and doctors who were not allowed to be Catholic. Some of the old Irish aristocracy were of English origin and they had become as Irish as they come even remaining Catholic. They were not usually known as the Anglo-Irish.
I can't say as I've noted too many parallels between Yeats and O'Brian. I am a fan of both, and my house is littered with Yeats books. Perhaps there may be similarities, but certainly not in language, and rarely in approach, even when the half-Irish Maturin is being Irish.
Certainly PO'B would have been aware of the connotations of the name Yeats, but I really think you are stretching a very long bow indeed here.
Not that I mind discussing Yeats (the poet) at all at all, and I must say that the Yeats scene in the canon is one of my favorite - it reminds me of another Irish story, of the Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman condemned to death by the French. The Englishman is placed in the guillotine, the lanyard is pulled, but the blade hangs. Under French law, the sentence is deemed to have been carried out and he is released. Likewise the Scotsman. They stand together, congratulating themselves as the Irishman is strapped in. The Irishman looks up and nudges the executioner, pointing up. "I think I can see your problem right there."
Cheers,
Peter Mackay
of Skyring
Interesting post, John.
Yeats mother was, if I remember, a Pollexfen, of Cornish descent. The Butler part of his name is the most Irish.
The Butlers were Hiberno-Norman, of Irish and Norman descent. They were Dukes of Ormonde, and were immensely powerful in their day. I believe that Anne Boleyn was the grand-daughter of one of the dukes, who had their seat at Kilkenny Castle. There are stories, apocryphal I think, in Kilkenny about a visit that she made there, pre-Henry I presume.
The Butlers governed in Co. Tipperary and surrounding lands. I remember seeing the remains of a Butler castle in Thurles in North Tipperary when I was doing some genealogical searching there some years ago.
Jean A
(Incidentally, I have very distant cousins named Butler whose family came
from the area mentioned.)
I am a bit behind -I guess Group read has moved on to Treason's Harbour.
We had 2 weeks holidays in the West of Ireland where it rained for 13 out of 14 days!!!. I was sorry I had decided to make it a book free fortnight.
However I have started IM again-intrigued by John Finnerans suggestion of pressed man's 'Yeats connection' I find the leap suggested by John just a bit too far for me to jump-but I keep an open mind.
In my efforts to join the Yeats theory I re read Lapis Lapsi(thinking about the Hamlet performance) and realise how the changed meaning of one word can so alter a poets thoughts-
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Shortly after Yeats dismissal-there is a line I like.(Page 42 Harper).
'....said Jack gazing out of the stern window and seeing the Hamoaze of more than twenty years ago,just as crowded with men-of-war even then,and himself a bran-new lieutenant,shedding happiness like the rising sun,taking the two officers in question ashore in the gig.
I re-read it wondering if there might be any 'poetic' connection with 'shedding happiness like the rising sun' but what I noticed was the term 'bran-new'.
Is this correct? I know Kellogs suggest we all have a Bran-New day but surely the correct term is Brand-New?
alec
Re the term "bran-new".
I'm a bit behind in email myself. Am reading a 1931 book by E M Delafield, "Diary of a Provincial Lady", format is, as would be expected, the lady's diary entries and, so far, she's used "bran-new" at least twice:
Her diary entry for November 25th: "Robert unfortunately comes in just as I am using bran-new and expensive lif-stick, and objects strongly to result."
Her diary entry for December 17th: "Unknown lady enters carriage at first stop, and takes seat opposite. She has expensive-looking luggage...also bran-new copy,without library label, of Life of Sir Edward Marshall-Hall"
Once, a typo, maybe. Two, so far, common usage, it seems.
Lois
I velieve there is another example of "bran new" in the canon--the captain of the Fleche reports on his visit to Sophie and her carrying a bran new baby down the stairs--the report that so startled Jack (or didn't).
Gerry Strey
Madison, Wisconsin
Yes, those two (or maybe more) "bran new"s caught my eye too. But it might just be one of those pronunciation things, especially in British English - the "d" of brand is often dropped to ease the transition to the "n".
Gary
who says "bran' new" himself, though his wife don't...............
I just looked up the bran / brand issue in my vast great OED and was somewhat surprised to find that "bran-new" is given as recently more common than "brand-new". However, "bran" is definitely a contraction of "brand" rather than anything to do with wheat! From the examples given, the "bran new" form was more common in the early 19th century than "brand".
Gary
who learns something every day..........
Gary wrote:
Yes, those two (or maybe more) "bran new"s caught my eye too. But it might just be one of those pronunciation things, especially in British English - the "d" of brand is often dropped to ease the transition to the "n".
I would agree with this interpretation, especially given the SOED definition:
brand-new /bran(d)'nju:/ a. Also bran-new /bran'nju:/. L16. [f. BRAND n. + NEW a. (as if glowing from the furnace).] Conspicuously or completely new.
There is a passage in Gene Wolfe's "Peace" where the narrator is considering his axe, which has the maker's name or mark branded on to the handle, and realises that once it was literally "brand new".
