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Discussion is now open for "The Unknown Shore."
Come and sit by me, and let us talk of bats.
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To learn about "The Port-Wine Sea," my parody of Patrick O'Brian's wonderful Aubrey-Maturin series, please see
http://www.ericahouse.com/browsebuy/fiction/wenger/index.html
Thanks, Susan. I will open my comments by suggesting that this novel is quite unlike any other in the extended canon because the author intrudes to such a large degree. From the very first paragraph, we are conscious of the author's opinions as well as his description. He even makes the occasional remark directly to the reader, which to my knowledge occurs nowhere else.
For example, when talking of list slippers (a happy phrase in this context - I think we all know of people who have slipped the list) on p15, "Men will go through fire and water for their friends; they will lend them money, if there is no help for it; but to lead an exceedingly shabby friend, who is known to have rather peculiar table manners, into a grand place of public entertainment, is little short of heroic, above all when the friend is shod with list slippers: not many would do it - you may search all Plutarch without finding a single case. List slippers are now so little worn (we have seen but one pair in our earthly pilgrimage) that it may be necessary to state that list is the edge of cloth in the piece, the selvedge, and it is woven in a particular manner to prevent its fraying; frugal minds, unable to throw the list away when the cloth was used, would form it into hard-wearing slippers, often very horrible, because of the strongly contrasting colours of the strips."
Who is the "we" of "we have seen but one pair in our earthly pilgrimage"? It seems to be a sort of Royal we, much as an editor would use it meaning himself and his staff. But we know that Patrick O'Brian was writing alone - there was no "we" about it. An "I" would have been more accurate, though still very jarring.
I submit that in this case, the "we" is Patrick O'Brian with Jane Austen riding his shoulder, for you may find this odd construction in Austenry, and this book is very Austen-tatious.
I will open my comments by suggesting that this novel is quite unlike any other in the extended canon because the author intrudes to such a large degree
I noticed this as well. At various points, there is a definite intrusion of a narrator, something I didn't notice anywhere else.
How could anyone think of this book as a childrens book. There's quite a bit of rather shocking violence in it (the killing of the child, the beating of the wife, etc.)
Greg
42º32'34.5" N
71º20'13.2" W
The endless misery which forms a great deal of the second half. I advise lissuns to lay in a goodly supply of rations before embarking - you will feel the need to munch on something as the travellers grow ever more famished and weary.
It is not a childrens' book, far less so than TGO, which is reasonably happy in its narrative. Here the story sinks down, down, down, until we are rowing up that awful river, our hands raw and bleeding, and our backs aching and our stomachs empty.
But at least it rises eventually, and we end with one of the most surprising lines in the whole extended canon, a line which promises nothing but delight and satisfaction.
This is a more challenging book than its predecessor, though it traverses much of the same ground. We know this right from the Austen-like opening, and the introduction and illustration of a very surprising character indeed - Tobias Barrow, who is the undoubted model for Stephen Maturin, as Jack Byron is the young Jack Aubrey.
It is a very dark adventure story. Again, there is nothing like it in the British boys novels of the time. Jennings and Derbyshire are friends of some contrast, but their landscape is very familiar, and they seldom have to deal with anything more upsetting than the confiscation of a cake or a loss at cricket. Jack and especially Toby are in deadly peril almost from the moment we meet them, far more than their predecessors in TGO.
Here, I think, we have Patrick O'Brian feeling his way - the pendulum swinging a bit past the middle, the characters more sharply drawn and strongly contrasted, the pair bond more stronger than before, where Peter Palafox's companions are diffuse and varied.
And yet it is still drawn from life as it were, for like Keppel's account, the story was told by the real Jack Byron on returning home, available for Patrick O'Brian to read two centuries later. As we shall see in M&C, published accounts were a useful crutch for an author to support his fictional accounts, and perhaps the real adventures of Jack Byron constrained the narrative a little more than O'Brian might have wished, for the next book is a good deal less true to any published history.
But O the joy of reading O'Brian's descriptions of the quirks of character. And O the pleasure of finding old familiar scenes, situations and phrases. And, as ever, it works far down deeper than the surface, for O'Brian is up to his old tricks of setting up jokes in one book to deliver the punchline later on in a different one.
Peter wrote:
It is a very dark adventure story. Again, there is nothing like it in the British boys novels of the time. Jennings and Derbyshire are friends of some contrast, but their landscape is very familiar, and they seldom have to deal with anything more upsetting than the confiscation of a cake or a loss at cricket.
What an apt comparison. It is years since I read a Jennings story yet I can immediately see Derbyshire as the more studious Toby or Stephen and Jennings as the more athletic Jack or Jack. For those unfamiliar with the stories maybe Hermione and Harry would go somewhere in the same direction. But as you say Jack and Toby are in that deadly peril, something that Jennings and Derbyshire do not have to face. Hermione and Harry might be a different matter...
Martin Watts
50° 45' N 1° 55' W.
The Borough and County of the Town of Poole
Peter Mackay wrote:
From the very first paragraph, we are conscious of the author's opinions as well as his description. He even makes the occasional remark directly to the reader.....
The one that caught my eye: "The English currency, even now, is the most complicated in the world.....but it is child's play to the time when there were broad pieces, reckoned at twenty-three and twenty-five shillings, half and quarter pieces....etc"
That 'even now' really stands out, don't it? Matt Cranor
On 1 Aug 2001, at 23:29, Peter Mackay wrote:
The endless misery which forms a great deal of the second half. I advise lissuns to lay in a goodly supply of rations before embarking - you will feel the need to munch on something as the travellers grow ever more famished and weary. It is not a childrens' book, far less so than TGO
Oh, Peter, I pray that you don't mean that misery and sinking stories don't belong in childrens' books.
It seems to me that that is the common belief in the worlds I have lived in. Many I have known, children and adults, have been the poorer- equipped for life because of this attitude.
Doug Essinger-Hileman
Drowsy Frowsy List Greeter Ordinaire
39°51'06"N 79°54'01"W
Patrick O'Brian often offers an early analogy to something that's going to happen later in the books - sometimes it's a dream, sometimes it's an animal incident, sometimes it's simply a "previous" version, someone telling something that's happened in the past that will have bearing on what's coming in the book.
In "The Unknown Shore," he presages the unhappiness of the last half of the book on page 140, when Moses Lewis (Old Sponge) tells the sickberth about the time he'd been shipwrecked and enslaved by his captors. He also sets the stage for many of the specific events that are about to occur.
- Susan Wenger
Doug wrote,
Oh, Peter, I pray that you don't mean that misery and sinking stories don't belong in childrens' books.
Well said, Doug. I agree heartily. For youngsters 8-12, I recommend "A Series of Unfortunate Events" which has gotten a bit of publicity here. The Baudelaire orphans suffer tragedy upon tragedy, managing in the end to always survive, at least. There is humor there as well. A delicious mix of life.
The abuse heaped on the dog, "Shiloh," is, by example, important for youngsters to know about. Compassion is something not easily learned if they don't see the results of such inflicted misery.
Dan, in Rhode Island
Oh, Peter, I pray that you don't mean that misery and sinking stories don't belong in childrens' books.
Oh no, Doug, not at all! What I *really* meant was that it is not a children's book of the period and market. It is quite unlike anything I have ever met from that time and place. British juvenile fiction abounds with tales of shipwreck - Swiss Family Robinson, Coral Island, Robinson Crusoe and the like.
Now that I think of it, there is another tale, contemporary with TUS. Lord of the Flies. Now there's a dark story, but commonly set as a text in high school. I don't think it was aimed at children.
In a message dated 8/1/01 10:40:53 AM Central Daylight Time, revref@interior-castle.org writes:
Oh, Peter, I pray that you don't mean that misery and sinking stories don't belong in childrens' books.
Certainly chidlren can handle ship wrecks and death as well as mummies, blood and battles. But this book is just unremittingly bleak. I have to admit I found it so dark the first time through that I declined to reread it for this group event.
Have you read the book, Doug? And did you actually pray for that, or is that just a figure of speach?
Sarah
Several people have commented on how the narrator takes a part in "The Unknown Shore."
My favorite such "intrusion" is O'Brian's explanation of the Scotch accent, on page 86:
"'Ye're the pairson wha's tookit yon pigwidgeon cabin,' said Campbell. From this point onwards it must be understood that Campbell spoke broad Scotch at all times, although his remarks will be put down in English; for the representation of a dialect is tedious, inaccurate and often incomprehensible."
In O'Brian's earlier works, including his early short stories published under the name "Russ," he handled dialects very poorly: I can imagine that he was probably told by an editor that they were tedious, inaccurate and often incomprehensible. I was really delighted to see this recognition in "The Unknown Shore," and to the best of my recollection, he did not have any further difficulty with dialects after this point. He did use them occasionally, but he used them quite well. (for example, his handling of MacMillan in "The Nutmeg of Consolation.")
Last year, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, produced a stage dramatization of "Lord of the Flies." All three of our children, then aged 17, 13 and 12, enjoyed the play and wrestled with the issues involved.
Doug Essinger-Hileman
Drowsy Frowsy List Greeter Ordinaire
39°51'06"N 79°54'01"W
Peter Mackay wrote:
From the very first paragraph, we are conscious of the author's opinions as well as his description. He even makes the occasional remark directly to the reader.....
