MASTER AND COMMANDER

From the Arse End of the World

What with the upcoming release of Master and Commander, and me being a big fan of naval historical novels, I thought I might toss in a few thoughts on the topic.

There are numerous characters in the guns & thunder canon - boom boom. Hornblower (C.S.Forrester), Ramage (Dudley Pope), Bolitho (Alexander Kent) and Drinkwater (Richard Woodman) to name a few. All have been eagerly devoured by yours truly. Hornblower especially. Not forgetting the superb supporting characters in each series.

However, it's Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin and the stories of their various adventures that I consider the best of a very good lot.

In O'Brian's case, I've read nineteen of the twenty Aubrey/Maturin novels twice each. The twentieth, Blue at the Mizzen, had just been released when O'Brian died in January 2000 so I stopped reading it there and then. Right at page 192, with the idea I'd forever be able to look forward to reading just a little bit more of the saga. That may seem ludicrous, but if you'd become hooked like I had, and realised you'd only ever get to read 67 more pages, you may well have done the same thing. Not for me to read on as someone else finishes an "unfinished" novel, a la Forrester and the last Hornblower.

When I first heard they were making a film of the series my reaction was knee-jerk. I never thought of him as much of an actor - Gladiator is not an Oscarworthy performance - so I was initially surprised they'd pick Russell Crowe as Aubrey. I'd never heard of Paul Bettany and when I first saw him I thought he looked nothing like my idea of Maturin. Is he to be as ruthless as Maturin can be in the books? And Peter Weir might turn the movie into something hideous. Dead Sailor's Society, anyone?

On further reflection it occurred to me that Russell Crowe is about the ONLY major actor going around today suitable for the role. Perhaps not physically big enough for the role of Cap'n Jack, but certainly robust enough with the requisite rough edges. At the moment, because I don't know Bettany, I'm happy to accept Weir’s idea of him as Maturin. And while Weir himself has made some howlers - Green Card, Mosquito Coast, The Year of Living Dangerously - he's also made some goodies - Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Witness, Gallipoli and the somewhat over-rated Fearless.

Although I'm pragmatic enough to realise the books I like and their cinematic adaptions rarely compare favourably, I find myself eagerly anticipating this particular release. As long as the film's not too much of a balls-up I'm prepared to enjoy it purely as a big screen event.

Never the less, a few things are concerning.

One, the ability of the actors to satisfactorily carry off the books' dialogue. When you read it in one of the books, if you misunderstand a sentence you can go back and read it again. In a film you can't ask the projectionist to rewind it for you.

The following is a grab from Desolation Island:

"A burton-tackle to the chess tree," he called, loud and clear. "Lead aft to the snatch-block fast to the aftermost ring-bolts and forward free. Look alive there, look alive. Light along that snatch-block, Craig." Order came from apparent confusion in five minutes: the half drowned bosun's party scrambled in from the chess-trees; and the whole ship's company crowded into the waist and along the gangways, standing by the cablets that were to act as horizontal falls, working with a threefold power.

"Silence for and aft," cried Jack. Starboard, tally on. At the word, now, and all together cheerly: like a bowline. Ho, one. Ho, two. Ho, belay. Larboard, clap on. Ho, one. Ho, two. Ho, belay.

Detail galore. Strange words. In rapid fashion. As opposed to general storytelling. How is O'Brian's staccato, yet intensely detailed wordplay to be transferred to the screen?

That little snatch doesn't even come close to capturing the resonance of what is some wonderful literature. The literary aspect of any novel presents, purely by nature, a difficult proposition upon transfer to the screen.

Another is that the film is set totally at sea. Some of the best parts of the books are Jack's and Stephen's dry land adventures. North America, South America, the Med, Australia, Scandanavia and, of course England. I'll miss those, as they're also the best written parts of O'Brian's books. Even though O'Brian has more detail, I reckon Forrester does battles better than O'Brian.

As far as the cast is concerned, I don't know much about the rest, but I do like the idea of David Threlfall as the snidely Killick.

There's been a great deal of publicity blurb in recent weeks. The weekend glossies in The Australian and The Herald Sun have both run articles on the film. There was even an item on the Channel 9 news the other night. Big Kerry must have production shares.