Martin @ home:
50° 44' 58" N
1° 58' 35" W
I find the passage in "The Ionian Mission" in which Jack's Aubrey's reaction to a particular piece by "Old Bach" to be particularly memorable: "[I]t was the great chaconne which followed that really disturbed him. On the face of it the statements made in the beginning were clear enough: their closely argued variations, though complex, could certainly be followed with full acceptation, and they were not particularly hard to play; yet at one point, after a curiously insistent repetition of the second theme, the rhythm changed and with it the whole logic of the discourse. There was something dangerous about what followed, something not unlike the edge of madness or at least of a nightmare; and although Jack recognized that the whole sonata and particularly the chaconne was a most impressive composition he felt that if he were to go on playing it with all his heart it might lead him to very strange regions indeed." Although POB's text identifies this music as being the "Partita in C," such a composition by Johann Sebastian Bach is not known to actually exist. Instead, the piece referred to is frequently believed to be his "Partita No. 2 in D Minor" which is indeed renowned for its extraordinary chaconne movement.
A recent thread here has put me into a very Bach mood, so this morning I dug out a few versions of this partita and, while driving to work (I have a long commute), I listened to four different versions of the chaconne (those by Rachel Podger, Lara St. John, and two by Christoph Poppen from the controversial "Morimur" recording which includes chorale accompaniment to the violin to illustrate a theory about Bach's numerological encoding of his music). Listening successively to alternative interpretations of the same piece, especially one with such complexity, is an intriguing exercise in itself, but what struck me as a moving violation of the laws of coincidence came in the brief interval when I switched compact discs from one artist to another. There, as a background to a National Public Radio "Morning Edition" story about a stolen Stradivarius violin, was playing -- or at least so my befuddled ears made it --yet another version of the great disturbing chaconne. I won't even guess at how to calculate the odds on that. But if I knew enough about Bach's numerology, I think I might win Powerball Lottery this evening.
Bruce Trinque
41°37'52"N 72°22'29"W
According to Richard Kapp (producer of the "Musical Evenings with the Captain" CDs, among many other accomplishments), the musical references in the canon are all to non-existent works, albeit works that were consistent with the composer's style. Probably one of POB's little jokes.
Mr. Kapp is a lurker in the Gunroom, although currently he is NOMAIL.
Larry
on 6/28/02 8:33 AM, Larry & Wanda Finch at finches@BELLATLANTIC.NET wrote:
According to Richard Kapp (producer of the "Musical Evenings with the Captain" CDs, among many other accomplishments), the musical references in the canon are all to non-existent works, albeit works that were consistent with the composer's style. Probably one of POB's little jokes.
Let us all pause and let this sink in. When POB refers to a work that never existed, he is not making a mistake. He is making a joke.
It should be a major article of our cult that POB never nods. What seems to be an error is never an error. The Master is playing a joke on us, and it is up to us to find it out.
For instance...
There are several "mistakes" in latitude and longitude in the canon. Sharp-eyed navigational lissuns have found them and discussed them. POB himself, quizzed on such an "error," smiled and said that he was left-handed.
Was not Loki, the eldrich trickster of Nordic myth, left-handed? Was not Lewis Carroll left handed? P.T. Barnum? Richard Nixon? Was not POB himself left handed?
A left-handed response is like a left-handed compliment. It does not quite mean what it says. What POB meant by that obscure answer was, "Dig deeper, my cult."
And so I have dug. I have delved into the literary world, looking for lat-and-long references. Nothing in Shakespeare, nothing in Milton (though he came close,) nothing in Jane Austen, even. And nothing in the Bible. Nor has Nostradamus given us a clue.
So, using only my left hand on the keyboard, I have googled, I have Jeeved, I have written to the all-knowing experts who give us Cliff Notes, and I have gone off line to many Lost Lissuns who might have given the answer.
Last night, my head swimming widdershins, I took down a book to relax with. Alice Adventures in Wonderland, of course. And lookee what I found...
Says Alice...
'"I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?" (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.'
There you have it. POB sending us to another master of misdirection for elucidation of what seemed to have been an error.
Nor is it the first time he has used Lewis Carroll. I have visited the archives of the Gunroom itself and found that, in 1977, we discussed another reference. Here is the start of that discussion, a thread begun by the antique four-Zed Charlezzzz and not revisited until this moment:
------
In chapter 6 of The Mauritius Command, Jack says a rather strange thing:
"There you are, Stephen," he cried. "How happy I am to see you. What have you there?"
"An unborn porcupine."
"Well, there's glory for you."
Now, Jack is performing another amazing POBish action. He's quoting an author 20 years before the author was born. To his prequotations (is there a better word, please?) of Conrad, Proust, and Houseman, he now adds Lewis Carroll. "There's glory for you." You cd look it up.
Charlezzzzz
I think there is a simpler explanation for POB's mentioning of the so-called nonexistent music, like Bach's father's masterpieces the St Mark Passion which had been chewed on by mice, these were actual works by great composers that have been lost over the years through various vicissitudes of history.
Perhaps the froward coca crazed rats on HMS Surprise were responsible for the destruction of old Bach's mysterious chaconne.
There is another navigational reference in Carroll of course:
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A map they could all understand.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank:
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
A perfect and absolute blank!"
