O'Brian, Patrick 1914–2000

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O'Brian, Patrick 1914–2000

PERSONAL: Born Richard Patrick Russ, December 12, 1914, in Buckinghamshire, England; died January 2, 2000, in Dublin, Ireland; son of Charles (a physician) Russ; married c. 1930s (abandoned marriage); married Mary Wicksteed; children: (first marriage) two.

CAREER: Writer and translator.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

The Last Pool and Other Stories, Secker and Warburg (London, England), 1950.

Testimonies, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1952, reprinted, Norton (New York, NY), 1993, published as Three Bear Witness, Secker and Warburg (London, England), 1952.

The Catalans, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1953, published as The Frozen Flame, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1953.

The Road to Samarcand, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1954.

The Walker and Other Stories, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1955, published as Lying in the Sun and Other Stories, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1956.

The Golden Ocean, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1956, Stein and Day (New York, NY), 1957, revised edition, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1970.

The Unknown Shore, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1959, Norton (New York, NY), 1995.

Richard Temple, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1962.

The Chian Wine and Other Stories, Collins (London, England), 1974.

Collected Short Stories, HarperCollins (London, England), 1994.

The Rendezvous and Other Stories, Norton (New York, NY), 1994.

The Hundred Days, Norton (New York, NY), 1998.

Blue at the Mizzen, Norton (New York, NY), 1999.

Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda Leopard, Norton (New York, NY), 1999.

"AUBREY-MATURIN" SERIES; HISTORICAL FICTION

Master and Commander, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1969, reprinted, Norton (New York, NY), 1994.

Post Captain, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1972.

H.M.S. Surprise, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1973.

The Mauritius Command, Collins (London, England), 1977, Stein and Day (New York, NY), 1978.

Desolation Island, Collins (London, England), 1978, Stein and Day (New York, NY), 1979.

The Fortune of War, Collins (London, England), 1979, Norton (New York, NY), 1991.

The Surgeon's Mate, Collins (London, England), 1980, Norton (New York, NY), 1991.

The Ionian Mission, Collins (London, England), 1981, Norton (New York, NY), 1991.

Treason's Harbour, Collins (London, England), 1983, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.

The Far Side of the World, Collins (London, England), 1984, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.

The Reverse of the Medal, Collins (London, England), 1986, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.

The Letter of Marque, Collins (London, England), 1988, Norton (New York, NY), 1990.

The Thirteen-Gun Salute, Collins (London, England), 1989, Norton (New York, NY), 1991.

The Nutmeg of Consolation, Norton (New York, NY), 1991.

The Truelove, Norton (New York, NY), 1992, published as Clarissa Oakes, HarperCollins (London, England), 1992.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Norton (New York, NY), 1993.

The Commodore, Norton (New York, NY), 1995.

The Yellow Admiral, Norton (New York, NY), 1996.

21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey: Including Facsimile of the Manuscript, afterword by Richard Snow, Norton (New York, NY), 2004.

The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels, Norton (New York, NY), 2004.

TRANSLATOR

Jacques Soustelle, The Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1961.

Philippe Erlanger, St. Bartholemew's Night: The Massacre of Saint Bartholemew, Pantheon, 1962.

Christine de Rivoyre, The Wreathed Head, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1962.

Andre Maurois, A History of the U.S.A.: From Wilson to Kennedy, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1964, also published as From the New Freedom to the New Frontier: A History of the United States from 1912 to the Present, McKay, 1964.

Louis Aragon, A History of the USSR: From Lenin to Kruschchev, McKay, 1964.

Françoise Mallet-Joris, A Letter to Myself, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1964.

Haroun Tazieff, When the Earth Trembles, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1964.

Henri Nogueres, Munich: Peace in Our Time, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1965, published as Munich: or, The Phoney Peace, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1965.

Mallet-Jorris, The Uncompromising Heart: A Life of Marie Mancini, Louis XIV's First Love, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1966.

Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death, Putnam (New York, NY), 1966.

Maurice Goudeket, The Delights of Growing Old, Far-rar, Straus (New York, NY), 1966.

Michel Mohrt, The Italian Campaign, Viking (New York, NY), 1967.

Clara Malraux, Memoirs, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1967.

Lucien Bodard, The Quicksand War: Prelude to Vietnam, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1967.

Joseph Kessel, The Horsemen, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1968.

Simone de Beauvoir, Les Belles Images, Putnam (New York, NY), 1968.

Bernard Faae, Louis XVI; or, The End of a World, Regnery (Washington, DC), 1968.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Woman Destroyed, Putnam (New York, NY), 1969.

Robert Guillian, The Japanese Challenge, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1970.

Andre Martinerie, A Life's Full Summer, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1970.

Henri Charriere, Papillon, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1970.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age, Putnam (New York, NY), 1972, published as Old Age, Weiden-feld and Nicolson (London, England), 1972.

Miroslav Ivanov, The Assassination of Heydrich: 27 May 1942, Hart-Davis (London, England), 1973.

Henri Charriere, Further Adventures of Papillon, Morrow (New York, NY), 1973.

Simone de Beauvoir, All Said and Done, Putnam (New York, NY), 1974.

Pierre Schoendoerffer, The Paths of the Sea, Collins (London, England), 1977.

Yves Berger, Obsession: An American Love Story, Putnam (New York, NY), 1978.

Simone de Beauvoir, When Things of the Spirit Come First: Five Early Tales, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1982.

Simone de Beauvoir, Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1984.

Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle, Norton (New York, NY), 1990, published as De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890–1944, Collins (London, England), 1990.

Also translated Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, Hawthorn, 1962, published as Daily Life in Palestine at the Time of Christ, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, England), 1962.

OTHER

(Editor) A Book of Voyages, Home and Van Thal, 1947.

Men-of-War, Collins (London, England), 1974, Norton (New York, NY), 1995.

Picasso: A Biography, Putnam (New York, NY), 1976, published as Pablo Ruiz Picasso: A Biography, Collins (London, England), 1976.

Joseph Banks: A Life, Harvill (London, England), 1987, D. Godine (Boston, MA), 1993.

ADAPTATIONS: O'Brian's "Aubrey-Maturin" novels were adapted for film as Master and Commander, written and directed by Peter Weir, starring Russell Crowe, and released by Twentieth Century-Fox, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Although Patrick O'Brian wrote and translated books for more than forty years, it was only in the years shortly before his death in 2000 that the bulk of his fiction became readily available to readers in the United States. O'Brian's work has been favorably reviewed by many American critics, especially his "Aubrey-Maturin" historical fiction series set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars between England and France. Mark Horowitz declared in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that "O'Brian is a novelist, pure and simple, one of the best we have." Other professed admirers of O'Brian's work have include writers Eudora Welty, Robertson Davies, and Iris Murdoch. The author's talents, however, extend beyond writing historical thrillers. Besides fiction, he translated the work of several French-language writers, among them Simone de Beauvoir and Henri Lapierre. An accomplished biographer, O'Brian also profiled the lives of painter Pablo Picasso and explorer and naturalist Joseph Banks.

O'Brian's popular historical adventure series, encompassing almost twenty books, follows the exploits of two friends, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. The protagonists are introduced to the reader, and each other, in 1969's Master and Commander, the first book of the series. The two men meet by chance at a musical performance in Spain where Maturin riles Aubrey with a remark about the latter's lack of musical timing. Although this first encounter does not end well, the two encounter one another again the next day, and Aubrey, who has just been offered command of a ship in the British navy, recruits Maturin as the vessel's surgeon. This is the beginning of both the friendship between the men as well as the series of adventures set mainly during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s.

