The Far Side of the World (1984)

decima entrega de Aubrey, la historia media enredada con muchas cosas que pasan, en el pacífico en medio de la guerra de 1812. ( )

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Omschrijving
Tijdens de Napoleontische oorlogen krijgt kapitein Jack Aubrey de opdracht om met zijn schip een pakketboot te begeleiden op zijn tocht naar Zuid-Amerika.

Kapitein Jack Aubrey hijst de zeilen voor een reis naar Kaap Hoorn. Hij zal een Amerikaans fregat moeten onderscheppen dat de Britse walvisjacht dreigt te verstoren. Zijn vriend Stephen Maturin is als altijd zijn trouwe reisgenoot, al heeft Aubrey geen idee van de geheime instructies die Maturin heeft gekregen. Deze reis voert hen langs de Zuid-Amerikaanse kust en via de Galápagoseilanden de Grote Oceaan op, waar Aubrey en Maturin onder meer te maken krijgen met een krijgslustig volk van Polynesische mannenhaatsters. De achtervolging bereikt haar hoogtepunt in een bloedstollende confrontatie met de Amerikanen.
De avonturen van Jack Aubrey en Stephen Maturin zijn op spectaculaire wijze verfilmd door Peter Weir, met in de hoofdrol Russell Crowe. ( )

The war of 1812 continues, and Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on a mission after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. Stephen Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Disaster in various guises awaits them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific: typhoons, castaways, shipwrecks, murder, and criminal insanity.

Typically excellent @Brian/Aubrey excellent characterisation, vivid prose, compelling page-turning plot. What more could you want? ( )

This is book 10 in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. It's also the basis for the 2003 movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (hence the picture of Russell Crowe on the cover of my copy). I did see the movie when it came out, but I can't say how faithful an adaptation it was, as I remember almost nothing of the plot, although I do remember liking it well enough.

I have slightly more mixed feelings about the novel, but I'm starting to think that my reactions to the books in this series may say a lot more about my mood while reading them than about the books themselves. I think I remarked on the previous book, Treason's Harbour, that it seemed like a shining example of O'Brian's complete inability (or perhaps unconcern) with any kind of reasonable pacing, but I found it a very pleasant read, anyway. But, then, I read it on some nice, pleasant days. With this one, I spent the first 200 pages or so just feeling incredibly impatient and annoyed with the lack of anything interesting happening, but I enjoyed the second half much, much better. Is that because there were more interesting incidents in the back half, and a few amusing instances of Stephen Manurin being entertainingly Stephen Maturin-ish to keep me engaged? Maybe. Or maybe it's just because I was less sleep-deprived and stressed while reading that than I was in the beginning. It's hard to say, really, but I am nevertheless making a note to myself not to pick one of these up again while I'm in the middle of working extra night shifts.

Mind you, I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the very ending, which was interesting, but rather startlingly abrupt. Eh, well. Let's just say that, overall, this one gave me a better reading experience than I initially thought it was going to, but not quite as good a one as I might hope for. ( )