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N13822821
Martin @ home:
50° 44' 58" N
1° 58' 35" W
This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
And that was to tingle his bell.
He was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
What on earth was the helmsman to do?
Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked."
But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
That the ship would not travel due West!
Is Stephen the Bellman? Tingling his bell and hoping that the crew would decipher his intentions?
Stephen's description of the "vast old Passion" mouldering away in a pantry reminded me of the Bayeux Tapestry, which idle visitors used to handle a century or two back. Fragments would come off quite easily, and crumble away in their hands.
And of course there are many great things which are thrown out or destroyed through neglect, unloved, unrecorded. The Aubreyad itself was virtually a secret for many years.
In replying to my old post (I knew I hadn't finished the thought) there is the ship sunk by gunfire in 1949. I suppose eventually they wanted the space in the pantry/castle/dockyard for something else and just cleared it out. Sometimes like Victory or the remaining tapepstry, they get saved, other times, well.
Jack's father was a bit, well. Jack mentions him destroying bits of the family home and replacing them with tawdry replacements in the latest style - a bit like those Taj Mahals we were discussing a while back. Vast great plasterboard houses with turrets and balconies which take up every spare half-gill of the block but for a token lawn and ornamental shrub out the front.
We have whole suburbs in Canberra which have been transfigured this way, or indeed lost forever. Westlake, for instance, is no more than a patch of bushland with some odd plants growing here and there. Flowers still sprining up seventy years after they were planted.
I keep seeing the similarity to Borges: both he and POB are geniuses, and both invent imaginary worlds containing more imaginary things within. Mirrors within mirrors. That is one of the many things I love about their works. See an earlier post about the Invisible Library from Kerry Webb about fictional works within fiction.
David Hipschman
hangared at PCZ
And don't forget Jerry Shurman's amazing account of Stephen's visit to Ashgrove Cottage in The Maritius Command at John Finneran's wonderful Group Read site http://jfinnera.www1.50megs.com/Mauritius.htm (Groupread:TMC:Aubrey in Wonderland posted December 9, 2001.)
~~ Linnea
Some comments have been passed at various times on Stephen's usage of 'Irish' words, idioms and sayings.
Maybe on my next read through the canon I will make a conscious effort to identify what seem to me to be 'Irishisms.'
However as of now I'm working my way through Ionian Mission and on page 205 (harper) the following evolves.
Jack asks Stephen in response to the latter's repeated (can that mean only twice?) use of the term 'there is not a moment to be lost'..
'Do you wish me to slip?'
When it transpires that slipping anchor will only save a few minutes Stephen continues..
'Then perhaps we should retain our anchor'. 'That invaluable implement -a precious stanby.'
Jack made no reply but went on deck.
'I am afraid I have vexed him, the creature' said Stephen to himself..
Now here I believe O'Brian is definitely playing the 'Irish' card.
The word 'vex' was and still is very popular in the West of Ireland and would certainly be used in preference to 'annoyed'. Its usage is, I think, similar to present use of the 'American' word 'rile'.
A mother might shout at her child-'don't vex me now or.' And in the West the word is pronounced 'vecksh' which gives it added punch.
But it's the use of the word 'creature' that shows Stephen's Irishness. For I don't think it could be derived from anything but an Irish source/background (any other ideas?maybe Catalan??)
The Irish word Cratur(pronounced Craytor) is the literal translation of 'creature' but has a totally new meaning when used in certain ways. It is still in common usage today even among totally English speaking communities -especially along the Atlantic coast.
By and large it is used to refer to children-a child crying on their first day in school would be 'a poor cratur' or a poor craturin(craytoreen) .
It would also be used to refer to older people who have had bad luck or fallen on bad times- '' His wife died recently -now he lives alone -the poor cratur'.
However I find it hard to envisage a circumstance where 'cratur' would be use to refer to a 40-year-old, 6-foot plus sea captain in the scenario as related above.
So even though 'creature' may have been used by POB based on some time spent in the west of Ireland -I'm not convinced the usage by Stephen in referring to Jack is totally accurate.
But there are probably other theories out there!
By the way the above is not intended in any shape or form to be a criticism -merely an observation posted in response to some earlier enquiries on 'irishisms'.
alec
53 23 N 006 35 W
And a very useful observation it is too, Alec. I've read a fair amount of fiction and drama by Irish authors and even allowing for regional differences, Stephen doesn't sound particularly Irish to me either - though perhaps this is intentional on the part of POB, to reflect Stephen's polyglot background and/or need to blend in as an intelligence agent.
And yes, it is Ste*PH*en Daedalus, if that question hasn't been answered yet. Opening Ulysses at random: "I doubt it," said Stephen gravely. -RD
If they suspect me of intelligence, I am sure it will soon blow over (TFOW, p.184)
This is in response to Alec's earlier post, where he said that "creature"
was used slightly out of context by Stephen when he referred to Jack as "the
creature." I'm still working my way through Jamie O'Neill's excellent book
At Swim, Two Boys, which is set in 1915-16 in Dublin. on page 482, "...it
was the baker's boy from Oxford they must light upon, Lambert Simnel, the
creature." In the context, he is not being pitied, he is being compared
unfavorably to Roger Casement. This would echo Stephen's usage as being a
term of mild approbation. If not for Alec's excellent post, I wouldn't have
noticed this usage at all. Possibly it was a more common usage during that
time period or earlier? The author Jamie O'Neill is from Dun Laoghaire.