The characters are very different from each other, except for their common interest in music. Aubrey, a robust and cheerful man, is perfectly at home on his ship, which he commands powerfully and fearlessly. In 1989's The Thirteen-Gun Salute, O'Brian wrote of Aubrey: "Ordinarily he was not at all aggressive—a cheerful, sanguine, friendly, good-natured creature, severe only in the event of bad seamanship—but when he was on a Frenchman's deck, sword in hand, he felt a wild and savage joy, a fulness of being, like no other; and he remembered every detail of blows given or received … with the most vivid clarity." He is, however, unsure of himself and out of his element on land. Maturin is a doctor by profession and is the more serious of the two. Highly prone to skepticism, he is a philosopher and naturalist who collects specimens through the duo's travels. In the same book, O'Brian said that unlike Aubrey, Maturin "disliked violence and … took no pleasure in any battle whatsoever." Despite vastly different dispositions and a lack of common interests, the men develop an enduring friendship that lasts through the series.

O'Brian received critical praise for his portrayal of this relationship. However, although the friendship is central to the books, the series is more than an account of the camaraderie between the protagonists. Rather, O'Brian used this liaison as a framework within which he introduced his readers to the world and time these characters inhabit. Richard Snow commented in the New York Times Book Review that "on the foundations of this friendship, Mr. O'Brian reconstructs a civilization." Snow, who titled his review of O'Brian's work in the New York Times Book Review "An Author I'd Walk the Plank For," called O'Brian's books "the best historical novels ever written." Snow reported similar praise of O'Brian by British critic Peter Wishart, who has claimed that "the relative neglect of Patrick O'Brian by both critics and the book-buying public is one of the literary wonders of the age. It is as baffling as the Inca inability to invent the wheel; or conversely, it is as baffling as the Inca ability to possess an ordered, sophisticated society without the wheel."

Thomas Flanagan asserted in the New York Times Book Review that in O'Brian's "strange, agreeable world … the central themes are friendship and music, poetry, food, scholarship, astronomy, scientific curiosity and the delights of the natural world." He also expressed appreciation for the realism of O'Brian's imaginary world, the authentic speech of its characters, and the unique turns the novels' action take. In particular, Flanagan referred to O'Brian's treatment of the plot in Thirteen-Gun Salute. In this book, Aubrey and Maturin set sail toward the South China Seas to foil a French plot. The reviewer related, however, that the implied urgency of the mission does not detract from O'Brian's detailed narrative. Flanagan illustrated the distinctiveness of O'Brian's writing style by referring to a description of the sunrise observed by Maturin while standing on the deck of his ship: "First there was the sky, high, pure and of a darker blue than he had ever seen. And then there was the sea, a lighter, immensely luminous blue that reflected blue into the air, the shadows and the sails…. To these there was added the sun, unseen for so long and unseen even now, since the topsail hid it, but filling the world with an almost tangible light. It flashed on the wings of an albatross that came gliding into the wind so close to the quarterdeck rail that it could very nearly be touched."

John Bayley, writing in the New York Review of Books, also commended O'Brian's detailed narratives, citing a chapter from The Mauritius Command. In this section of the book, Aubrey's ship is being chased through icebergs and giant waves by a larger vessel. Bayley felt that this episode is akin to Herman Melville's style in the nineteenth-century seafaring novel Moby Dick, but he added that "no other writer, not even Melville, has described the whale or the wandering albatross with O'Brian's studious and yet lyrical accuracy."

Nutmeg of Consolation follows the story of Aubrey and Maturin, picking up where the shipwreck of the Surprise of the South China Sea at the end of The Thirteen-Gun Salute left off. They encounter more adventures on the high seas aboard their new boat, a small Dutch ship named the Nutmeg. Aubrey captures an enemy ship then flies off to the Solomon Islands to rescue children from a small-pox-ridden island. Eventually, their wanderings take Aubrey and Maturin to Sydney, Australia, where they find more trouble still. New York Observer critic John Gregory Dunne praised O'Brian's language as "elegant, erudite, and dense," while a Kirkus Reviews writer found Maturin the most interesting character and assessed the novel as "witty, literate and engaging."