The most jarring example of this in my recollection is a passage in CSF's HH story, "A Ship of the Line". It is in the section where HH is ashore, helping the Spanish borrow some cannons to assault a French garrison. He makes a rather racist slur on the Spanish character, and then goes on the extend it to his own time (The Spanish Civil War would have been in progress while he was writing this book.)
Peter Mackay wrote:
I submit that in this case, the "we" is Patrick O'Brian with Jane Austen riding his shoulder, for you may find this odd construction in Austenry, and this book is very Austen-tatious.
I think PO'B's beginning is a deliberate play on Austen's opening line to Pride and Prejudice, which PO'B has stated he particularly admired.
Pride and Prejudice begins, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
The Unknown Shore begins, "Mr Edward Chaworth of Medenham was a well-disposed, good-natured man with an adequate fortune, an amiable wife and a numerous family".
It's like a mathematical proof, Jane Austen style, with P & P providing the proposition (good fortune leads to wife) and TUS providing the proof (Mr Chaworth has an adequate fortune, and therefore has gained a wife). Quod erat demonstratum.
I also wonder whether the name Edward is meant to show a parallel to Edwin from PO'B's short story "The Stag at Bay". Edwin thinks he's happily married, indeed an authority on marriage, though we find out that his marriage is severely troubled.
John Finneran,
still re-reading TUS, hoping to comment more when I finish, as well throw in
some more comments on TGO
Peter:
I enjoyed your opening commentary at the beginning of the group read of TUS. I have already read TUS, but am looking forward to enjoying it again with all who are participating. I do however have a question on the observation made about POB setting up jokes in one book to deliver the punchline later on. I know O'Brian can be a witty and "deep old file." I on the other hand make no claim of being a wit. Could you point out some examples of jokes in one book and punchlines in another. I missed them in my first reading through the cannon.
Gerard Bernacchia
41 05 N
73 26 W
Well, nothing quite so vulgar as a literal meaning might imply. Perhaps the best example is that description of some Frenchman's masterwork multi-volume encyclopaedia. Stephen told Jack about it once and we all forgot it. Several books later Stephen comes out with the same story and gives us one of the most telling scenes in the canon, when Stephen stops himself and reflects that he has already told Jack this in some distant ocean, and he is appalled that Jack might think less of their friendship because of this. It's quite subtle, but it certainly grabbed me when I read it.
In TUS, at one point (I have just been a searching for it this last age and more) we have the ships of the squadron beclamed or close to it, tempers fraying and midshipmen manning the mastheads. Jack is sent aloft for some sin and glances over at Centurion and we are reminded of Peter Palafox being mastheaded in TGO - there are shared images and references which would strike the earlier reader at once.
I dare say that others will report similar instances as they recur.
This isn't quite what Peter was talking about, but I noticed several allusions to TGO in TUS:
When Keppel is explaining to Jack Byron (page 46) that he didn't get a place on the Centurian - "the fact is, my dear Byron, the vacancies have gone to a couple of ____ Irishmen."
and another that struck me vividly when Jack enters the midshipman's berth (page 86):
"'Here, you,' called out the inquisitor, on seeing Jack.
'Come here and give an account of yourself. Double up.'
'Damn your blood,' said Jack mildly, sitting on a locker.
'Do you think my name is Green?'
. . .
'I was only trying it on: for a laugh, you know. You
ain't ofended?'
'Never in life,' said Jack, shaking hands."
I thought that was a very deliberate contrast with Peter Palafox' entry to the mids' berth!
Neither is a joke set up in one book towards a denouement in the next, but I shouldn't be surprised if a bunch turn up in the next few days.
- Susan
I find the ploy with the turkeys at the monument interesting. I wonder however how we explain why we ever expected Tobias to ever find his way there after listing the numerous parish churches on the tour. I also find the list almost to be as if POB found an alphabetized list of parishes in the city of London and simply listed the first dozen. OR are all the Allhallows churches in the same neighborhood? If I plotted the churches in order, would I have the trail that Tobias actually followed? OR did Tobias' analytical mind put them into a logical order for future reference?
Barney
NYC
Poor Tobias, he seems to have found himself sloop which has to masts, but ah, she's only _called_ a sloop; with no guns on the gun-deck which we had thought rather likely, but we just _call_ it the gun deck; of one decker that has at least four storeys, or decks, as you say in the jargon, but we just _call_ her a one-decker, that is under the command of the owner, which in not the owner, we just _call_ him the owner. It is perfectly logical really - we do not mean that she _is_ a sloop, with no guns on the gun deck, with only one deck, under the commando of the owner, we just _call_ her that.
Rich. Very rich, heu, heu, heu.
This however does not explain why Tobias does not know which direction is up to actually climb OUT of the hold, or any deck to get onto the topside.
Barney
NYC
Lois du Toit
Alas, I could almost wish that the lot of you might be
obliged to be
mastheaded. Yes, I am tolerably hipped - no one has
alleviated my misery
over my failure to recall remarks by dear Dr Maturin
(that jewel of the
world!) on "a good, sullen read".
I'm glad you found the page you were looking for. One
passage I especially enjoyed in "The Unknown Shore" is
O'Brian's knock on fiction that sold (as opposed to his
own at that time), from page 252:
"If Jack had been a hero of easy fiction he would have
knocked the fellow down; but being no more than a
half-grown mortal, still weak with starvation and
exposure, and unarmed in an armed camp of the chief's own
relatives, he turned away, his heart filled with impotent
hatred - hatred not only for the chief but for all
bullying and domineering and for the whole brutish
tradition whereby men, in order to show how manly they
can be, affect to despise all pleasantness, kind
merriment and civility, and concentrate upon being tough,
as inhuman as possible, with the result that their lives
are nasty, short and brutish, wholly selfish and devoid
of joy; and not only their lives but the lives of all
around them, particularly the weaker sort."
That is very interesting. Does this book give any indication
how many of the crew survived to make their way back to Britain?
About 80 men joined Gunner Bulkeley's party in an attempt to return by way
of the Straits of Magellan. Another 20 remained behind, including Capt.
Cheap and Jack Byron.
Of Bulkeley's party, 31 made it to Rio de Janeiro. There were also 8 men
who became separated from Bulkeley earlier in Patagonia, of which 3
eventually made it back to England.
Of Capt. Cheap's group of 20, only Capt. Cheap, Lt. Hamilton, Jack Byron,
and Midshipman Campbell survived.
Don Seltzer
Barney wrote:
I find the ploy with the turkeys at the monument interesting. I wonder
however how we explain why we ever expected Tobias to ever find his way
there after listing the numerous parish churches on the tour
I believe it is a true story - and if it isn't it should be. I am delighted
to report that while searching for evidence I was able to find that R.L.
Stevenson's "Records of a Family of Engineers" is available in Project
Gutenburg. It will be a useful accompaniment to "The Lighthouse Stevensons".
See:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?author=stevenson&amode=words
for a list of his works available on-line.
Martin Watts
BTW: I'm going away for the weekend so it may seem I'm throwing these out
and ignoring responses, that's only part true.
What is the calendar story? Both TGO and TUS seem to mention the old style
and new style calendars, something I do not remember as being an issue in
any of the MC series.
This spring, while in Seville in Spain (Columbus' starting point) it was
discussed that the Spanish used the Canary Islands as a fitting out and
stocking up place as it was so much less expensive than the mainland. Did
Madeira fill the same roll? POB took the time to tell us about Jack and
Toby having to buy goods in Portsmouth at a high price for a lower quality.
How would have Madeira fit into this picture?
Barney
On p. 93 (of my edition):
It was doubly certain that Jack would be up.. He prided himself on his skill
in navigation - as art, rather than a science, for at that time one of the
most important factors in finding your longitude at sea was your own
personal judgment of the ship's way.
Okay, so I understand just enough about celestial navigation to go and buy a
GPS and not a sextant. But, having read a couple of books on the subject,
it seems to me that even today, one of the most important factors is your
presumed location by dead reckoning before you compare it to the observed
celestial readings.
Am I missing something?
Barney
[turkeys at monument story true]
POB was always one to admit that true stories and fact was always more
interesting than anything he could make up.
Barney
Barney wrote:
What is the calendar story? Both TGO and TUS seem to mention the old style
and new style calendars, something I do not remember as being an issue in
any of the MC series.
Britain and the colonies only changed to the Gregorian calendar in
September 1752, when there was an 11 day difference between the Julian calendar
(Old Style) and the Gregorian calendar used in the mainly Catholic parts of
Europe. By 1800 it was not an issue to Jack Aubrey, though it might have been to
Horatio Hornblower while he was in the Baltic.
Have a good weekend.
Martin Watts Here's a striking difference between TGO and TUS: I don't
have my books with me for exact wording, but I think I
remember this correctly:
In TGO, Pageen Ban seizes upon Sean with the intention of
marrying him. In TUS, it is not Georgiana, but TOBIAS,
who says "come sit with me and talk of bats." This would
have been nicer coming from Georgiana, I think. Why was
it Tobias who said this, anyone?
- Susan Wenger
This would
have been nicer coming from Georgiana, I think.
Do you mean nicer in a more romantic way? When I read it I
remember wondering what her reaction would be. She certainly
didn't remain the same girl she had been a few years before.
Would she still have the same feelings? the same interests?, etc.
We witnessed firsthand Tobias' development and could pretty
easily have come to a consensus as to what his answer would have
been if Georgiana had made the comment. On the other hand, I
would venture to guess that there would be a certain level of
disagreement about what her reaction to his comment was.