-RD, the creature
If they suspect me of intelligence, I am sure it will soon blow over (TFOW, p.184)
I think you are spot on where "the creature" is concerned but possibly less so with "vexed". My grandmother, definitely southern English in origin, used the term with me (with very little provocation as far as I can remember!). I think the word is rarely used in England these days but I don't think it would have been seen as an Irishism by someone of O'Brian's generation.
It strikes me that here we have Stephen overplaying his ignorance of matters nautical, and thinking that maybe he has taken it too far.
Martinus Scriblerus scripsit
Of course, in novels where the author is attempting an Irissh flavour
for dialogue, "the craytur" is whiskey. WHICH IS UN-AUTHENTIC - WHERE I
LIVED FOR A WHILE IN WEST CORK, IT WAS ALWAYS REFERRED TO AS "A BALL O'
MALT"
--
John R. Gosden
7_34'N 97_57'E
Harper page 295 half way down
Paragraph finishes..
'for it is clear he must make it in my barge.'
The next paragraph (in my book) begins three quarters way across the page with..
Thursday, at sea'... so I took the old gentleman ashore...
Is this correct or is there some text missing? If so,can anyone fill the gap?
alec
53 23 N 006 35 W
Mine has the famous (or infamous) Killick-coupling-with-goat incident. Not surprised that this scene has been removed in less liberal jurisdictions.
Just kidding. My copy has the two sentences seperated by only a line or two of space, enough to mark a paragraph.
It looks to me like a letter heading. Would "Thursday, at sea" be justified to the right margin?
Martin replied..
It looks to me like a letter heading. Would "Thursday, at sea" be justified to the right margin?
As Charlezzzzzz might say 'I think you have the right of it.'(in every sense)
Thanks - and sorry for bein' thick-but I can't help it.
alec
I read TIM again
Of all the Books so far on the Group Read it's the one I really had to work hard on to finish.
And still I dont lilke it.
Sorry that means 8/10
I see made a typo in my Yeats reference following John Finnerans usual brillant/questionable insight.
I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow.
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.
All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,'
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.
Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.
a/wby
Alec O' Flaherty I read TIM again
Of all the Books so far on the Group Read it's the one I really had to
work hard on to finish.
And still I dont lilke it.
Sorry that means 8/10
I like that one, though not as much as some others.
Ted
POB tackles the great questions of the ages so nicely.
Take, for example, page 171 of "The Ionian Mission:"
(Rowan speaking): "I may not know what a dactyl is, but
I do know that
"Will you take
is poetry, whatever you may say. It rhymes, don't it?
And if what rhymes ain't poetry, what is?"
What is poetry, indeed. I do know that everything I utter
is poetry, maybe except "what would you like for dinner?"
- Susan
"what would you like for dinner?"
And I find that phrase most poetical !
John B
'Romeo Romeo wherefore art thou romeo and what would you like for dinner'
alec
Alec, that's some fine poetry. Perhaps you are a second
Bossidy.
- Susan
I'd give you a full reply, Susan Wenger
Peter, musin'
Well, you've got the first half already.
There IS a rhyming character in American history, who
pulled a Nicolai Tolstoy about 250 years ago . . .
- Susan
Susan Wenger,
Charlezzzzz, wanting those MSS pages, and she can keep the doubloons
And who was held up to scorn in verse of almost Rowan and Mowett quality:
Thersites only clamored in the throng,
But his name wasn't really Thersites 'cause that doesn't rhyme with Wenger.
Or even better (because it scans worse) this attack:
Cosby the mild, the happy, good and great,
D...h is "Dutch" but what's H....s? Hellhounds is all I can think of but I
doubt that's it.
And now for some original poetry,
Susan Wenger
For intelligence, there is nothing like a keen-witted, handsome woman, [DI 2]
Mary S
Stolzi proved that she is very witty
The last line provides the POB link. It comes, in course, from
"Scarborough Fair" and surely there was a fair of sorts in
TGO wasn't there?
Nathan
Having spent so many months cast away upon my own personal Desolation
Island, I am hopelessly behind in the group read, so ask pardon for this
return to TIM. A fast search of the archive does not reveal posts upon this
point: so I venture to submit it to the List of the World, with apologies in
advance if it is found to be mere repetition.
TIM p.111 (Norton h/c ed):
Stephen and Adm. Thornton are discussing Intelligence matters and the
Admiral expresses his disquiet at what may be disclosed at the court martial
of his Maltese clerk who was spying for the French. We should note that Mr
Allen, the Admiral's secretary, was acting as judge advocate at the court
martial and the Admiral says:
"' ... nor can we gag the fellow to prevent him from giving evidence that
will reveal too much. How I hope Allen will handle the matter cleverly; he
came along surprisingly well under Mr Waterhouse's tuition.'
