Patrick O’Brian confessed to having written The Golden Ocean in about six weeks, laughing aloud for much of the time. The book took me a great deal less than six weeks to read, but, like O’Brian, I found myself laughing, not because the story and general content is inherently funny – much of it is pretty grim – but because of the sheer exuberance of the writing and the verbal delight of the dialogue.It has been viewed as something of an apprenticeship for the Aubrey/Maturin series. In the sense that O’Brian cut his teeth on the epic historical naval yarn with this book, such a remark could have some validity. But The Golden Ocean goes far beyond this. The writing, characterisation, plot and detail are all superb. The only regret I had, when finishing the book, was that O’Brian did not continue – as he was to do fourteen years later – with the wonderfully colourful cast he created, and give them further daring deeds to do. Peter Palafox, his good friend Sean, and the rough and assorted inhabitants of the midshipman’s mess on board Commodore Anson’s Centurion are too vivid a crew to leave behind after one book.In that O’Brian was probably constrained by the fact that he based the book on one monumental voyage, and that several of his characters, including Anson and Peter’s fellow-midshipman Keppel, were real historical people. The whole of Anson’s fateful circumnavigation is included in the 285 pages of The Golden Ocean (the second half of it relatively uneventful and crammed into a slim three pages). After that the crew would have dispersed. Anson – after a brief lull - went on to have a highly successful career in the British Navy, but the story, unlike the Aubrey/Maturin books is not told through the eyes of a commanding officer and perhaps O’Brian thought it might be hard to create an adventurous sequel with the Irish boy Peter Palafox as the narrator – a wholly fictional person His solution to what was later to prove an imaginative gold mine for him, was to fictionalise another set of events during the Anson voyage, that relating to the HMS Wager, in The Unknown Shore.O’Brian captures the essential Irishness of his two main characters in The Golden Ocean, Peter Palafox and Sean, so compellingly, it is not surprising that people came to view him as Irish himself. Stephen Maturin, when he appears in the opening pages of Master and Commander a decade and a half later, is also convincingly Irish, though in a somewhat toned down way, which may too have helped create the illusion which later came to haunt O’Brian and brand him somewhat unjustly as a liar. Such conclusions are irrelevant in the context of this book, labelled as being for a younger age group but complex, detailed, engaging, exciting and utterly satisfying to this adult reader.
"George Anson, Kommodore in der Royal Navy, hat den Auftrag, die Verbindungen Spaniens zu seinen Kolonien an der pazifischen Küste Südamerikas zu stören. Hierzu läuft eine kleine Flotte von 8 Schiffen unter der Führung des Flaggschiffs „HMS Centurion“, ein Linienschiffs 4. Klasse, im September 1740 von Spithead aus. Dieses ist der Hintergrund des Romans um und über Peter Palafox, Midshipman an Bord der Centurion. Als Sohn eines armen Landpfarrers im Westen Irlands, kommt er durch Vermittlung zu dieser Stelle. Die Reise verläuft anders als geplant, durch widrige Winde verzögert sich die Abfahrt, der Zweck der Reise wurde an die Spanier verraten, Kap Horn ist die größte Herausforderung, und auch die opferreichste, und der Pazifik zeigt sich auch nicht von der besten Seite. Trotzdem gelingt der Überfall auf Paita in Peru. Hier gibt es dann nähere Auskünfte zu der „Manila Galeone“, dem Verbindungsschiff zwischen den Philippinen und Acapulco in Mexiko. Auf Ostkurs beladen mit Waren aus Asien, auf Westkurs mit Silber, sollte sie das nächste Ziel werden. Bis dies gelingt, und man die für damalige Verhältnisse fast unvorstellbare Summe von 1.313.843 „real de a ochos“, ein Real entspricht einem Taler, und 35,682 Unzen Silber erbeutet, sind noch viele Abenteuer zu bestehen. Über China und dem Kap der Guten Hoffnung geht dann nach 4 Jahren die Reise in England, und für Peter Palfox, geringfügig später, in Irland zu Ende.. Patrick O'Brian hat für seinen ersten seehistorischen Roman, er erschien 1956, die „Circumnavigation“, die Weltumsegelung des späteren Admirals Anson, als authentischen Hintergrund genommen. Die Genauigkeit geht bis in die Namen und Eigenschaften der anderen Besatzungsmitglieder, so wurde aus dem Midshipman Keppel während des amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieges der Erste Lord der Admiralität. Das Schiffsleben wird aber aus der Sicht von Peter Palafox geschildert, dies geschieht durchaus humorvoll und manchmal etwas verschroben. Jedenfalls läßt dieses Buch den späteren Ruhm O’Brians mit seinem 20-bändigen Lebenswerk um Jack Aubrey und Stephen Maturin bereits ahnen. Für Freunde historischer Seefahrtsromane und speziell O’Brian-Anhänger sicherlich ein lesenswertes Buch."