Certainly, from the beginning, they made a relatively unlikely
pair, whereas Pageen and Sean did not. Perhaps POB wanted the
reader to draw his/her own conclusion about T/G's future
relationship.
Nathan
At 08/03/2001 07:30 AM -0700, Susan Wenger wrote:
Why was
it Tobias who said this, anyone?
I had thought it a way to deflect the conversation away from his recent
adventures. I would imagine that aspects of their ordeal would have been
the primary focus of most conversations the survivors would have for some
time to come. Surely, these would have been very one-sided conversations -
little give and take. First, it would have been a social blunder to make
one's company into an audience. All we have learned of Tobias, though,
indicates that he could hardly tell or care if he committed a social
blunder. Second, Tobias was interested in inquiry. Discourse was for
learning, not just teaching. He would learn little from recounting his
experiences, but might gain insight by talking with Georgiana about their
common interest in bats. Third, it brings the story full circle -
something that POB seems to do a lot. They can take up where they had left
off at the beginning of the story.
Mike, guessing
I love this piece about Jack Byron and Toby Barrow as a precursor to Jack and Stephen:
It was difficult to account for their friendship. Apart from their age they had nothing at all in common, or at least nothing that appeared at first sight. Nothing could have been more different than their appearance, education and family; nothing could have been more unlike than their pursuits; but they were happy when they were together and they missed one another very much when they were apart.
I could not help but notice that ___ as well. (sorry, I am at a loss for the
word). It seems that Toby will certainly grow up to be Steven.
Barney
On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Barney Simon wrote:
Okay, so I understand just enough about celestial navigation to go and
buy a GPS and not a sextant. But, having read a couple of books on
the subject, it seems to me that even today, one of the most important
factors is your presumed location by dead reckoning before you compare
it to the observed celestial readings.
Am I missing something?
Interesting...as each generation lives with its new technologies do they
feel superior to earlier generations for lacking them and yet respectful
of what people of the earlier generations accomplished without them?
Not to mention the underlying assumption that there is a sort of forward
progress in our knowledge and tools.
-Jerry
I love this piece about Jack Byron and Toby Barrow as a precursor
to Jack and Stephen:
It was difficult to account for their friendship.
But doesn't this often happen in "real" life? I have several close friends,
male and female, who are very different than I am in background and
temperament, yet various other elements of person, society and philosophy
bind us solidly together (in ways I can't entirely explain). In fact,
several of my best friends over the years have been people with whom I did
not initially get along (shades of the opening music scene between Jack and
Stephen).
And isn't that also often the case in marriages? The old cliche says
"opposites attract." It *is* a cliche. But it's also true. Which is probably
why it's become a cliche!
Marian
In a message dated 8/3/01 5:30:27 PM, jerry@REED.EDU writes:
But aren't freshness and immediacy essential to real emotion, so time and
experience often reduce overly familiar feelings to tired sentiments at
least until some life-changing event revitalizes them?
I'll fall back on Coleridge (or was it Wordsworth) who found the creation of
poetry to depend on emotion recollected in tranquillity.
Yet there's more, and I've been boiling to put forward POB's remarkably apt
point about poetry, from page 160 of TUS. "Superstition was a weakness from
which Tobias was totally free -- he was devoid of poetry, poor soul, but he
was devoid of its dark, perverted shadow too..."
Superstition is the dark, perverted shadow of poetry.
I had thought to expand on this, but I won't. Or can't. There's too much
there, wrapped up in that nifty observation. For me, this is one of POB's
most delightful (and most useful) comments.
Charlezzzz, not breaking mirrors
Yes! This was a singularly delightful thought. And yes,
it was Wordsworth: "poetry is the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility."
- Susan
Its been a month or more since I read TUS, but I thought that by Tobias's
wonderful comment, "come sit with me and talk of bats." O'Brian was showing
us that Tobias had indeed grown up and had the self confidence to ask her
for a date. Albeit, a pretty strange date, but one which it is evident that
Georgiana would gladly go on. What a great "pick up line". And the way I
interpreted it, bats would not be the only thing discussed between them. I
think by the end of the book Tobias had gained a confidence in himself that
was not of course present in the beginning. The journey ended where it
began, but at the end Tobias was not the Tobias as when he began.
Tommy Armstrong
"Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas"
I have been trying to plot Jack and Tobias (I actually wrote Stephen's)
movements in my large and much appreciated (at 30% off) new Oxford Atlas
of the World. The page in question is the very last one of the book and
covers the southern tip of South America from about 37* S south to Cape
Horn.
I don't know if the Foulweather Jack Byron's original report contains
further details to confirm or deny my speculations, or indeed Mr
Bulkley's report of his return journey. But here goes with my
deductions.
I think that Wager Island is one of the Archipelago Guayaneco on the
south side of Golfo de Penas about 75* West and 47* 30' South. It might
be Isla Javier further into the Golfo de Penas but I think not as the
distance to the northern side of the Gulf would be shorter than
reported, also they would have seen a shoreline, not a cape.
The major cape on the west extremity of the Gulf that they could not
round on their first attempt to sail north due to the winds and tidal
race is I believe Cape Tres Montes on the north side of the Gulf, it
trends south and has a lump on the end.
Then the second attempt with the Indians involved a trek across a narrow
strip of land connecting the Peninsula de Taito which makes up the north
side of the Gulf to the mainland and leads to the Golfo Elefantes. They
then paddled the canoe up the somewhat sheltered passage Canal Moradela
stopping on the islands of the archipelago des Chonos. The last
desperate crossing to Isla de Chiloe is across an unsheltered stretch of
about 20 miles. The total journey was about 300 miles between latitude
47* 30' S and about 43* S as the crow flies, assuming that it wasn't
blown too far off course by a strong westerly.
--
'Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been'
I love this piece about Jack Byron and Toby Barrow as a
precursor to Jack and Stephen:
Tobias IS Stephen without the Irishness: "He is a little cove, ugly,
with light green eyes and a pale face: wears an old black Coat and
sad-coloured breeches. Though he may have had the coat stolen off his
back by now. He has an odd habit of staring about him and jerking his
head, and you might think he was simple, but he is a very learned cove
indeed, and must be civilly used." TUS p49 - Jack addressing the
press-gang.
At 4:02 PM -0400 8/5/2001, Adam Quinan wrote:
I don't know if the Foulweather Jack Byron's original report contains
further details to confirm or deny my speculations, or indeed Mr
Bulkley's report of his return journey. But here goes with my deductions.
I think that Wager Island is one of the Archipelago Guayaneco on the
south side of Golfo de Penas about 75* West and 47* 30' South. It might
be Isla Javier further into the Golfo de Penas but I think not as the
distance to the northern side of the Gulf would be shorter than
reported, also they would have seen a shoreline, not a cape.
Mr. Bulkeley gets right to the point, beginning his book with:
"A Voyage To The South Seas, In the Years 1740-1. Containing, A faithful
Narrative of the a Loss of his Majesty's Ship the Wager on a desolate
Island in the Latitude 47 South, Longitude 81:40 West...
Not surprisingly for the pre-chronometer days, the longitude is way off.
Adam's position, however, is very near Byron Island. Further to the
northeast is Canal Cheap.
Don Seltzer
Is it my imagination that starting at chapter nine, the style suddenly
becomes 99% narrative. This is personally not my favorite style. I'll have
to go back and check the beginning and re-read the first couple of chapters
to compare (or even the last one as I am to that point in the reading.
Barney
This spring, while in Seville in Spain (Columbus' starting point) it was
discussed that the Spanish used the Canary Islands as a fitting out and
stocking up place as it was so much less expensive than the mainland. Did
Madeira fill the same roll? POB took the time to tell us about Jack and
Toby having to buy goods in Portsmouth at a high price for a lower quality.
How would have Madeira fit into this picture, it they had held out til ten?
Barney
A couple of years ago, Nathaniel F... wrote a book of the sinking of the
Essex. after a whale sank the ship (the real Moby Dick story) the crew took
to the whale boats, and had their own adventures. of the crew only a few
survived. While there story is interesting, my point here is that the books
author put forth a theory that applies here: Those that eat the best and
were in the best shape to start the trip, survived: On the Essex, the black
crewmen were consider inferior, and died first. The white crew went next.
The harpooner and the captain were the last remaining.
In TUS we see pretty much the same thing. Ignoring loss of life before the
ship is lost, and the desertion/mutiny; the crew on their 1/2 and 1/4
rations are the first to go. The Midshipmen and other officers and in the
end it is the captain and a couple of the Mids a marine and a warrant
officer that survive. POB even points out that the captain was getting full
rations while the others did not. Then with the Indians where the captain
is the only one being fed. This seems to confirm that the people who had
had the better diet all along were the ones able to survive.
This being put forth, it would seem that the RN in its wisdom, might have
thought a better fed crew would be more likely to live long enough to work
the entire voyage. I realize that, not having supply posts on the far side
of the world was an issue, and not being a food historian, I do not know the
availability of food stuffs. I do know that canning was developed by
Napoleon for his ground troops during the next war or two.
Just some thoughts.
Barney
Again comparing between the MC series and the last and current read. Toby
seems to be torn between the psychosomatic and actual physical nature of the
decease. A problem Steven never has. When were the physical causes
actually accepted as the causes? When was lime juice with the grog and
instituted?