"'I am sure he did,' said Stephen. 'I understand Mr Allen is an able,
determined man.'"
There are a number of layers to this brief passage:
Stephen knows that the clerk is dead of poison, clearly not
self-administered, for Dr Harrington, the Physician of the Fleet, has shown
him the corpse and sought his opinion as to the cause of death. That he does
not mention the clerk's death to Adm. Thornton is a wonderful illustration
of that unwillingness to communicate which his undercover activities have
made second nature to him: he, indeed, like Mr Waterhouse, perhaps even more
so, could be described as 'volte sciolto, pensieri stretti' (TIM p110).
Also: take the words "I am sure he did": ostensibly, they apply to Mr
Allen's progress under Mr Waterhouse's tutelage: but they equally apply to
to the Admiral's preceding words: "How I hope Allen will handle the matter
cleverly".
And then there is the masterly touch: "I understand Mr Allen is an able,
determined man." Stephen, of course, has not met the Admiral's secretary
(iirc) - on what, then, is this assessment based? clearly upon Stephen's
realisation that Mr Allen has murdered the clerk.
In just a few words, with volumes left unsaid, POB has limned Stephen's
character, his efficiency as a spy and the effect of that profession upon
him far more effectively than could a thousand sentences.
And a final note: Mr Allen was Mr Waterhouse's pupil. And Mr Waterhouse,
before meeting his sticky end, was "Sir Joseph's colleague" (TIM p110). Now,
Sir Joseph Blaine was a charming, courtly old gentleman - but he was also
uncommonly ruthless. There was irresistibly recalled to my mind as I read
this passage, a scene in DI (Norton h/c p 56-57): Stephen at almost the
nadir of his depression and addiction has left important papers in a hackney
coach. Sir Joseph comes to The Grapes to see him and, kindly though Sir
Joseph treats him, Stephen considers that he may have become eminently
permanently retirable:
"In the pause that followed, Stephen considered Sir Joseph ... and it
occurred to him that somewhere in that keen, capacious mind, a though was
forming: 'If Maturin is in fact reaching the end of his usefulness, we had
better get him out of the way before he makes some costly mistake.' ... A
well-run intelligence service must have its system of dealing with those who
were past their best or who had fallen by the wayside and who yet knew too
much: a knacker's yard run with more or less brutality according to the
nature of the chief; or at least a temporary limbo."
We may certainly assume a like ruthlessness in Mr Waterhouse - and in his
pupil; a ruthlessness which is what Stephen means when he understands Mr
Allen to be "determined".
The temptation to include another passage has now proved irresistible: for
what could be more delightful than Stephen's impatiently efficient
doctor-patient handling of the Admiral, whom Dr Harrington had lamented as a
difficult patient: "'I should scarcely go too far if I were to say an
impossible patient. Disobedient, masterful, doses himself."' (TIM p107)
Indeed, when Stephen desires to examine him, the old man says:
"'Another time...Mungo's Cordial keeps me in reasonable trim. I understand
my own constitution.'
"'Please to take off your coat and breeches,' said Stephen impatiently.
'Personal inclination is neither here nor there; the health of the
Commander-in-Chief is of great concern to the entire fleet, to the entire
nation. Nor is it to be left in unqualified hands. Let us hear no more of
Mungo's Cordial.' .... 'When I have consulted with Dr Harrington,' he said
at last, 'I shall bring some physic over and I will see it drunk.'" (TIM
p111-112)
Oh, the passage of the world - consider only the 'I shall' and 'I will' ...
London Lois, lost in admiration
N 51:26:22 E 00:03:05
Oh List of the World: what might be the true inwardness, the meaning, as it
were, of the right prime phrase "with a heave-ho rumbelow". It occurs in TIM
(Norton h/c p123-4) as follows:
Jack attends a dinner aboard Admiral Mitchell's flagship. The dinner is
uncommonly jolly since Jack has (diplomatically) lost a bet where the stake
was a dozen of champagne - "they drank Jack's champagne, the dozen between
eight of them; they drank port and something the Admiral described as rare
old Egyptian brandy ... " and Jack tells the cur-tailed joke. "Tears ran
down the Admiral's scarlet face: he drank to Jack when he could draw breath
at last, he repeated the whole thing twice, he drank to Dr Maturin's health
with three times three and a heave-ho rumbelow; and Bonden ... said to his
mates: 'It will be the gallery-ladder this tide. Mark my words.' The
gallery-ladder it was, a humane device discreetly let down so that captains
who did not choose to face the ceremony of piping the side might come aboard
unseen, giving no evil example to those they might have to flog for
drunkenness tomorrow ... ".
London Lois
51º 26' 22" N 000º 03' 05" E
Lois Anne du Toit
Aside from the obvious ten thousandth variation of "drink up", "gangbei",
"down the hatch", and so forth I am at a stand, Lois. Strictly guessing, we
have the way the sound of "rum below" so neatly rhymes with the nautical
"heave ho" -- meaning to turn to a task with a will. And of course the
meaning conveniently encourages getting the liquor at hand stowed in its
proper place.