What do You think about The Golden Ocean (1996)?
This was pretty disappointing, even for someone accustomed to O'Brian's slow pacing. By his own admission, he didn't care for plot, preferring to focus on the daily life and minor details of his characters. Yet O'Brian could write a page-turner when he chose to, as evident by The Road to Samarcand, an extremely gripping young adult adventure story. But The Golden Ocean just plods along for pages without relief. Anything interesting that happens - bad storms, engaging the enemy - happens off-page and is barely described, while something as utterly dull as boiling seal fat is given pages of lovingly detailed description. I kept hoping that it'd turn out like one of the Aubrey/Maturin books and things would pick up after the first hundred pages or so, but nope, it remained dull to the very end. Its only redeeming factor is that O'Brian was an accomplished historian and he's skillful at capturing the details of shipboard life in the Age of Sail. But if that's what you seek, a non-fiction book would be better-suited to learning. Skip this one and read the Aubreyad or The Road to Samarcand instead.
—Rachel
Copypasted from my posts on LJ when I was reading it:This afternoon I went to my grandmother to enjoy a nice long bath. God, I need a nice bath sometimes. I felt all refreshed and chipper when I came out of it... though that might also have has something to do with reading on in "The Golden Ocean" as well. FitzGerald's sea-sickness cracked me up, and Peter getting into a fight with the other mids. I shouldn't laugh but POB is so wonderfully funny about it. Not to mention it's also very interesti
—Gilly McGillicuddy
Yo-ho and a bottle of rum!Avast singing, ya scurvy dog!(sod off, ya goat-buggerin'--) Aye, aye, sir! Arrrr, perhaps he's right. I should stick to reviews... The Golden Ocean is one of O'Brian's earlier works and a forerunner of his seafaring, Aubrey/Maturin series. As such it's a little rougher around the edges and as a one-off, it is not quite as engaging, since you're not invested in the characters for the long haul. However this can be very enjoyable for some, especially if you're already hooked on the Aubrey/Maturin series or if you like to read Age of Sail seafaring stories. You get all the lovely period (circa mid 18th century) detail one becomes accustomed to when reading O'Brian. You also get an idea of what the British navy was like prior to arguably its most notable period in history, the Napoleonic Wars. The Golden Ocean recounts, in historical fiction style, Admiral Anson's 1740 circumnavigation of the globe. The story is told through the eyes of a midshipman (the lowest order of officers, often young teen boys). As has been the case with other O'Brian one-offs, I never latched on to the main character with this one. In fact, now that some time has passed since I read this, I don't even recall the fella's name. One interesting factoid about The Golden Ocean, it is one or two retellings of the same voyage that O'Brian novelized. The other is titled The Unknown Shore.All in all, while this may not reach the excellence of writing his later work attains, it is well-done and quite enjoyable. I can readily recommend it to O'Brian's fans.
—Jason Koivu
