The beginning presents a Jack who is all at sea ashore - playing cards with apparently respectable people but card sharps nevertheless and also unsuspectingly investing in a mining project. Sophie, privately concerned over all this, cleverly convinces him to assume command of the Leopard. Quite amusingup to this.To say the voyage on the Leopard is interesting is an understatement. O'Brien makes this voyage quite different from any of the previous voyages by introducing women and convicts on board the ship. There is also some gripping action involving a Dutch man-of-war in the rough seas. Jack's skills as a navigator and leader are also tested differently as he deals with an epidemic, a crew on the verge of mutiny and even a sinking ship.Overall, this is one of the best in the series so far. ------- Spoilers Ahead -----Jack Aubrey is now back at Ashgrove Cottage with his wife and kids. Due to his successful Mauritius command, he is free of debts and is quite well-off. Jack, gifted though he is at sea, is actually quite at sea on land and without a ship to command, he has started dabbling in risky pursuits - playing cards with apparently respectable people but card sharps nevertheless and also unsuspectingly investing in a mining project. But a new command is in the offing - a refurbished Leopard (which was previously seen in The Mauritius command) is tosail for the East Indies to intervene in some intrigue there, involving a certain Captain Bligh. Meanwhile, Stephen Maturin's unrequited love for Diana Villiers, who is back in London, leads him to disappointment again when she abruptly leaves her hotel with nothing but a note to Stephen expressing her apology for treating him so shabbily. He has also suffered a few lapses in his espionage activities and Sir Joseph. eager perhaps to gently let go of him, suggests that he sail on the Leopard to spy on a convict, an American woman called Mrs.Wogan who is being exiled on account of her own spying activities.On learning that the Leopard is intended to transport convicts, Jack's happiness at being offered a seemingly nice ship turns to outrage. Furthermore, after confronting one of the card sharps, Jack is averse to leave England fearing that it would seen as a cowardly withdrawal from a potential duel. Sophie, however, privately concerned with his gullibility on land, cleverly convinces Jack to accept the command.The long journey begins with the convicts murdering their superintendent during a terrible storm. But at the behest of Stephen, this also causes Jack to improve their living conditions; even allowing Mrs.Wogan the luxury of stretching her legs on the quarterdeck under the supervision of the doctor, despite hisdisapproval of women on ships. Mr.Herapath, a bit of a Stephen Maturin to Louisa Wogan's Diana, is also discovered as stowaway on the ship something of a rare occurence. As Stephen continues to spy on Mrs.Wogan, Jack's leadership skills are tested in a somewhat different way this time - the presence of women/convicts on the ship, an embittered and older first Lieutenant who feels that he knows better, the superstitious fear of the crew about a Jonah in their midst and of a haunted bowsprit etc. Misfortune plagues the ship and he loses over a hundred men due to a gaol fever epidemic brought on by convicts. To make matters worse, he soon learns that he must be wary of Waakhamzeid, a superior Dutch man-of-war whichis sailing through the same waters. He is unable to shake it of and is prevented from sailing to the Cape. The bloody-minded Dutch captain forces him into a battle in rough seas through somewhere near the roaring forties. In the ensuing battle, a single lucky shot to the Dutchman sinks it but not before wounding Jack quite severely.As Jack recuperates, they suffer another misfortune - the Leopard does a Titanic and strikes an iceberg. Rudderless and unable to discover the leak, the crew keep on pumping out water. After several days of drifting, many of the crew, including the first lieutenant disagree with Jack that the Leopard can still be saved from sinking. Jack gives them permission to leave by boats but decides to remain on thefrigate - he is joined by his loyal old shipmates. They fashion a makeshift rudder in the hope of using it if and when they catch sight of land. But their hopes are dashed when it proves inadequate. Jack is however aware of a recently described island, called Desolation Island somewhere in the vicinty, although he suspects that its position as calculated by its French discoverer is somewhat inexact. As Jack invites Stephen to play Mozart's B Minor together, their luck turns for the better and they finally make it to the island.The island turns out to be paradise in more ways than one, for Stephen discovers not only plenty of cabbage - enough to prevent scruvy - but also an untarnished sanctuary of birds and other sea animals. As the crew repair the frigate, Jack reveals to Stephen that without a forge or an anvil - both of which were turned into the sea to save the frigate from sinking - they have little hope of leaving the island.Mysterious signs of previous human presence on the island are also resolved when an American whaler turns into the island's harbour. Unfortunately though, the Americans are in no mood to help as they bear a grudge towards the Leopard on accound of one of its skirmishes with an American merchantmen even though it was under a different captain. But the Americans are also without a surgeon andalmost the whole crew is afflicted by various maladies. Jack sends Herapath - who is now serving as an assistant to Stephen - as an emissary.A give-and-take is eventually worked out and the Americans lend their forge in return for the services of the doctor. Meanwhile, during the journey so far, Stephen has forged documents which seem to incriminate influential French officials and has manipulated Herapath to copy them so that Mrs.Wogan is sure to try and acquire the documents on learning about them from Herapath. Finally, as the whaler is about the depart the island, Stephen contrives to get Wogan to flee with a reluctant Herapath, who is unsuspectingly racked with guilt over having betrayed Stephen's trust.