This doesn't bode well. The cynics amongst us all realise the tendency of the quality of a film to be indirectly proportional to the amount of publicity it gets. Publicity is rarely randomly generated in the form of genuine "interest pieces".  Clever promoters pay to get their product placed in all the relevant outlets. Especially if they're concerned the movie might tank.

One thing I've not read, however, is anything about one of the primary influences for Aubrey character. Most consist of the inevitable comparisons with Hornblower, and they generally mention the author's irregular past, but nowhere have I seen mentioned the real basis for the Aubrey character. To be fair to the critics, it's their job to know about film, not be experts in naval history.

I guess my blog's as good as any to quote a snap bio of the real Captain Jack Aubrey, Thomas, Lord Cochrane:

The life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane was more extraordinary than that of Nelson, and more than outshines his fictional counterparts, Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey. He made his name battling Napoleon's navy in a series of heroic and outstanding actions, often fighting his ship against seemingly overwhelming odds. His life on land was equally dramatic. As a campaigner against corruption in the Admiralty he won himself many enemies, and was later framed in a stock exchange fraud. Following his imprisonment he returned to the sea and, in a series of dramatic actions again famous for their disregard of the most daunting risks, help liberate Brazil and Chile from colonial rule

Really a very striking parallel with the career of Jack Aubrey.

All in all, I'm prepared to accept the film at face value unless it's a rancid woofer. At the moment.

Via a recent read-around I notice the Bunyip has mentioned the film and he raises an interesting point. If someone you don't like (Tim Dunlop and Mike Carlton) gives a film a thumbs-up, does that mean there's something wrong with it?

When Tim Dunlop hailed "Master and Commander" as a fine flick, there was grief at the Billabong, and the mood grew worse when the clew-less Mike Carlton let it be known that he also had seen a preview and thought it first rate. Couldn't possibly be any good, that was the glum surmise, not if those two were rattling their Twisties with excitement.

Sunday night I watched Bob Ellis talking about the book Jarhead on Critical Mass. I enjoyed some of what he had to say and he made some interesting points, but always in the back of my mind was the idea that this was Bob Ellis. Left wing crank and professional shambles.

With that in mind here's a grab from O'Brian's own author's note at the start of The Nutmeg of Consolation. He cites as his primary source for life in Olde Sydney Town none other than our very own international man of opinions, oil paint and Indian judges, Robert Hughes:

In the case if the present tale, part of which is set in the colony of New South Wales, ordinarily known as Botany Bay, in the early day's of Macquarie's governorship, the providential book, providential to a very much greater degree, was Robert Hughes' splendid work The Fatal Shore. Although I had done a great deal of reading on the discovery and settlement of the colony when I was writing a life of Sir Joseph Banks (the first man to botanise in the notorious bay), those were early days, and there were great gaps to be filled: yet even if I had set aside years for solid research I could not have amassed, still less arranged, the immense quantity of material in this wide ranging, deeply informed, humane account of all aspects of the country's history, an account which I should in any case have read with the keenest anticipation and which at this juncture I fell upon with a delight that it would be uncandid to conceal.

I've never read The Fatal Shore - no doubt I should - but I've always suspected O'Brian may have been a little harsh on our origins based on the fact he's sourced Hughes. I'm probably wrong, but the suspicion won't go away.

Interestingly, Bunyip also mentions a naughty nautical phrase. I remember spotting the C-Splice in an early copy (1993) of, I think, I stress I think, HMS Surprise. On a subsequent re-reading of the whole series (1996), bar the last, I never again came across the term. Is it possible scissors were applied?

Rob Schaap has also posted on the post captain and his crew:

As for the film, I should not hesitate but send it back was it not to feature the Plum Duff and the Drowned Baby.

I should be uncommon sore tried, too, should they serve up a creation devoid of:
(a) Stephen clumsily making his way through some beast-infested jungle;
(b) Stephen banging his head or falling overboard;
(c) Stephen putting a waister's brain to rights [I must see a trepanner before I die];
(d) Jack discoursing on women or promotion;
(e) Jack going at it, toe to toe, with a froward froggie;
(f) a duet from the Great Cabin;
(g) a crewman caught in the 18-pounder's recoil;
(h) Diana deploying the decolletage with malice aforethought; and
(i) the Reading of the Articles of War.