Barney
This was discussed at the POB seminar given by the Smithsonian last year. I
don't remember the exact date, but it was late 18th century that lime juice was
identified as a treatment (but not as a preventative). The actual identification
of scurvy as an Ascorbic Acid deficiency was in 1927 by Albert Szent-Gyorgi. On
Scott's antarctic expedition they took lime juice, but still believed that it
was at least partly psychosomatic, and that actually drinking the lime juice was
sissy. So most of them didn't. It was also believed by Scott to be caused by
lack of sunlight.
Larry
--
It was Admiral "Old Grogham" Vernon who instituted the mixing of lime juice
and sugar with the spirit ration, but it was originally for improving the
taste of watered down rum, not the prevention of scurvy.
Order to Captains no. 349 on August 21, 1740,
"...unanimous opinion of both Captains and Surgeons that the pernicious
custom of the seaman drinking their allowance of rum in drams, and often at
once, is attended with many fatal effects to their morals as well as their
health ... besides the ill consequences of stupifying [sic] their rational
qualities ... You are hereby required and directed ... that the respective
daily allowance ... be every day mixed with the proportion of a quart of
water to a half pint of rum, to be mixed in a scuttled butt kept for that
purpose, and to be done upon the deck, and in the presence of the
Lieutenant of the Watch who is to take particular care to see that the men
are not defrauded in having their full allowance of rum... and let those
that are good husbanders receive extra lime juice and sugar that it be made
more palatable to them."
By Captain Cook's time in the 1770's, it was certainly known that scurvy
was caused by some dietary deficiency. Lemon/lime juice was just one of
several remedies that Cook experimented with. I believe that he considered
saurkraut to be the best preventative, though he had to threaten his crew
with flogging to make them eat it.
Adm. Nelson avoided salt, believing it to be a contributing cause of
survey. So one must wonder if he really did ask a lowly lieutenant to pass
the salt at dinner.
Don Seltzer
Adm. Nelson avoided salt, believing it to be a contributing cause of
survey. So one must wonder if he really did ask a lowly lieutenant to pass
the salt at dinner.
An intentional joke by POB or an oversight do you think?
Nathan
Adm. Nelson avoided salt, believing it to be a contributing cause of
survey. So one must wonder if he really did ask a lowly lieutenant to pass
the salt at dinner.
And whether avoiding salt at dinner might prevent annoying telephone
interruptions?
Don Seltzer
So one must wonder if he really did ask a
lowly lieutenant to pass the salt at dinner.
We have it on good authority that he did: it was part of
that steady flow of small talk.
Folks
June 1991 National Geographic p2-19 has a article on the coast of Chile
close, I think, to where TUS hike northward was.
This is bad country. I'm glad I didn't have to struggle through there.
URL for part of the article is
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0106/feature1/index.html
and http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0106/feature1/zoom1.html
But also see http://www.speleo.com/ultima/gb/projet2.html
However the best pictures for the overland trip they made is only in the
hardcopy.
Well worth viewing.
Greg (no speleologist at all) Edwards
Charlezzzz@AOL.COM wrote:
I've been boiling to put forward POB's remarkably apt point about poetry,
from page 160 of TUS. "Superstition was a weakness from which Tobias was totally
free -- he was devoid of poetry, poor soul, but he was devoid of its dark, perverted
shadow too..."
What an interesting discussion, and all POB too!
Isn't there something to superstition being the dark side of the poetic
nature, in the open-ness of the poet to his/her emotions and
experiences, with a lack of the societal controls most of us are subject
to to interfere with the experience, and a willingness to contemplate
the
taboo?
Isabelle Hayes
This is a fascinating subject - it was raised with an interesting slant by
Euripides in his tragedy The Bacchae or The Bacchantes where the god
Dionysos who arguably stands, in the play, for the irrational and so perhaps
the darkness in human nature is attempted to be excluded by King Cadmus, and
takes a terrible revenge.
See eg http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/bacchan.html
The play is summarised very intelligently in Mary Renault's The Mask of
Apollo.
There is also Jung's theory about the "dark side" or "shadow self" - sorry,
can't remember exactly the term he used, but I thought at the time I came
across it that the theory was very Euripidean.
Makes me all the keener to get my hot little hands on a copy of TUS, which I
haven't as yet read. Poetry and "its dark, perverted shadow" - Charlezzz,
wish you had expanded and expounded on the nifty POB comment ... C'mon! do
it! Puhleeze, pretty please! You've got this squeaker, at least, all agog to
learn. Could this also be taken to refer to Chesterton's "black dog" that
seemingly haunts those whose spirits also soar to the heights?
London Lois
In a message dated 8/7/01 11:48:23 AM, Lois.Du.Toit@GLOMAS.COM writes:
Poetry and "its dark, perverted shadow" - Charlezzz, wish you had expanded
and expounded on the nifty POB comment ... C'mon! do it! Puhleeze, pretty please!
You've got this squeaker, at least, all agog to learn. Could this also be taken
to refer to Chesterton's "black dog" that seemingly haunts those whose spirits
also soar to the heights?
Seems to me, and perhaps to POB, that the same dark aspect of the human mind
that reaches into superstition (see the discussion of the various kinds of magic
in "The Golden Bough) for its "understanding" of our place in the universe...that
same aspect of mind is similar to the shimmering *poetic* approach to the same
"understanding." Similar but not identical by any means.
Because magic doesn't "work" in producing the physical effect it claims to
produce--while poetry, if the reader is lucky--can work in connecting the
reader to...how can I put this...as the finest teacher I ever had used to
say: "It puts your belly button up against the universe." They both use the
same metaphorical aspect of mind. (I can understand it far better than I can
say it.)
Here's a poem that plays a bit with the difference between superstition and
poetry (for "bedrooms" read "the subconscious mind"--an easy transposition,
for "attics" in the last line, read "minds" or "souls" or whatever you
prefer):
Coffins Exploring the Ocmulgee River
Forty days of rain have left us trembling
They think they’ve got away for good, those people "God,"
they say, "It was stuffy there,"
But now they race across the riverbanks,
Their flood's here now; it lifts the cellar door,
(The black dog is another matter--an attack of depression--wch may be the
subject matter of a poem but isn't by any means required for poetry. See
Cowper's remarkable poem, "The Castaway" for an example.)
Charlezzzz
In a message dated 8/7/01 11:48:23 AM, Lois.Du.Toit@GLOMAS.COM writes:
This is a fascinating subject - it was raised with an interesting slant by
Euripides in his tragedy The Bacchae or The Bacchantes where the god
Dionysos who arguably stands, in the play, for the irrational and so perhaps
the darkness in human nature is attempted to be excluded by King Cadmus, and
takes a terrible revenge.
An even more and more so...the oracle of Apollo, that twist-tongue
truth-teller, that oracle was for half of each year occupied by Dionysos. The
Greeks are constantly amazing.
Charlezzzz
In a message dated 8/6/01 10:16:12 AM Central Daylight Time,
barney@ROSEBRAND.COM writes:
I do know that canning was developed by
Napoleon for his ground troops during the next war or two.
Did not Napoleon say, "An army marches on its stomach?"
Respectfully inquiring,
Mary S
35° 58' 11" N
Charlezzzz wrote: "(The black dog is another matter--an attack of
depression--wch may be the
subject matter of a poem but isn't by any means required for poetry. See
Cowper's remarkable poem, "The Castaway" for an example.)"
Sorry, didn't make myself clear. My thought was another step along the way
from POB's point - if someone is devoid of poetry, would that someone also
be likely to have a temperament that didn't involve flights of ecstasy and
the concomitant descents to black gloom? So that we're looking at a
multi-layered set of meanings here ... ?
London Lois
In a message dated 8/8/01 3:17:50 AM, Lois.Du.Toit@GLOMAS.COM writes:
My thought was another step along the way
from POB's point - if someone is devoid of poetry, would that someone also
be likely to have a temperament that didn't involve flights of ecstasy and
the concomitant descents to black gloom? So that we're looking at a
multi-layered set of meanings here ... ?
Could be. POB was a subtle devil from the very beginning of his adult writing
career. "Someone devoid of poetry"--there's a sad thought. Such a person wd
probably be vy big on "cute."
Charlezzzz, striking a sneaky blow against cuteness
Charlezzzz, you're cute when you're sneaky.
All this talk of cuteness is getting under my skin. Would it be
sub-cute-aneous at all ?
Where is Maturin when you need him?
Paul
In a message dated 8/8/01 3:59:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
adam.quinan@HOME.COM writes:
Bach communicates to me even at my shallow level but other "great"
composers do not. I do not doubt that for others these composers are the
equals or betters of Bach and they may find him all "tweedley-tweedley".
Adam:
I agree with you! I like Bach. Even at my shallow level, I sense in his
music much more than what's on the surface. Not that the surface is at all
wanting for anything. I can't help bringing up an analogy with a current
thread. In the TGO/TUS group read, it is mentioned that in both books the
characters return home (from where the books began). But through their eye's
(and O'Brians writing) we see great changes. The place and people are the
same, but because of what has been experienced, we seem them differently.
Listen to Bach's Goldberg Variations. I recommend both of Glen Gould's
renditions (one as a fiery youth recorded in the late 1950s and the other, a
more mature interpretation, shortly before his death in the early 1980s). We
begin with the Aria go through a lifetime of variations and return to the
aria. The place we began, however, it sound very different from the first
time we heard it!