Basically, I'd have to say that after finishing one's share of three bottles
between two, one reaches a state of mind to create phrases that sound
scintillating to like minds. I've never been caught by the cooking bug, but
I understand some truly... uh, interesting recipes have come from a similar
state of... of... creativity seems too generous a term.
Gary W. Sims, Major, USAF(ret)
Rumbelow. Not in my dictionary, but here it is in the
traditional English folk song, Hal-an-Tow:
Hal an tow, jolly rumble oh
Take no scorn to wear the horn
[chorus]
Robin hood and little john
[chorus]
What happened to the span-iard
[chorus]
The lord and lady bless you
[chorus]
--
Not that I am any the wiser about what it actually
means.....
Kevin
Signing off for the night, my conscience was nattering away so I finally
walked across the room to the OED. (Can't imagine how I suppose I can get
through an evening on this list without it underhand.)
"rumbelow", now rare, is from late Middle English and is an "arbitrary combination
of syllables" (Which I think means "how the heck would we know?") that is a
refrain originally sung by sailors when rowing. That is certainly consistent
with the rhythm of the phrase "heave-ho rumbelow". It still permits the guess
that the Admiral admired the felicitous conjunction of the sound "rum below"
when urging officers to drink up. But I should use my thumb on the OED before
my tongue hits the keyboard... or something like that<g>.
Night all,
Gary
Which I am reading TIM and have come across this passage (Norton h/c p150):
"'Only a scrub would say it,' said Stephen. 'Meat - pah! Suff on him.'"
Now, the Norton TIM is uncommonly full of typos - one wonders if it was ever
copy-edited - is this "suff" actually the "suss" Charlezzzzz mentioned a
short while ago? If not, whatever may be the origin of "suff on him"? And
does Stephen use both "suss on him" AND "suff on him"?
London Lois
51º 26' 22" N 000º 03' 05" E
Lois Anne du Toit
"Verify your references," said the dying scholar in the joke. But sometimes
verifying a reference might involve hunting through all 20 volumes of the
canon -- a lovely task, but one that requires almost three weeks, which is
excessive when one is simultaneously working through the lovely eleven
volumes of Pepys Diary.
Which is to say...
My "suss" was indeed written "suff" in POB's transcription.
And yet, in a frantic effort at self-justification, (1) I point out that
"suss" would perhaps have been *printed* as "suff" or even "sufs" in 18th
century works. And (2) that hissing noises (fricatives?) made in front of
the mouth are sometimes interchangeable, as in "sizzle" or "fizzle."
And that, dammit, I have someplace seen "suss" as a pejorative.
Charlezzzzz, wriggling and wiggling and wearing, for a brief moment,
the black hankie atop his wig
I am sure that I have used it here once or twice - it is, after all, a
word in common use in Australia - but it is no more than a shortening of
"suspect" or "suspicious", as in "That story about the bear suit is a
little suss."
The use as a verb is more problematic, because it is used instead of
"sniff" or perhaps "snuff", as in "One of the members of Naval
Intelligence is a French spy, but I haven't sussed him out yet."
Perhaps we can yet suss out the origin of the word.
I've been rereading IM recently, and have come across a passage that, to me, illustrates in a backhanded way Jack's essential good nature and his close affection for Stephen. Jack has arranged for Awkward Davis to avoid a flogging, and then "delivered a particularly dreary homily
on right and wrong...."
Stephen comes in a little later, and begins on him:
"Like many large, florid, good-natured men, Jack Aubrey was afflicted with an undue proportion of small pale, meagre friends of a shrewish turn....He was therefore particularly sensitive to the quality of shrewishness and even before Stephen opened his mouth Jack knew that he was
about to say something disagreeable.
"'I ask only for information,' he said, 'and without the least personal bearing: but tell me, when captains set themselves up as judges and lay down the moral as well as the military law, extolling virtues that they rarely if ever practise, do they often feel the spiritual squalor
of their conduct?'
"'I dare say they do,' said Jack, smiling still. 'I know I have often wondered that I was not struck down by a levinflash. But there you are--no ship carries a man rated spotless Christian hero, so the captain has to do what he can, for the sake of discipline.'
"'I see,' said Stephen. 'So it is not for the sake of exalting him in his own opinion, it is not for the sake of airing his own views before an audience that dare not stir or disagree, it is not for the deeply discreditable, nay, wicked pleasure of exercising his almost unlimited
power: nor is it that our gentleman is unaware of the true nature of his act. No, no: it is all for discipline, for the country's good. Very well: I am content.' He sniffed...."
Stephen is so far out of line, so unnecessarily abusive, that it is to me a sign of his essentially good-natured personality, not to mention his amiableness toward Stephen, that he puts up with this abusive and sarcastic diatribe and remains "smiling still." [Norton, p. 302]
I have a couple of questions, though. What is a levinflash, a word I hadn't noticed on earlier readings. Or rather, since it clearly means "lightning bolt," what's the derivation of the word?
Second, one of the acquaintances the POB cites as "small pale, meagre friends of a shrewish turn" is "Heneage Dundas, [who] had already earned himself the name of Vinegar Joe throughout the service...." It never occurred to me to think of Dundas as small, pale, or meagre, and I
can't think of anything in his various appearances in the canon that came across as shrewish. Stephen, as well, is clearly fond of him. And I don't know of any reference to him elsewhere as Vinegar Joe.
