The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher

Ah, the Shakespeare Wars. Did Shakespeare co-write The Two Noble Kinsmen? What parts did he write? It is generally accepted now that Shakespeare and John Fletcher collaborated on this play, as they did on Henry VIII. 

Fletcher was Shakespeare’s successor at The Kings Men after Shakespeare retired, and it appeared he was groomed for the job. The two collaborations (plus a third that is lost) are the last works we have from Shakespeare. For some reason, my Complete Shakespeare contains Henry VIII, but not The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Because of Covid-19, theaters are closed here in California, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival is cancelled. Thus, I doubt I am going to have many chances to see live theater in the near future. We have been getting by with video sources, even though they are not the same. I didn’t review it, but Phantom of the Opera was on YouTube for a weekend, and the kids and wife watched By Jeeves one night. 

But best of all at this point, The Globe in London is releasing filmed performances of various plays, including this one. 

The plot of The Two Noble Kinsmen is taken from “The Knight’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Chaucer borrowed most of the story from Boccacio.There are references to two prior stage adaptations of the story in various writings, but the originals of those have been lost. Thus, Shakespeare and Fletcher’s version is the first that survives. 

There are a few changes from the original. A framing story is added to explain the battled which sets the plot in motion. The prison escape is different. But other than that, it basically follows Chaucer’s tale. 

The play opens with three queens presenting a petition to Theseus and Hippolyta, rulers of Athens. The cruel Creon has dishonored the corpses of their dead husbands, and refused them burial. (Yes, this does appear to be a borrowing from Sophocles. No, Theseus and Creon do not appear in the same story in Greek Mythology - this was Boccacio’s invention.) Theseus agrees to battle against Creon, and wins. 

Fighting on Creon’s side are two aristocratic cousins, Palamon and Arcite. They both loathe Creon’s cruelty, but feel duty bound to fight for their home city. Injured in the battle, they are captured and imprisoned by the Athenians. While in prison, they pledge eternal friendship, and are practically kissing on each other, when they spot Emila, Hippolyta’s sister, walking in the garden. They are so smitten with her that they fight over who has the right to woo her, coming to blows. 

Arcite is released from prison, but banished, after a relative intervenes. Palamon later escapes with the help of the jailer’s daughter, who has fallen in love with him. (This is a chance from Chaucer - in the original, Palamon poisons the jailer.) Arcite disguises himself and gets a job as bodyguard for Emilia. He finds Palamon half-starved in the forest and brings him food and drink - and weapons so that they can eventually fight each other over Emilia. Meanwhile, the jailer’s daughter goes mad over her unrequited love and runs away, eventually taking up with a dance troupe. 

Arcite and Palamon are discovered, and about to be executed, but Emilia and Hippolyta intervene. Theseus agrees to have the two of them fight each other. The winner gets the hand of Emilia, and the loser gets executed. Emilia is horrified (and not too happy about her lack of say in the matter, but...she’s just a woman in Ancient Greece, so…) but Arcite and Palamon are all in - this will solve their dispute, after all. 

Before the match, Arcite, Palamon, and Emilia all pray to their gods. Arcite asks Mars to give him victory in the battle. Palamon asks Venus to give him the hand of Emilia. And Emilia ask Diana to let her marry the one who loves her the best. 

In the event, all three prayers are answered. Arcite wins the battle, but is thrown from his horse afterward and mortally wounded. As he dies, he reconciles with Palamon and gives his blessing to marry Emelia. 

As Theseus says at the end:

Never Fortune 

Did pay a subtler game. The conquered triumphs; 

The victor has the loss; yet in the passage 

The gods have been most equal.

I wouldn’t say that this play is one of Shakespeare’s finest. The language is good (and Shakespeare’s portions flow really well), but it doesn’t reach the heights like in his best plays. The plot is interesting, of course, but it also bears some resemblance to The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Like that play, there are some interesting lines that hint at a non-heterosexual orientation of the characters. While the homoerotic element doesn’t last as long as in Two Gentlemen, the two lead men seem to have a closer than normal bond. 

