Source of book: I own this.
This book is number 18 in the Aubrey/Maturin series of
novels about the British Navy during and after the Napoleonic Wars. I have read
all of the previous books, and reviewed the last few for my blog. Because I do
not duplicate all of the background information in each post, it is probably
best to read them in order. And by all means, read the books in the correct order, as a particular adventure will often be
stretched across several books.
As readers of this series will know, the narrative is
carried over from book to book, so you really need to read them in order. In
this case, the break with the last book is fairly clean, so you aren’t left on
a cliffhanger. At the end of this
book, however, there is a huge cliffhanger. I spoil it here only because it
involves real history. (And if real history is a spoiler for you, well, maybe
you should have paid more attention in class.) At the end of The Yellow Admiral, Jack and Stephen are
on their way back to South America for a little extracurricular cloak and
dagger stuff, when the word comes that Napoleon has escaped from Elba. So they are clearly going to be diverted from their
current adventure. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.
So, back to this book. Having completed their adventures
with the slavers in the last book, Jack finds himself awkwardly on land again.
In addition to his usual issues of being a nuisance in Parliament and his tight
finances (in part because of delay in compensation for the capture of the
slaving ship), he is also in a feud with an adjacent landowner over enclosing
the commons. Stephen, at least, finds that his fear that he had lost his
fortune is in error - he remains the wealthy man he was.
Jack’s new fear, however, is a legitimate one. With the war
apparently winding down, there will be too many captains and too few combat
positions. Thus, instead of promoting to admiral in the usual sense, he would
be promoted but without a ship or duties. He would be - in essence - retired
with half pay. Since Jack’s very life is the sea, this would be a hard thing
indeed.
While all this is going on, however, Stephen gets a new task
from Sir Joseph Blaine - he is to do some spy work in France. Thus,
Jack is given a ship as part of a blockade, and sets Stephen ashore quietly.
I won’t spoil the rest of it. As usual, there are a few
things worth mentioning. For example, this discussion of democracy:
“Jack,” said Stephen, “I have been
contemplating on your words about the nature of the majority, your strangely
violent, radical, and even - forgive me - democratic words, which, with their
treasonable implication of ‘one man, one vote’, might be interpreted as an
attack on the sacred rights of property; and I should like to know how you
reconcile them with your support of a Tory ministry in the House.”
“Oh, as for that,” said Jack, “I have
no difficulty at all. It is entirely a matter of scale and circumstance.
Everyone knows that on a large scale democracy is pernicious nonsense - a
country or even a large county cannot be run by a self-seeking parcel of
tub-thumping politicians working on popular emotion, rousing the mob...while as
for a man-of-war, it is either an autocracy or nothing, nothing at all - mere
nonsense. You saw what happened to the poor French navy at the beginning of the
Revolutionary War…”
This is kind of amusing, given the state of English
government, and their ongoing hostilities with those crazy Americans. Jack is
right, in one sense. Democracy has its drawbacks, and the vulnerability to
demagogues is certainly one. But, as Churchill would later point out, democracy
may be the worst form of government...except for all the others.
In context, the question is whether small villagers who rely
on the commons should have much say in whether it is enclosed (which made it
more valuable, but also mostly benefited the large landholders.) It is a rather
ongoing question, which has mostly been resolved in our own time by handing
increasing wealth and power to the ultrawealthy.
I have frequently commented on the music in these books.
Jack and Stephen play violin and cello respectively, and their music makes it
into the books regularly. In this one, by happy chance, a piece I recently
played appeared: the Mozart Oboe Quartet. (For a wedding, a young oboist joined
three members of my quartet for a movement of this piece. Lots of fun. See
below for a clip.)
Alas, the sea takes the oboist, and the moment passes forever.
This book is a bit light on the action, spending a lot more
time with the land-bound characters. It is rather nice to have a bit more of
Diana, and also Clarissa. Jack seems to be mellowing and maturing, with a much
more nuanced understanding of things than he started out with. I do, however,
hope the next book has a bit more of either the sea or of Stephen’s escapades.
The best part of the book definitely remains the
relationship and interplay between Stephen and Jack - one of the epic
friendships of literature.
***
A bit of Mozart. Even a light work like this is full of
great melodies and good humor.
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