Gerard Bernacchia
Jack steps neatly into the boat with a very chatty waterman, and Tobias
follows, and of course he ends up sprawling. Jack's surname might not be
Green when he meets his mates in the midshipmens' berth, but Toby's is
definitely Maturin when he meets the surgeon aboard and they both join
the loblolly boy to raid the medicine cabinet "and for a while they
browsed among the tinctures, linctuses and throches, mixing themselves
small personal prescriptions - mandragora, opium, black hellebore."
Mr Eliot has a saline draught and a blue pill.
Shades of Padeen!
I remember I considered once, when Himself was still alive, that perhaps
when the Corsican Tyrant was safely stowed that he could tell us of Jack
Aubrey's career before we met him in Port Mahon. He seemed to have had a
most interesting time, going by the hints dropped - Jack could not step
aboard a ship without there were half a dozen friendly faces grinning at
him, and they'd seen a great deal of action together, we knew.
Susan advised me to read TGO and TUS if I wanted to see Jack as a mid,
and I did, and it was the grand read of the world, so it was and so it
is.
But I have not read TGO or TUS and those are in hand and
eagerly anticipated.
And in the group reading we're half-way through TUS, sort of clearing
the throats, as you might say, before the curtain rises and the
orchestra or quartet or duo begins to play. For those of us who thought
that the Aubreyad was over when Himself lost the number of his mess, TGO
and TUS were very welcome surprises. Every bit as good as the real
thing, but at once different and familiar.
It is pleasant to see the bones of the canon in these books - to
recognise the first use of certain words, phrases, scenes and ways of
speaking. Everything is there in utero, Jack's sense of humour, hor hor,
Stephen's surgery and botanicising, his Irishness, the London of a past
age, even the need for secrecy when secret missions are sent off to the
far side of the world.
Read!
And report back!
Paul B. wrote (during our discussion of The Golden Ocean):
On a related topic of Patrick O'Brian's assumption of an Irish persona, it
seems
to me he was following the example created by James Joyce, and reinforced
by
Samuel Beckett, living the life of the impoverished Irish literary emigré
utterly dedicated to his craft. There are parallels a-plenty between
Ulysses
and the Canon, and O'Brian's preoccupation with identity reflects a central
theme of 20th century Irish writing. His style of humour is very
reminiscent
of that other Joycean, Flann O'Brien. And while in a literal sense he was
not Irish, in a literary sense - the only one which I suspect counted for
him - he certainly was.
I certainly agree with the gist of Paul's statement that PO'B should be
considered a literary Irishman --
-- and (to interrupt my sentence for a bit of digression), I'm not at all
sure that he was not in fact a literal Irishman, not by blood, but by
upbringing. Dean King's biography gives the impresstion that he was not,
but leaves much of PO'B's childhood blank. Maybe PO'B did spend much of his
childhood in Ireland, as he had previously stated, or maybe not; but, as far
as I know, the question is still open --
-- (continuing my original sentence), and his Irish literary persona is on
full display in The Golden Ocean; but he is also in many ways a literary
Englishman, which is itself on display in The Unknown Shore.
So, to oversimplify, TGO can be considered an Irish novel, and TGO an
English one.
This is obvious on the very surface of things, of course, with Irish heroes
in TGO and English ones in TUS.
More importantly is the predominance of literary techniques used; and here
I'm getting on much shakier ground in defining what's "Irish" and what's
"English", but, again vastly oversimplifying, what I mean in general by
Irish techniques are what may be called non-rational devices, such as
alliteration, unusual sentence structures, puns and word-play, and various
semi-poetical formulations; when I call them non-rational devices what I
mean is that (to use alliteration as an example), there's no difference, in
the strict, literal meaning of things, between "the roaring, raging, rapid
river" and "the loud, angry, fast river": the alliteration gives a sort of
meta-communication, utterly independent of the primary, surface
communication. (I have some fine examples of some of PO'B's techniques from
TGO, which I'll post at some later point.)
And by English technique, I mean just the opposite: utterly formal, elegant,
"correct" sentences in which commas and colons and semi-colons are each put
in exactly the right place to convey the precise logical meaning intended,
with a sort of mathematical precision. The prime examplar of this sort of
writing is that of Samuel Johnson, with Jane Austen also being a talented
and characteristic practioner of it. (It's not without reason that PO'B's
writing is often compared to Austen's; though, surprisingly, his writings
are not often compared to Johnson's). You could take a book by Austen or
Johnson and use it to formulate a complete system of English grammar and
usage; if, on the other hand, you were to try this with a characteristically
Irish writer, say James Joyce or Flann O'Brian -- well, good luck (though
the results might be entertaining).
O'Brian uses an English "voice" throughout TUS, until the final, remarkable,
ending, where he switches abruptly, and very effectively, to an Irish voice;
but there's much more to say on the ending, and I'll expand on this in a
future post.
Finally, both books have echoes of other literary figures: TGO uses the
words of several anonymous Irish balladeers, and TUS has echoes of a number
of prominent English writers. TUS's English echoes begin right in the
opening sentence, which is a play on Austen's opening sentence to Pride and
Prejudice. Much of the beginning could be taken right from Austen, and its
rambling, chatty style is also reminiscent of Charles Dickens.
At the end, Samuel Johnson, the man himself, appears. For those of you who
missed it, the "heavy gentleman" with the "booming roar" on pp. 312 and 313,
though unnamed, is certainly SJ himself: "The Grand object of travelling is
to see the shores of the Mediterranean" (p. 312) and "being in a ship is
being in jail, with a chance of being drowned" (p. 313) are direct quotes
from Johnson.
In addition, present also, in spirit at least, is Mr. Pope (Alexander Pope),
whom Jack mentions several times (Pope is Jack Byron's hero, mentioned
whenever possible, in the same way that Nelson is Jack Aubrey's hero); Jack
Byron himself (who appears to have had some sort of literary talent); and,
not mentioned, but one we're bound to think of, Jack's relative, Lord Byron.
John Finneran
The Concise Encyclopedia Brittanica on-line has a
different take on O'Brian. They call him:
British-French writer. He was the eighth of nine
children; an early marriage ended in divorce, and after
World War II he married again,changed his name, and moved
to a small, secluded coastal French town near the Spanish
border. He received little critical notice until age 54,
when he began publishing his 18th-cent. seafaring series
featuring Capt. Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen
Maturin; it
eventually numbered 20 books (1969-99) and was compared
with the works of H. Melville, A. Trollope, and M.
Proust, though the writer O'Brian himself most esteemed
was J. Austen.
- Susan Wenger
He received little critical notice until age 54, when
he began publishing his 18th-cent. seafaring series featuring
Capt. Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin;
Do you think they'll ever publish this little-known series featuring the
characters we've come to know and love from his better known 19th
Century series of books?
I read John Finneran's post with great interest, and applaud its insights.
However, I wonder why, in The Golden Ocean, POB almost completely ignored
what was actually going on in1740 under the Penal Laws, socially and
politically and every other way, in Ireland at the time, and gave us a
picture of country life, supposedly in the West of Ireland, which does not
reflect reality!
Either he did not think it appropriate to let reality intrude into his
essentially up-beat and sunny book, or he was not aware of what was going on.
With his vast knowledge of history, I find it hard to believe the latter!
My guess is that he did not want the book to be in any sense a 'downer', but
one that is, essentially, an 'entertainment.'
I wonder how TGO was received by the Irish book reviewers?
What were their reactions?
What does Paul think?
Jean A.
Here's a game POB plays, but he plays it only once. Speaking of how well Toby
learns his way about the Wager (a thing Maturin wd be unlikely ever to
achieve) he writes, on page 90 of my hard-bound TUS...
"Yet what will not custom do? Or, as one might say, how prepotent is not
habitude?"
To take a simple (well, sort of simple) sentence, and rephrase it (as one
might say) with vast and extravagant complexity...that's the game. To play
the game really well, begin with POB's own words from somewhere in the canon.
As in the immediately preceding paragraph, wch begins "It was very clear that
Tobias belonged..."
Might a differently-abled POB not have written, "It was, as one might say,
limpid, transparent, clarificatudinous beyond the possibility of obfuscation
that Tobias belonged..."
Charlezzzz
I think that chryselephantine is a word that may fit
POB's construction. Long, long sentences with
complicated punctuation that I can admire for the
fireworks, regardless the content. Johnson, Defoe, and
Fielding remind me of POB as much as Austin or
Trollope.
Claude, enlisted for drink
One of the episodes in TUS which always struck me as a little odd occurs
when Jack and Tobias are nominal prisoners and they fall in with don
Manuel de Guiro, who offers the penniless pair two thousand pieces of
eight.
'It is a sum that I happen to have by me,' said don Manuel, 'in a box.
And I have no use for it, I assure you.'
Can this be true? It is a vast sum, and to offer it to a couple of very
junior officers seems very courageous indeed.
I wrote:
O'Brian uses an English "voice" throughout TUS, until the final,
remarkable,
ending, where he switches abruptly, and very effectively, to an Irish
voice;
More on the remarkable ending:
The English voice reaches its climax just before the final paragraph, as
O'Brian's voice transforms completely into Samuel Johnson's: Johnson himself
appears, and begins to dominate the conversation, just as he would any
conversation:
"'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a
jail,' said the heavy gentleman, in a booming roar, 'for being in a ship is
being in a jail, with a chance of being drowned.'"