IM also contains what I think is the best abusive diatribe in the canon, one Jack does not suffer with equanimity. Professor Graham is furious that Jack has casually agreed to support Sciahan without the (in his opinion) necessary negotiation, and the two argue all afternoon. POB
reports rather than quotes Graham's onslaught, which makes it much more powerful; the long sentences capture the breathless flow of Graham's words:
"Jack replied coldly that he regarded his words as wholly binding, that he was convinced that he and Sciahan understood one another, and that in any event the responsibility lay with the Captain of the Surprise. That was the last cool remark in the discussion, which presently grew
not only warm but even personal. Graham wished to hear no more of this parrot-cry of responsibility: if an invaluable opportunity was lost the country through frowardness and ignorance it was of little or no comfort to an injured public to fasten the responsibility upon some
particular one of its servants. It was the duty of those engaged in warfare, and above all in the political side of warfare, to consider the situation with the impartiality of a natural philosopher watching the action of spirits of salt upon hartshorn, of the electric fluid on a
dead frog's thigh; all sentiment and personal preference must be laid aside; and other purely objective thought and informed opinion must be sought. Throughout this inauspicious day however Captain Aubrey had been clearly guided by his personal likes and dislikes and by the fact
that these people called themselves Christians; he had made up his mind on sentimental grounds. This had been evident from the moment they set foot on shore until the moment they left and it was of no use for Captain Aubrey to prate about respect and discipline. Professor Graham
was not one of Captain Aubrey's subordinates--the cruel and bloody lash, which he had seen, with bitter regret, so disgracefully used upon this very ship, was not for him--and even if he were subordinate, that would not prevent him from doing his duty or protesting, officially and
with the utmost vehemence, against this ill-considered course of action. Nor was it of any use for Captain Aubrey to look big and talk loud; Professor Graham was not a man to be bullied. If, like some other military forms of life, Captain Aubrey was a being that confused superior
force with superior reason, that was Captain Aubrey's affair: nothing would prevent Professor Graham from telling the truth, calmly and without raising his voice. Volume of sound was in no way related to volume of veracity. Captain Aubrey might speak violently, if he chose; it
made no difference to the truth. If Captain Aubrey were to turn his cannon--the ultima ratio regum, and of other bullies--on Professor Graham, the truth would remain unaltered. No, said Professor Graham, now quite hoarse from bellowing, he did not suppose that he possessed a
monopoly of wisdom--the remark he might observe in passing was wholly irrelevant and as illiberal as if Professor Graham had referred to Captain Aubrey's remarkable bulk or to his lack of education--but in this particular case an impartial observer comparing Professor Graham's not
inconsiderable knowledge of Turkish history, language, literature, policy and customs with the encyclopedic ignorance and presumption of those who contradicted him, might be tempted to think so. Furthermore...At this juncture, Stephen broke in...." [Norton, p. 329-330]
This is so beautifully executed, and contains so many wonderful nuggets, that I cannot imagine any of O'Brian's competitors in naval fiction writing it.
Bob Fleisher
Thanks Bob - I've never noticed this expression before. The NSOED
defines levin as: Lightning; a flash of lightning. Also, any bright
light or flame.
ME. [Prob. ON, perh. f. 1st elem. of OSw. liughnelder (Sw. ljungeld,
Da. lygnild) lightning flash, f. Gmc base of LIGHT n.]
You do learn something new every day.
Martin @ home:
Refs to Norton h/c ed.
p. 274: Jack hastily declares what amounts to a tie between Mowett and Rowan
but says, rather curiously:
"'I find that Mr Rowan carries the day as far as poetry in the classical
manner is concerned, whereas Mr Mowett wins for poetry in the modern
style...'"
Now, was not Mowett's the more classical style of heroic couplets whereas
Rowan composed - well - really, in no known style (at least, none known to
me, but I freely confess limited expertise here) - hence his work was
regarded as being "in the modern style"?
Did Jack just get it wrong? if he did, it is not adverted to in any way, and
I can't believe poor Mowett, shy though he was, would have been able to
repress a mild twitch, at least, at this description of his style. As to
Rowan, well, still more so, he not being backward in coming forward and
being tolerable proud of his modernism, iirc.
Did POB get it wrong?
Or, most likely, have I got it wrong? it's just that that statement jars on
me every time I read TIM.
This competition is among my favourite scenes: the rules, as outlined by
Pullings (p269), are priceless: "'We have agreed, sir, that each gentleman
is to limit himself to a four-and-a-half-minute glass; but he may explain
the rest of the poem in prose, speaking quick...'" Oh, that "speaking
quick" - ha! ha! ha!
London Lois
51º 26' 22" N 000º 03' 05" E
Lois Anne du Toit
A provocative post - good catch, London Lois.
POB wrote some poetry himself, so it's understandable
that he'd work a poetry-writer or two into his novels. A
few of his poems were published in "Poetry Ireland," but
I wonder that there isn't more of it. I've looked and
looked, and couldn't find much. Possibly he submitted
his poems under a different name?