These seem relatively inexpensive must-haves to me.

Good points all. Personally I'd love to see a peace pudding, Stephen playing his own brand of cricket, "Awkward Davis and Fat-Arse Jenks grasping driftwood clubs and looking grim" and the Leopard being doggedly pursued by the Dutch ship Waakzaamheid. Surely, to wantonly contradict my general observation above, one of the best-written and most ethereal events depicted in all the literature of warfare.

Comments

[boynton]

Great post, Tony. From knowing almost nothing, makes me think I should sample some O'Brian.

btw coincidentally I was fact-checking yesterday and via a portal site saw this discussion on hypothetical casting:
http://www.io.com/gibbonsb/sag.html

[Tony.T]

Thanks, B. Interesting list, but what's with all the dead people? They're not even likely to play dead bodies in the movie. As for the so-called "funny" suggestions.

[Rob Schaap]

Good stuff, Tone. I do think, though, that you owe it to yourself to finish Mizzen. The way to avoid the emotional trauma is to remember The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore (embroidered even more directly around Anson than the Aubreiad was around Cochrane) remain.

[Richard T]

Reminds me of that Hancock show where he's reading a crime novel and is nearly at the end and about to find out whodunnit only to find the author had died before finishing the book and was published as "unfinished". Thus driving Hancock over the edge. Great comedy.

[Walter Plinge]

Peace pudding? Some kind of pacifist dumpling? Surely it's...

Pease pudding hot
Pease pudding cold
Pease pudding in the pot
Nine days old.

[Tony.T]

I've been meaning to read those two for a while, Rob, but just haven't got round to it. And I think I'll hold off on Mizzen until the time's juuussssst right.

Rich, just imagine if someone else had completed Hancock's last joke. Tommy Cooper, Charlie Drake or the ugly blond guy from On The Busses.

Got no idea what it is, Walter. Something to do with a celebration? Like Peach Melba. Or Pavlova. Or Lamingtons.

[Felix Kasza]

The cunt-splice occurs in _Master and Commander_ (book 1 of the canon, not the movie, which really is modeled after _The Far Side of the World_). Aubrey wishes to ship 12-pounder chasers in his Sophie, and the boatswain is busy making the brutes fast to the forecastle gun-ports:

'Almost ready, sir,' said the sweating, harassed bosun, 'I'm working the cunt-splice myself.'

(Quoted from a fallible memory, I am afraid.)

Cheers,
Felix.

[Ian Robertson]

I agree with you, the best one I've read was Desolation Island. The running battle with the black-clad Dutch commander, hunting down Aubrey in a terrible sea, followed by the desperate effort to stay afloat and make a tiny landfall, were the most dramatic passages in all of his books that I've read.
I stopped reading them at Clarissa Oakes - what a disappointment that was! I hope this film will get me going again; I'd like to follow the pair of them, Aubrey and Maturin, to the end of the series. Safe ashore, growing parsnips and cabbages?

[Tony.T]

Thanks, Felix, I knew it was in one of the early ones but wasn't sure which. I'll have to scan M&C again to see if I can find it in my latest edition.

Absolutely with you on DI, Ian. It's the best book, the chase, the totuous landfall and even the stay on the island. A great book. The series tended to lose some punch from then on but that's more as a comparison with the others than any overt criticism of the books per se. It's also maybe why I was able to stop reading Blue at the Mizzen.

[Topsy Turner]

Thoroughly enjoyed your rant on Mr O'Brien's creation. I am coming at it from a different tack however, as I saw the film when it came out and was completely convinced by Weir's charcters. I then began the very pleasurable task of reading the novels, so to me as I read the books, Jack Aubrey is Russell Crowe and Stephen Maturin is Paul Bettany! Wonderful what the old grey matter can conjure up if given a head start! I wonder what the pictures in my head would have dreamed up for me had I done it the other way round? I must say that the novels are an absolutely rivetting read and I am completely hooked. Kind regards to all who read this, Topsy Turner.