Then the final paragraph, which begins still in the English voice:
"'No, sir --" began Tobias, with equal positiveness,"
Actually, it would have been fun to have seen Toby and Johnson engage in a
battle of wits, but this wasn't to be, for next comes the great transforming
event:
"but at that moment Georgiana came into the room,"
And Johnson and everything else is forgotten.
F. Scott Fitzgerald had a similar scene in "The Last Tycoon", his final,
unfinished novel (from Episode 13):
"He had started toward the Brady party when he saw Kathleen sitting in the
middle of a long white table alone. Immediately things changed. As he
walked toward her the people shrank back against the walls till they were
only murals; the white table lengthened and became an altar where the
priestess sat alone."
In The Unknown Shore, the transformation takes place not just in Toby's
mind, but in the whole structure of language used, as the novel switches
abruptly from the English voice to the Irish.
Here's the rest of the final paragraph:
"sedulously attended by the Duke of Lothian and Sir James Firebrace. 'Ha,
Georgiana, my dear,' he cried, starting up and
throwing down a little round table and two gilt chairs, 'there you are at
last. How very, very happy I am to see you,' he said kissing her heartily.
The duke turned red with anger: the knight grew pale with fury. 'Come,' he
said, taking her by the hand and leading her to a distant sopha, 'come and
sit by me, and let us talk of bats.'"
Note how PO'B uses alliteration, particularly of "s" (sedulously, starting,
last, kissing, said, sopha, sit), "h" (Ha, he, happy, heartily, her), and
"t" (table, two, taking, talk); and, similarly, how he uses repeated words
("very, very" and "Come...come").
PO'B also uses contrasting phrases: starting up and throwing down; red with
anger, pale with fury; taking her and leading her.
And more word-play with "kissing her heartily", which appears to be a pun of
"Kiss me, Hardy", Nelson's dying words.
Now, considering the rest of the paragraph in greater detail:
"Sedulously" is the first word, and it's very much the perfect word; and I
thought this without knowing at all what the word meant; and, indeed,
there's much that we can draw from the word without knowing its formal
definition.
First of all, it seems to be play back to Dr. Johnson, because it's the sort
of big, uncommon word we'd associate with his Dictionary.
Second, its multiple s's provide a dramatic introduction to the alliteration
of the rest of the paragraph.
Finally, leaving aside its true definition, "sedulous" has a meaningful
"false definition", i.e., what it LOOKS like it means: it looks like a
combination of "seduce" and "credulous". Credulous means believing, but
usually in the sense of gullible, i.e., with the implication that what is
believed in should not be believed. So using the word's false definition,
the Duke of Lothian and Sir James Firebrace's attentions to Georgiana are
calculatedly seductive, but their seductive promises should not be believed.
I did look up "sedulously"'s true meaning: it means assiduously, or with
great planning and care; and its true definition works perfectly well,
though I think the extra meanings are more meaningful than the literal one.
(BTW, "assiduously" would have worked fairly well as well: the same "s"
alliteration is there; its false definition would attribute ass-like
qualities to Lothian and Firebrace: a pretty good pun itself, though
different from the one actually used.)
After "sedulously" comes the introduction of Toby's would-be rivals for
Georgiana's affections: the Duke of Lothian, whose name sounds like
Loathing, and Sir James Firebrace, whose name seems to be a combination of
Fire and Embrace: I picture him as a character with eager hands he doesn't
keep to himself.
My guess is that Georgiana hasn't been swept off her feet by either suitors'
promise of a lifetime of Loathsomeness or Fiery Embraces.
Further, each suitor has a color associated with him: Lothian (besides
sounding like Loathing) suggests the biblical Lot, best known for his wife,
who was turned into a pillar of salt, which is white. (Granted that's an
association removed four times, but I think it's a natural one.) And
Firebrace sounds like fire, which is red. So when Toby sweeps Georgiana
away (i.e., expectations reverse), the colors likewise reverse: "The duke
turned red with anger [white turns red]: the knight grew pale with fury [red
turns white]."
You have to almost feel sorry for the fellas: they have every right to
expect Georgiana to fall for them, using standard English literary logic:
they are, after all, (presumably), single men in possession of great
fortunes, so using standard Jane Austen calculation, their want of a wife
should be universally acknowledged; and we know what would happen in an
Austen novel: Georgiana would fall for the man who simultaneously had the
largest estate, came from the most respectable family, and used the most
fashionable grammar (I'd guess the Duke of Loathing).
This would be the English resolution; but, unfortunately for L & F, the
novel had switched from English to Irish, just a few words before they came
in.
And in an Irish resolution, the fair maiden would leave all her rich
suitors, and respectable society, and her father's castle gate, and run off
to marry the Beggarman or the Gypsy Rover (sounds like Toby), who, it would
turn out, was richer than any of them.
So sorry, Duke. Sorry, Knight. If only you had come in a few sentences
earlier... It's a pity you hadn't planned your entrance more sedulously.
So now Toby has approached Georgiana and kissed her, and:
"'Come,' he said, taking her by the hand and leading her to a distant sopha,
'come and sit by me,"
which reminds me of a sentence from The Great Gatsby, which F. Scott
Fitzgerald himself once used as an example from his own works of a
well-constructed sentence. The scene is Gatsby's house, after he has
brought Daisy over for the first time (Chapter 5):
"He lit Daisy's cigarette from a trembling match, and sat down with her on a
couch far across the room, where there was no light save what the gleaming
floor bounced in from the hall."
Then (returning to TUS), the final clause:
"and let us talk of bats.'"
The bat recalling their previous farewell, when Georgiana had given him her
letter, reading "Dear Toby, I shall take extreame great Care of the dear
Batt. Yr affct. G. Chaworth" (p. 24); so the bat is more than a bat; it's a
sign of Toby' and Georgiana's continuing fidelity, their great Care and
affct. for one another.
And bat, the word "bat", is more memorable because of the previous
alliteration: after the pattern of s's and h's and t's, the "b" sound comes
forth all the more powerfully and more strikingly because it is a change
from the previous rhythm of repeated sounds.
If we look back, the last time we can see an initial "b" sound was at the
very beginning of the paragraph: "'No sir --' began Tobias"; and looking
back further, to pp. 312 and 313, the two final pages of the novel, the "b"
sound is used sparingly: again for dialoguish purposes: "booming
roar","bawled", and "bawling"; once, for miscellaneous purposes, "broken
in"; and then, and most to the point, for words, which perhaps speak to the
book's ending: "bred", "bride", and "boudoir".
John Finneran
In a message dated 8/20/01 5:29:51 PM, John.Finneran@PILEOFSHIRTS.COM writes:
"Sedulously" is the first word, and it's very much the perfect word; and I
thought this without knowing at all what the word meant; and, indeed,
there's much that we can draw from the word without knowing its formal
definition.
P'raps the best known use of the word refers to Robert Louis Stevenson's
learning his prose style by copying the styles of some of his favorite
writers..." I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to
Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to
Baudelaire and to Obermann."
The "sedulous ape"--a great phrase, and good advice, too.
Charlezzzz, wondering, Obermann, who he?
Google shows a romantic novel titled "Obermann" by one Etienne Pivert de Senancouer which was admired by Mathew Arnold.
Gerry Strey
I've been thinking a bit about Toby Barrow, and I think PO'B may have been
having some fun with his name.
There's some medical humor, first of all.
Toby's initials are T.B., which sounds like the initials for tuberculosis.
His last name, Barrow, is reminiscent of the death carts used to stack
bodies (as in the Monty Python film: Bring out yer dead!), as well as wheel
barrows to remove the earth when digging graves. And "barrow" isn't far
from "bury". You could insert your own medical humor here: doctors bury
their mistakes; whenever doctors and undertakers pass, they always wink,
etc.
His first, name, Tobias, is the name of one of those books of the Bible
which are generally considered Apocryphal (false) by Protestants and
Deutercanonical (later canonical; i.e., authentic, but accepted into the
canon of authentic work later than other books) by Catholics.
So the "Protestant" pun would be that, unlike Jack and the other true
historical characters in the novel, Toby is apocryphal.
Though I prefer the "Catholic" pun, which is that the earlier canon of true
contemporary accounts of the Wager, can now be enlarged by this new,
deutercanonical account.
John Finneran
In a message dated 8/20/01 5:29:37 PM, John.Finneran@PILEOFSHIRTS.COM writes:
I've been thinking a bit about Toby Barrow, and I think PO'B may have been
having some fun with his name.
Further, in Tristam Shandy, that amazing book, the most loveable character of
18th century literature appears: Toby, uncle Toby. The retired soldier ("Our
army swore terribly in Flanders," he says) who wd open a window to let a fly
escape.
Charlezzzz
Ah, yes, but think of the time he spoke that line - it was in the middle
of a vast great all-encompassing curse, one of my favourite bits of the
book. I remember typing it out and sending it to someone who gazumphed
me.
Any Lissun who has not yet read "The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy,
Gent." has a treat in store, beginning with that bit about winding the clock
every Saturday night--oh, what a lovely strange inexplicable hilarious
hallucinogenic book.
Charlezzzz, thinking of Doctor Slop, the man-midwife, and how he arrived
on time for Tristam's birth, a birth that occurred even though Tristam's
mother-to-be asked Tristam's father-to-be if he had wound the clock
It is a book every lissun, nay every thinking person should read. And it
is a dam' fine read too.