- Susan
Did POB get it wrong? Or, most likely, have I got it wrong? it's just that
that statement jars on me every time I read TIM.
No, Lois, you're right; I've been listening to the Ionian Mission tapes recently
and had the same response you did. Mowett's poetry is clearly the more
classical--rhymed iambic pentameter, a good 18th Century verse form. Think
Pope. Jack--or POB--got it backwards, but I don't think there's any way to tell
whether POB meant to blame Jack for the error.
Bob Fleisher
I believe that we shd always hold POB innocent of error. Blame Jack, Then
it's funny.
Charlezzzzz, busy apportioning blame
I won't venture a guess as to what was considered classical and modern in 1813, but others more versed in poetry might find some clues at:
http://65.107.211.206/victorian/art/crisis/crisis2g.html
Falconer, of course, is the real author of most of Mowett's poetry. Rowan borrowed heavily from the horrid writings of Samuel Walters.
Don Seltzer
Refs to Norton h/c ed.
p277: "Stephen walked on as far as the starboard forechains, took off his
nightcap and nightshirt, stuffed them under the dead-eyes, scratched himself
industriously for a while, crept out on to the projecting shelf, and holding
his nose with his left hand, crossing himself with his right, dropped with tightly-shut
eyes into the sea, the infinitely refreshing sea."
Ain't it prime?
And consider how acutely POB captures the experience of being in a dire and
confusing situation, as Stephen comes close to drowning: p. 278: "... but soon
he [Stephen] seemed to be in a perpetual agitated present in which things happened
not in a given order but on different planes. The enormous voice that cried
'Back the foretopsail' high above his head, the renewed sinking into the depths,
dark now from the shadow of the hull, the rough hands that grasped his ear,
elbow and left heel, dragging him over the gunwale of a boat, and the midshipman's
anxious 'Are you all right, sir?' might all have been contemporary."
London Lois, loving TIM
51º 26' 22" N 000º 03' 05" E
Lois Anne du Toit
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 6:21 AM
Subject: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
A piece of cake"
From: Jebvbva@AOL.COM
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 8:29 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
From: Alec O' Flaherty
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 4:19 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
From: Pete the Surgeons Mate
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
If only there was a rhyme for your last name.
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 6:51 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
From: Charles Munoz
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
Aaron Burr.
It wasn't him.
Cd it be her?
From: Mary S
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 6:36 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue,
And by no shame, by no respect controlled;
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold;
But chief, he gloried with licentious style,
To lash the great, and rulers to revile.
The strongest guard of our little state;
Let malcontents in crabbed language write,
And the D...h H....s belch, tho' they cannot bite.
He unconcerned will let the wretches roar,
And govern just, as others did before.
Gets off many a zinger
On the POB list,
When not there she is missed.
35° 58' 11" N
86° 48' 57" W
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 5:36 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead:TIM:poetry
By writing the above nifty little ditty
And proved that for Wenger there is a rhyme
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
From: Lois Anne du Toit
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 1:39 AM
Subject: TIM: a deft touch
From: Lois Anne du Toit
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 2:13 AM
Subject: with a heave-ho rumbelow
From: Gary W. Sims
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 3:07 AM
Subject: Re: with a heave-ho rumbelow
--------------------------------------------
Confident haggis had such an origin
At or about 34°42' N 118°08' W
From: Kevin Danks
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 5:06 AM
Subject: Re: with a heave-ho rumbelow
We were up long before the day oh
To welcome in the summer
To welcome in the may oh
The summer is a-comin' in
And winter's gone away oh
It was a crest when you were born
Your father's father wore it
And your father wore it too
Have both gone to the fair oh
And we will to the merry green wood
To hunt the buck and hare oh
That made so great a boast oh
They shall eat the feathered goose
And we shall eat the roast oh
With all their power and might oh
And send their peace upon us
And bring peace by day and night oh
http://wuzzle.org/cave/halantow.html
at work in Southampton
From: Gary W. Sims
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: with a heave-ho rumbelow
From: Lois Anne du Toit
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 6:45 AM
Subject: suss or suff? TIM
From: Charles Munoz
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: suss or suff? TIM
From: Pete the Surgeons Mate
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: suss or suff? TIM
From: Bob Fleisher
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 7:27 AM
Subject: Ionian Mission: was TH ; Jack
Houston, TX
From: Martin
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: Ionian Mission: was TH ; Jack
50° 44' 58" N
1° 58' 35" W
From: Lois Anne du Toit
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 2:35 AM
Subject: TIM poetry competition
no literary expert, she: nor,indeed, no poet neither, and very grateful that
the Listswains did not tear her squirrelly effusion, posted in a mad moment,
to shreds, which she begs you will all accept thanks for your forbearance.
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 4:23 AM
Subject: Re: TIM poetry competition
From: Bob Fleisher
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 8:46 AM
Subject: Re: TIM poetry competition
Houston, TX
From: Charles Munoz
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: TIM poetry competition
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: TIM poetry competition
From: Lois Anne du Toit
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 2:56 AM
Subject: TIM - a wonderful Stephen scene
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