Even more interesting, though, is Emilia, who seems pretty reluctant to marry. Early on, she mentions a childhood friend who died young, and says she can never love a man like she did Flavina. 

“The true love 'tween maid and maid may be 

More than in sex dividual.”

Her lady-in-waiting, who also seems...close to her, notes that she is breathing hard. Later, while praying to Diana (not Venus, interestingly - she picks the virgin goddess), she says:

This is my last 

Of vestal office. I am bride-habited 

But maiden-hearted.

Shakespeare is full of stuff like this: gender bending, complicated erotic bonds, and an acknowledgement that marriage (in the traditional, patriarchal sense) was an economic and political arrangement superimposed on a tangle of romantic and erotic attachments and preferences. 

While Emilia is reluctant to marry, this isn’t the normal way women in Shakespeare approach love and sex. Usually, the women are far from reluctant. Indeed, they are often more sexually aggressive than the men. The Jailer’s Daughter (never named) is in this category, relentlessly pursuing Palamon as she goes mad. 

She gets a happy ending, though. Her wooer (a young man who is never named) is enlisted to pretend to be Palamon and court her. His kindness and love (and perhaps sex - it is at least implied) wins her over and restores her sanity. By the end, it is clear that she and he will be happily married. 

The production itself was outstanding. It was set more or less in Medieval England, which made sense given the presence of a Morris Dance troupe. The music for the dance scenes (and throughout the play) was composed by Eliza Carthy, and performed by a small ensemble live on stage. (Depending on the piece, there were trombone, guitar, banjo, violin, and various percussion instruments. I heartily approve of this.) 

As Arcite and Palamon, Bryan Dick and Paul Stocker, respectively, were excellent. Ellora Torchia as Emilia was also outstanding - and believably beautiful enough to inspire two guys to lose their heads. The rest of the cast was great - unsurprisingly solid throughout. 

The show was stolen, however, by Francesca Mills as the jailer’s daughter. She is a Little Person with a long list of credits for acting, singing, and dancing roles. She did all three in this, and was just electric. I mean, when she was on stage, you could not keep your eyes off of her. Both in her sane and insane moods, she captured the character perfectly. 

This play will be streaming on YouTube through May 17, if you want to watch it. (Next up is A Winter’s Tale, which I plan to watch as well.) For more information, here is the website. 

 Grand Spectacle

 Arcite and Palamon

 Emilia

***

Over the years, I have seen 27 of the (arguably) 39 plays written by Shakespeare. I am not counting this one as “live,” but it is a wobbler - the video is of a live stage performance, not a movie adaptation. My wife has seen even more than I have, because of her annual trip to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Anyway, here are the ones I have reviewed on this blog: 

All’s Well That Ends Well*

As You Like It*

Comedy of Errors*

Coriolanus* 

Hamlet* (Benedict Cumberbatch)

Hamlet* (Bakersfield College 2017)

Henry IV (Parts 1 & 2 adapted by Daniel Sullivan)

Julius Caesar*

Love’s Labour’s Lost*

Macbeth*

Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure* (BC 2018)

The Merchant of Venice*

Much Ado About Nothing*

Othello*

Pericles, Prince of Tyre*

Richard II

Richard II (Old Globe San Diego 2017)*

Romeo and Juliet*

The Taming of the Shrew*

Twelfth Night*

The Two Gentlemen of Verona*

* indicates the ones we have seen with at least some of the kids.

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead

Source of book: Audiobook from the library.

We listened to Rebecca Stead’s 2010 Newbery Award winner, When You Reach Me, which was quite good. This book, interestingly, shares some themes - and also incidents from the author’s life. 

I think it is safe to say that Rebecca Stead didn’t particularly enjoy junior high. She seems to have been bullied, as both of her books we read have had bullying as central themes, and in both cases, she has said that they reflect her own experiences at that age. Friendship was both important to her, and a lifesaver, and this too carries over into her stories. 