It is set somewhat before the events of the Aubreyad, but it deals with
an England and a people at once familiar to lissuns.
I took it bush once on an exercise with the Regular Army, and while all
around me were reading stick mags or comics or Westerns or other stuff,
I would be rolling around with laughter that was welling up centuries
old from the far side of the world. Glorious days.
Are ye sure now? I'll take the unvarnished word of a lissun over other
sources almost anytime, and Peter makes three (or four) who've just endorsed
this book -- so I checked at Amazon:
Absent the recent posts, the reviews there certainly wouldn't cause me to
bother with this book. Offhand, it sounds like the self-indulgent
over-extended musings of a soi-disant intellectual who liked the tickle of
the quill too well.
Of course, the only thing I'd rate lower than Kant is any variation on
postmodernism -- so my reaction may be overly influenced by one reviewer's
attempt to glorify the book for those of other persuasions.
Seriously, good writing is often besmirched by reviewers who can't settle
for a simple "Loved it. Read it." For them, all books (movies, daubing, etc)
must be edifying. (POB in particular suffers from some reviews of that
type.) Tell me true: must I pretend to be a thinking person to read this,
Peter? Or may I simply enjoy it...
Gary W. Sims, Major, USAF(ret)
The Jack Byron of TUS is the younger brother of Lord Byron of Newstead
Abbey. Jack and his sister Isabella live with cousins, the Chaworth's,
including Sophia. Isabella marries Lord Carlisle, and Dr. Samuel Johnson
is a caller at their house in Soho.
The real Jack Byron was the younger brother of William, fifth Lord Byron,
of Newstead Abbey. Several years after his return from South America, he
married a cousin, Sophia Trevanion. Mrs. Byron became a close friend of
Hester Thrale (Queeney's mother), and through her, a friend of Dr. Johnson.
Thrale's second marriage to an Italian alienated her from most of her
friends and Dr. Johnson, but Sophie Byron remained loyal to her.
Jack's sister Isabella did marry Lord Carlisle, and he did go to her house
in Soho Square upon his return to England. The Chaworth's were cousins and
neighbors, but Jack's brother Lord Byron killed Chaworth in a foolish duel,
for which he was tried for murder.
Trying to follow the Byron family tree further becomes confusing because of
all of the Jacks, Sophies, and Fannys, not to mention the tendency of the
Byrons to marry their cousins and carry on affairs with sisters and
half-sisters. But it is worth noting that the Admiral had a younger son,
Capt. George Anson Byron, and a grandson was the poet Lord Byron.
Don Seltzer
John.Finneran@PILEOFSHIRTS.COM writes:
I've been thinking a bit about Toby Barrow, and I think PO'B may have been
having some fun with his name.
And then maybe there's an element of hommage to Sir John Barrow, written
about in "Barrow's Boys", secretary of the Admiralty, who had an ambitious
program of naval explorations.
http://store.europe.yahoo.com/whsmith/2201862072868.html
:
"In 1816, Sir John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, launched the
most ambitious programme of exploration the world had ever seen.
For the next thirty years, his hand-picked teams of elite navel officers,
Barrow¹s Oboys¹, scoured the globe. Their mission, to fill in the blanks
that littered the atlases of their day. They included the great heroes of
exploration: Ross, Franklin, Parry and many others.
Where was the North Pole? Was there a North-West Passage? What lay at the
heart of Africa? Was Northern Australia habitable? Did Antarctica exist?
In their efforts to answer these and other questions, Barrow¹s Oboys¹
entered a void, and with great hardship, conquered it, or died in the
attempt. Often at odds with each other, they worked in utterly surreal
conditions cocked hats in the Arctic, frock coats in the Sahara,
reindeer-drawn sledges at the North Pole.
Their lack of preparation and Barrow¹s insouciant way with maps make Fergus
Fleming¹s Barrow¹s Boys a tale of triumph and despair, both tragic and
absurdly comic."
Lois
Talk about beautiful passages...
The marvels of TUS's final pages largely escaped my notice until John
Finneran's excellent explication, because for me the story had ended some forty
pages earlier, in a few short sentences that mark the high water for this book.
They passed before my eyes, registered, and I thought: There. There is Mr.
O'Brian, now ready to write Master and Commander:
...now, in the warm and drowsy evening, by the
light of the fire (the icy wind roaring outside), they rose one by one from
the table, and, bowing to their hosts and the compay, crept slowly to their
deep, fleecy beds, where they lay torpidly blinking at the flames for a few
minutes before sinking into the uttermost depths of sleep.
(Notice how the end conforms so closely to the patterns John identified.)
What remains of The Unknown Shore after that is dénouement.
Matt Cranor
I believe each of John's previous offerings have moved me to compliment
his insight, while adding nothing to the content. Realizing that this
can become tiresome, I will no longer do this.
However, I would like to inquire about the steps needed to have a lissun
knighted by the Gunroom powers that be. Assuming there is no established
protocol, I will in future refer to John Finneran as Sir John in
recognition of his contributions.
Nathan
Nathan, I see you are Sir John's mate.
Some puns are to die for; sometimes it takes a village, as Hillary would
say, to understand them. But this is a die an' a ville, yours.
Your end is achieved, you have grown.
Nathan, I see you are Sir John's mate.
You may call it true love.
You may call it true love.
Thats as clear as it's going to get, Oakay?
Martin Watts
Some puns are to die for; sometimes it takes a village, as Hillary would
say, to understand them. But this is a die an' a ville, yours.
And some you would go to the far side of the world to avoid.
At 2:34 PM +1000 8/22/2001, Peter Mackay wrote:
But then again, tying it into the PO'B era, what was the purpose in
sending Cook into the Pacific three times over?
Certainly there was the potential for financial return through new trade
opportunities. A particular example is Cook's explorations of what is now
the NW coast of the US north to Alaska. Several of Cook's lieutenants,
such as Vancouver, Colnet, and Meares would return to capitalize on the
discoveries with a profitable fur trade.
While still discussing TUS, it should be mentioned that Jack Byron had an
opportunity to achieve the fame that would be Cook's. After the Seven
Year's War, Byron was sent on a voyage of discovery a decade before James
Cook. Unfortunately, he had little knack for it, and managed to sail
across the Pacific missing nearly every island group in his way.
Don Seltzer
At 10:03 AM +1000 8/23/2001, Peter Mackay wrote:
Even the most eastern point of Australia, Cape Byron? He sailed right
by?
Even Cape Byron, which was not discovered until 1770 by Cook.
Cook noted in his log on May 15th that "a tolerably high
point of land bore N.W. by W., 3 miles distant; this
point I have named Cape Byron. It may be known by a
remarkable sharp peaked mountain lying inland N.W. by
W. from it. Inland is pretty high, but near the coast
it is low".
Perhaps Cook felt sorry for his predecessor Jack Byron, who was so unlucky
at discovering anything that he could name for himself.
Byron's second son, Capt. George Anson Byron, would later visit Hawaii and
rename a few things after himself.
Don Seltzer
I know I'll regret posting this but:
Horn stunk now hee
Occasionally O'Brian will tweak other authors. Here's
one I really enjoyed.
Page 252: If Jack had been a hero of easy fiction he
would have knocked the fellow down; but being no more
than a half-grown mortal, still weak with starvation and
exposure, and unarmed in an armed camp of the chief's own
relatives, he turned away, his heart filled with impotent
hatred - hatred not only for the chief but for all
bullying and domineering and for the whole brutish
tradition whereby men, in order to show how manly they
can be, affect to despise all pleasantness, kind
merriment and civility, and concentrate upon being tough,
as inhuman as possible, with the result that their lives
are nasty, short and brutish, wholly selfish and devoid
of joy; and not only their lives but the lives of all
around them, particularly the weaker sort.
In a message Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 Jean A wrote:
I read John Finneran's post with great interest, and applaud its insights.
However, I wonder why, in The Golden Ocean, POB almost completely ignored
what was actually going on in1740 under the Penal Laws, socially and
politically and every other way, in Ireland at the time, and gave us a
picture of country life, supposedly in the West of Ireland, which does not
reflect reality!
Either he did not think it appropriate to let reality intrude into his
essentially up-beat and sunny book, or he was not aware of what was going
on.
With his vast knowledge of history, I find it hard to believe the latter!
My guess is that he did not want the book to be in any sense a 'downer',
but
one that is, essentially, an 'entertainment.'
I wonder how TGO was received by the Irish book reviewers?
What were their reactions?
What does Paul think?
Well ditto to your comments re John's post and you may well be in the right
of it with your analysis. My slant is a little different, and a bit delayed
due to my traipsing and rowing around waterly wanderly County Cavan for the
last while.
I have heard it said that O'Brian was a snob who despised the peasantry and
the working classes but I look on him as a literary animal, driven by a
powerful literary integrity.
The early scenes to which you refer are, for me, an O'Brian tribute to the
work of playwright John Millington Synge with the Irish speech patterns he
was the first to celebrate now transplanted into more educated Irish mouths,
but in a similarly located bucolic pastoral setting. The Playboy/Quiet Man
gets a diploma, if I might be allowed a flight of Hollywood fancy.