The Aubrey/Maturin series is hit-or-miss, in my opinion. When O'Brian is good, he's absolutely top-notch; not only one of the finest writers of Age of Sail fiction but also just a superb writer. However, I found some of the first four books rather dull. I persist because even the dull ones have spots of brilliant writing, although they are intermixed with long-winded passages of internal dialogue in which Stephen Maturin writes in his diary, muses on his love for Diana, or struggles with laudanum addiction. Somehow O'Brian manages to make an interesting character seem incredibly dull at times.This book was a pleasant surprise - it's a real page-turner. (There may be some minor spoilers in this review - not really sure how to review a book without revealing anything about it) Its main conflict is the transport of a beautiful female spy, Louisa Wogan, who, despite being convicted of espionage, is given special consideration due to her relationships with powerful men. It is Stephen's task to draw her out, to gain knowledge of her activities, and to plant false information for her to convey to her colleagues. But the more exciting conflicts are two of the worst perils to sailors of the era - disease and shipwreck. Although these aren't as colourful as naval battles, in fact sailors were much more likely to die in a wreck or of illness at sea than from battle. The Leopard's crew and officers are decimated by disease in the form of "gaol fever," carried aboard by convicts whom Jack is compelled to transport to Australia. There is also an intense battle with the Dutch Waakzaamheid that pursues the Leopard relentlessly. And finally, while taking on water in the form of ice, the Leopard sustains terrible damage, forcing the exhausted crew to pump day-and-night to avoid sinking. The passages in which the crew is bailing for their lives aboard the sinking and terribly damaged Leopard are intense, nail-biting, suspenseful scenes. Many of the crew abandon ship, with Jack's permission. Against all odds, the remaining crew under Jack's guidance sustain the ship and manage to reach a pseudo-mythical land mass, "Desolation Island." Repairs are conducted, the crew rested and restored, and Louisa Wogan is quietly allowed to escape to a nearby American ship, bringing with her a slew of false information that Stephen planted to mislead her associates. This is the first of the Aubrey-Maturin series to have a multi-book plot arc, and perhaps that is why O'Brian's tight prose is more readable than in previous books. We see the resolution and courage of Stephen and Jack - not merely the long-winded internal monologue of Stephen's litany of natural philosophy, complaints, drug addiction, and lovesickness, but the real man of action - the spy. Especially poignant scenes involve Stephen decrypting Louisa Wogan's letters, and encrypting additional letters of false intelligence to plant for her discovery. He has befriended her, taking the air on deck with her, enjoyed their conversations, and admired her fetching beauty, but his obligation to the cause forces him to also betray her trust. It may not seem like too difficult a task, given that Wogan is herself a spy, but there's something rather shabby and dishonourable about befriending someone in order to betray them, and it weighs upon Stephen - not just this particular instance of his professional work, but his entire vocation of gaining trust in order to betray it. Even so, Stephen, as O'Brian's most frequent voice in his omniscient style of narration, doesn't quite live up to his potential. Perhaps if O'Brian focussed bit less on the internal musing/thinking/pondering/complaining and a bit more on Stephen's actions, it'd be an improvement. However this was certainly the best of the first five books in the series.
What do You think about Desolation Island (1991)?
I'm still chugging through the 2nd book. I'm half in love with these and the other half of me is wondering if I'm a masochist because some days I cannot get through a whole chapter.
—John Chiafos
Not the best of the series so far, despite great action and character development through the first half. The second half of the book is taken up by a series of potential disasters, from a chase by a more powerful enemy, to a near-fatal fight with the enemy during a hurricane blow, to hitting an iceberg, to a near-mutiny, to nearly sinking due to a leak from the iceberg hit, to nearly starting the War of 1812 with an American whaling ship whose sheltering bay they have unwittingly invaded to try to fix the ship enough to move on.All of these things were be truly potential dangers of any voyage, and there were probably voyages in the golden days of the British Navy as cursed as this, but in fiction it just seems implausible, and unrelentingly depressing, and increasingly unlikely that anyone would survive all these things on one voyage.And the book concludes with Captain Jack and the Doc still stranded on the island, but with the ship fixed and an international incident averted. It should make for an interesting start to the next in the series!Book six in the series: The Fortune of War (Aubrey Maturin Series)
—Todd Stockslager
It's quite weird to read novels that just... stop as O'Brian's do, but after poking around the reader reviews on Amazon for a bit I learned that apparently the proper mindset to approach O'Brian's work is to pretend you're reading one big serial novel. I can deal with that.And it was like coming back to old friends, reading this novel. I saw little bits and pieces that reminded me of the movie as well as the earlier books, things like Jack's favorite meal being mentioned, the Leopard sailing dow
—Angela