O'Brian's popularity continued to grow, culminating with The Commodore, which, as a best-seller, brought its author even greater popular and critical attention. In the 1995 novel, after their ill-fated journey to Peru, Aubrey and Maturin return home to deal with marital problems, then set out again on behalf of the English government to intercept illegal slave-traders off the coast of West Africa and intervene in a French attempt to support anti-British insurgency in Ireland. A Publishers Weekly critic commented that "O'Brian writes with clipped efficiency and relies heavily on the arcane and specialized naval and military lexicons." With this novel, several critics theorized about the secret of O'Brian's success. Katherine A. Powers, writing for the Atlantic Monthly, made this observation: "The best historical novelists have bridged the gap of time and made a by-gone reality accessible by bringing, without anachronism, the insights of the present to bear upon the past. Patrick O'Brian is sui generis. Unlike any other writer of historical novels, he truly belongs to the era in which the majority of his works are set."

The Yellow Admiral was described by several critics as a return to the style of earlier novels in the series. Here Aubrey is a member of Parliament and is embroiled in politics. In contrast to previous novels, O'Brian plots much of the action on dry land. The plot concerns the Aubrey estate and the Aubrey marriage, as naval politics and peacetime threaten to make the captain a "yellowed" admiral—that is, a ranking admiral who is not in command of a ship. However, Maturin ultimately returns from his work with the Chilean independence movement, and Aubrey is finally called to action with the rise of the Napoleonic Wars. A critic for Publishers Weekly noted that in The Yellow Admiral "O'Brian is at the top of his elegant form." A reviewer for the Economist categorized the book as a "thinking man's infonovel," assessing it as "authentic, intelligent, humane, and written wittily and well."

Besides fiction, O'Brian authored biographies of Pablo Picasso and Joseph Banks. James R. Mellow, reviewing Picasso: A Biography for the New York Times Book Review, called O'Brian's portrayal of the artist "sharply etched." Mellow felt that O'Brian maintains equilibrium between the events in the Spanish painter's life, his art, and social surroundings. The critic also praised the author's research of the history of Spain, noting that it gives the book added authority. O'Brian's volume about Joseph Banks, who traveled with James Cook on an expedition to Tahiti, was lauded by New York Times Book Review critic Linda Colley for its "brilliant" descriptions of the voyage. Colley surmised that O'Brian's familiarity with ships and sea journeys due to his historical research for the "Aubrey-Maturin" books contributed to his authoritative work about Banks's travels.

Much to the frustration of his many fans, O'Brian passed away in 2000, having reached eighty-five years of age. According to Dean King in his book Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed, the novelist actually had a secret past. At age twenty-five O'Brian abandoned his wife and their two children, the younger then dying of spina bifida. At age thirty, he changed his name from Russ to O'Brian, adopting an Anglo-Irish heritage and marrying Mary Wicksteed, an English woman divorced from English barrister Count Dmitri Tolstoy. According to Anthony Day in Smithsonian, "When the news broke, Fleet Street turned on [O'Brian]—the Sunday Times of London called him a monster, a coward, a hypocrite. But the prevailing sentiment is more likely that of the Economist in its fond obituary, which suggested O'Brian's literary persona was a deception 'of the most innocent kind.'" Richard Lacayo noted of the novelist in Time: "O'Brian was fascinated with feints and deceptions, with warships that disguise themselves or fly false colors. Was that because he flew false colors himself?… What we know for sure is that he was a minor master of 20th century literature. His books will sail on."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Cunningham, A.E., Patrick O'Brian: A Bibliography of First Printings and First British Printings, Throm-mett, 1986.

King, Dean, with John B. Hattendorf, Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1996.

King, Dean, with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1997.

King, Dean, Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2000.