(Some background)
So I suggest that in the sixties Patrick O'Brian was suspicious of Irish
peasant literature on the basis that a fair bit of it was of questionable
quality and had been promoted as an orthodoxy from the twenties until then
by people he might have viewed as enemies of Irish literary liberty. He
would have known (in translation) Flann O'Brien's merciless 1941 satire of
the genre in his novel "An Béal Bocht (The Poor Mouth)". If he had included
a realistic picture of peasant conditions in the Ireland of the 1740's then
he might have been seen in the 1960s as paying a tribute to Peig Sawyers,
not J.M. Synge and might have been praised by the very forces who had
hounded writers he seems to have admired.
So initially, when dealing with discrimination, bigotry and the like, he
seems to prefer to deal with it in a way where it can never be tied back to
the tradition of 20th century Irish peasant literature. It occurs between
individuals, usually educated ones, at sea, far from home. But deal with it
he certainly does. In is own way.
Later on, in the eighties and nineties, when Ireland transformed itself and
properly recognised its greatest writers, he seems to relent and introduces
the character of Padeen which (for me) speaks directly to the tradition of
spiritual resignation in the face of dreadful adversity so eloquently
expressed by the Blasket Island writers. And in the relationship between
Stephen, Diana and Padeen the literary world of Yeats and Synge becomes
reconciled with that of Tomás O'Cromhthain, with the new possibilities
symbolised in the, initially mute, person of young Bridget.
I don't know how the Golden Ocean was received in Ireland when it first came
out. That would take a trawl through the old newspapers. And I'm wondering
now how the Canon was received.
Paul, who nevertheless may shift himself and go in to the National Library
one of these days.
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:32 AM
Subject: Re: TUS - The Happy Return
From: Martin Watts
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:42 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: The size of London...
50° 45' N 1° 55' W.
The Borough and County of the Town of Poole
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:54 AM
Subject: TUS: Calendars
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:55 AM
Subject: TUS: Maadeira
NYC
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:56 AM
Subject: TUS: Navigation
NYC
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:59 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: The size of London...
NYC
From: Martin Watts
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 6:04 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: Calendars
50° 45' N 1° 55' W.
The Borough and County of the Town of Poole
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 6:28 AM
Subject: GroupRead/TUS - Ending
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead/TUS - Ending
From: Michael R. Ward
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: GroupRead/TUS - Ending
40° 05' 27" N 088° 16' 57" W
From: Bambi Dextrous
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 11:13 AM
Subject: Group Read TUS
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 11:37 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: a precursor to Jack and Stephen
NYC
From: Jerry Shurman
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: Navigation
From: Marian Van Til
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 12:13 PM
Subject: Accounting for friendship (Was: oRE: [POB] Group Read TUS)
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 3:52 PM
Subject: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was, Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ;
From: TFAJr
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: GroupRead/TUS - Ending
N 35* 23' 52'' W 78* 49' 9''
Patrick O'Brian
Post
Captain
From: Adam Quinan
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 1:02 PM
Subject: Groupread (TUS) Whereabouts of Wager Island
Adam Quinan
Commander Ted Walker R.N.
Somewhere around 43° 46' 21"N, 79° 22' 51"W
For some of my family history see
http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/quin.htm
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: Group Read: TUS: Tobias IS Stephen
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 6:19 AM
Subject: Re: Groupread (TUS) Whereabouts of Wager Island
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 7:30 AM
Subject: TUS Writing style
NYC
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 7:30 AM
Subject: TUS Madeira - i thought that i'd posted, but maybe not
NYC (and east)
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 7:30 AM
Subject: TUS: Survival of the fittest
NYC (home again)
From: Barney Simon
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 7:30 AM
Subject: TUS Scurvy
NYC
From: Larry & Wanda Finch
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 12:58 PM
Subject: Re: TUS Scurvy
Larry Finch
::finches@bellatlantic.net larry@prolifics.com
::LarryFinch@aol.com (whew!)
N 40° 53' 47"
W 74° 03' 56"
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: TUS Scurvy
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: TUS Scurvy
From: Jerry Shurman
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: TUS Scurvy
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 2:23 PM
Subject: Re: TUS Scurvy
From: Gregory Edwards
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 9:50 PM
Subject: TUS: Coast of Chile
From: Isabelle Hayes
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 7:12 PM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
From: Lois du Toit
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 8:47 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
(Lois Anne du Toit): lois@glomas.com
"Man is the only animal that both laughs and weeps, for man alone is struck
by the difference between what things are and what they ought to be."
(William Hazlitt)
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
like chickens on our rooftrees, watching the coffins
bobbing down the river. The water's fertile,
rich with topsoil slurped from the churchyard
beyond the bend, where the town's put-away dead
rise up and whirl toward us, bouncing, spinning,
getting away from their responsibilities.
rushing our way. The sermon was short; the river
was ready. Time to get outdoors. They want
to stop what they've been doing: start to enjoy
themselves.
and now they hurtle on downstream as fast
as the flood can carry them. You wouldn't think
they'd bob along undignified as ducks.
They're not supposed to get vacations any more.
toppling the sandbags, uprooting willow trees,
bashing lampposts like drunks on the way home,
bouncing toward our front yards, exploring
wet changes in their old home town.
tumbles through kitchen windows, goes upstairs
and hunts through bedrooms, spinning the curdled foam
of the rich brown water with books and beds
and all beloved rubble of our attics.
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
From: Mary S
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: TUS: Survival of the fittest
86° 48' 57" W
From: Lois du Toit
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 12:15 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
(Lois Anne du Toit): lois@glomas.com
"Man is the only animal that both laughs and weeps, for man alone is struck
by the difference between what things are and what they ought to be."
(William Hazlitt)
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 5:58 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 6:18 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
From: Paul B.
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 4:54 AM
Subject: Re: TUS: POB's comment on poetry ; was,Re: Non-POB: Norman Rockwell
From: Gerard Bernacchia
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: Music and Art Re: [POB] Art and All That (long, long pontification ...
41 05N
73 26W
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 11:24 AM
Subject: Group Read: TUS (WAS: RE: Cutting Slack: Was Re: Incorrect grammar (was Cute!) Was: Who brought the termites aboard?
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: Which I'm here now, ain't I?
From: John Finneran
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 9:00 PM
Subject: GRP:TUS: English/Irish Novels
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 5:07 AM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: English/Irish Novels and French?
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 5:10 AM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: English/Irish Novels and French?
From: Jean A
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: GRP TUS English/Irish Novels
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 8:27 PM
Subject: ..."how prepotent is not habitude" (TUS)
From: claude
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 7:49 AM
Subject: ..."how prepotent is not habitude" (TUS)
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 1:45 PM
Subject: GRP:TUS Boundless Wealth
From: John Finneran
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 5:28 PM
Subject: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Gerry Strey
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 6:18 AM
Subject: Obermann, Who He?: Was/Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
Madison, Wisconsin
From: John Finneran
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 5:22 PM
Subject: GRP:TUS: Toby
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: Toby
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 3:22 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: Toby
From: Charlezzzz@AOL.COM
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: Toby
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 3:45 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: Toby
From: Gary W. Sims
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: Toby
--------------------------------------------
Wondering which alligator to shove aside for another volume
At or about 34°42' N 118°08' W
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 6:21 PM
Subject: GRP:TUS Jack Byron's family
From: losmp
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 6:28 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS: Toby
From: Matt Cranor
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 8:39 AM
Subject: GRP:TUS:Irish voice
"What?" said Jack, hovering on the edge of insensibility.
"I have a duck," said Tobias slowly, with his
eyes already closed, "a duck. Three parts of a duck in reserve. Under my pillow."
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Chris Moseley
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 9:27 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Peter Mackay
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 9:35 PM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 4:32 AM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Martin Watts
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 5:09 AM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
50° 45' N 1° 55' W.
The Borough and County of the Town of Poole
From: Nathan Varnum
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 4:35 AM
Subject: Re: GRP:TUS:The Remarkable Ending
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: Lunacy
From: Don Seltzer
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 7:03 AM
Subject: Unlucky Jack Byron, was Lunacy
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 3:59 PM
Subject: The Unknown Shore: Anagram
Sunken horn wet ho
From: Susan Wenger
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 7:36 AM
Subject: GroupRead:TUS:great quote
From: Paul B.
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: GRP TUS English/Irish Novels
Now Synge caused a riot with "The Playboy of the Western World" when Yeats
first staged it at the Abbey Theatre in 1907. After independence, the ruling
Catholic intelligentsia, who were distrustful of Protestant, Anglo-Irish
writers such as Yeats and Synge who portrayed an idealised view of peasant
life, turned to the peasants themselves, holding up the works of Blasket
Island Gaelic writers such as Tomás O'Cromhthain, author of An tOileánach
(The Islandman - a true masterpiece), Peig Sawyers and Liam O'Flaherty as
the true transmitters of genuine Gaelic culture. This writing typically
portrayed the suffering of Irish peasantry at the hands of the elements and
the authorities while offering it all up as a religious sacrifice. And so it
was greatly favoured by a deeply conservative, religious and inward-looking
establishment which was hostile to avant-garde writers such as Joyce,
O'Brien and Beckett. Of these, only O'Brien stayed to fight his ground and
from 1940-1964 was the most vocal and controversial literary figure of his
day, writing almost daily in the Irish Times and infuriating the political
and religious establishment (and some of the population) with his erudite
anti-establishment humour. This was the Irish literary landscape O'Brian
would have surveyed in the '60s prior to planning his seafaring novels.
(End of Background)
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