Review: Post Captain, by Patrick O’Brian

Post Captain is the second volume of Patrick O’Brian’s well-known Aubrey/Maturin series; and as with my review of Master and Commander I’m writing this with an eye to those who have tried to read O’Brian and have failed. Most fail in the first book, for reasons I noted last week; but some last to the second, and here again the failure is understandable.

Do not get me wrong: Post Captain is not a bad book; I’ve read it with enjoyment a number of times, most recently this past week. But it’s also rather a hurdle, if you’re a particular type of reader.

If you’re primarily a reader of romances, in the classic sense, books in which most of the action is external, in the things the characters do, you might be able to just let the plot carry you along. That’s how I read it the first time: I was reading for the outer story, which involves Jack Aubrey and his career as an officer in the Royal Navy. If you’re primarily a reader of serious novels, though, where you’re used to looking for the deeper, inner story that parallels the outer story, you might be in trouble—because while there is an inner story, and indeed it’s what the book is truly about, the inner story and the outer story don’t match up well.

The inner story is, in fact, straightforward. (Be warned: possible minor spoilers lie ahead.) The Peace of Amiens comes about as the book begins, and Jack Aubrey finds himself thrown on the beach with lots of prize money for consolation. He and Stephen meet two lovely young women, Sophia Williams and her cousin, a young widow named Diana Villiers. Jack is immediately taken with Sophia (and she with him, though she’s too proper to lead him on), and Stephen with Diana—but our Diana is a serious piece of work. Raised in India by her adventurer father, and the widow of a young army officer, she feels stifled by the mores of the English country gentry with whom she is forced to live and is looking for a way out. Add to this that she has the morals of a cat and that Jack Aubrey is as susceptible as they come (and not over wise, by land), and you have a recipe for disaster. And indeed, the bulk of the book is about this love quadrangle: Jack, who is attracted to both women and understands neither; Sophie, who loves him and would genuinely make him a good wife; Stephen, who understands both and builds a real friendship with both, but desires Diana (who won’t have him); and Diana, who is charming, cold, and wicked by turns. O’Brian’s skill shows in his portrait of Diana; she isn’t simply a femme fatale, a bad girl to be avoided. She’s a truly complicated character, and one has the sense that even she doesn’t always approve of herself—that when she turns cold to Stephen is precisely when she’s loving him best, and trying to spare him future hurt.

That’s the inner story, and I remember one reader describing Post Captain as the book where O’Brian began to follow Jane Austen as well as C.S. Forester. It’s a reasonable comparison.

But then there’s the outer story…and, oh my, compared to the inner story the outer story is a hot mess. In the course of this book:

• The war ends, and Jack Aubrey is thrown on the beach, to live on his prize money.
• He loses his prize money, through no fault of his own.
• He flees to France, to avoid the creditors who would throw him into debtor’s prison.
• War begins, and he flees France to avoid being imprisoned for the duration.
• He impersonates a bear. (!)
• He recovers in Spain.
• He returns from Gibraltar to England on an Indiaman, and helps to fight off a privateer.
• He goes into hiding from his creditors while waiting to get a ship, which is not forthcoming.
• He is attempted to be robbed on the moor by a highwayman who is a failed translator of foreign books (!).
• Eventually, he is given command of an experimental ship that no one else wants.
• While playing the fool, and nearly sinking his own career (see the love quadrangle listed above), he manages to sink the privateer, and eventually wins another significant battle, while the experimental ship is sunk beneath him to the general satisfaction of all concerned.
• He’s still on the run from his creditors.
• He is given temporary command of a crack frigate, and in the course of an epic (and historical) battle wins enough prize money to set him to the end of his days. (Yeah, right. Narrative causality looms.)

It’s a long book, and there’s enough incident here for three or four; and as I say, it’s only loosely connected with the inner story; and some of it is simply farcical in a way that doesn’t appear on the remainder of the series. Be warned, therefore. There’s good stuff here, but you’ll enjoy it more if you’re reading both the inner and the outer story at the same time, while respecting their independence from each other.

Future novels in the series continue the outer/inner structure; but in most (perhaps all) of what follows the two stories run on more nearly parallel tracks.

After Post Captain comes H. M. S. Surprise, my personal favorite of the series, and the one in which O’Brian finally hits his stride. Do not, however, be tempted to skip Post Captain and go straight to it; many of the characters and situations in Post Captain are important to the rest of the series, and if you do you’ll find yourself greatly confused.

Bottom line: Post Captain is recommended, though not highly recommended; but it’s an essential basis for the appreciation of H.M.S. Surprise, one of my favorite books of all time.