Liar & Spy is told from the perspective of Georges. (The “s” is silent - he is named after Georges Seurat, the pointillist painter who Georges’ family dubs “Sir Ott.”) After his dad is laid off, the family has to downsize from a house to an apartment. Fortunately, it is only a few blocks away, so he can stay at the same school. To make ends meet, his mom works long hours at the local hospital, while his dad tries to get a business off the ground. This leaves Georges alone for a lot of the day. 

The wheels of the plot are set in motion as they move in to the apartment. When Georges and his dad take some garbage down to the basement, they see a sign on a utility room door which says, “Spy Club Meeting—TODAY!” Georges is skeptical, because the sign seems old, but his dad writes below it, “When?” Georges follows the response, and ends up meeting a kid his age, Safer, who is part of a rather unusual hippie family living in the building. Safer and his little sister, Candy (the older brother is Pigeon - the parents named them after their personalities emerged…) inform him that another resident, “Mr. X,” might be a murderer, because he always dresses in black, and carries suitcases in and out. 

The book tells of the investigation (such as it is), and the friendship that develops between Safer and Georges. Meanwhile, Georges is dealing with bullying at school, which none of the adults seems to take quite seriously. 

As with the former book, this one is, shall we say, quirky. The characters are both believable and...unexpected might be the right word. Safer’s whole family is amusing yet very much like some people I have known. They homeschool their kids. Well, they “unschool” their kids. Which means that the learning is a bit spotty, but hands on, and just different. Also, like many unschoolers I have met, they have at least one kid with serious anxiety issues. How this interacts with the sheltered lifestyle is debatable, but there is a correlation at least. But, they are definitely nice, decent people, and their quirks are endearing. 

The concept of the spy club was apparently borrowed in some part from E. L. Konigsburg’s book, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, and Me. We haven’t read that one yet, although we have enjoyed other books by the author. 

Two incidents appear to have been taken from Stead’s own childhood. She modeled Georges’ friendship with Safer after her own relationship with a beloved best friend. Apparently, this friendship was the one bright spot during those years, and she felt it got her though the bullying she endured, as well as the difficulty of finding one’s place during the transitional grades. To quote the author, talking about this issue and how she wrote the book:

"I feel like there are stages in many, many people’s childhoods when you don’t have one good friend like [I had]. It can happen a lot in sixth and seventh grade because that’s when things are changing so quickly. It’s like a desperate dash for some kind of acceptable identity, and it can get ugly."

On a related note, there IS enough money in the world to convince me to repeat my high school years. There is NOT enough money in the world to convince me to repeat my junior high years. No freaking way. 

The second was the test for the ability to taste PTC, given in science class. Stead was one of only two students who couldn’t taste the chemical. The other was a boy she had a crush on. So she invented the “G Test” for the book based on that. 

Just some fun bits from the book, which has a lot of them. I haven’t even mentioned the side characters, like “Robert who Draws,” or the owner of the local Chinese food joint, who makes his own fortune cookies with bizarre and cryptic fortunes. Or the use of the “interrupting cow” joke that my kids loved when they were a certain age. 

Fun, quirky, focused on friendships. Not a bad way to describe Stead’s writing. This book is worth a read. 

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

This book is part of out not-particularly-systematic exploration of the Newbery Award winners and honor books. Hello, Universe is the most recent winner, from 2018. In addition, this book is part of my personal project as homeschool dad and aspiring decent human being to introduce my kids (and myself) to books written by non-white authors. Kelly is the daughter is the daughter of a Filipino immigrant mother, and started her fiction-writing career rather later than many. 

Hello, Universe is a story told from four different points of view, those of four middle school kids. Virgil Salinas comes from a rather sports-crazy Filipino-American family. He is painfully shy, quiet, and unathletic, which makes him the odd kid out in his family. Fortunately, his grandmother understands and supports him. Valencia Somerset is mostly deaf - she can hear a tiny bit with aids, and can combine that with lip reading to understand people, as long as they talk slowly and look directly at her. She is smart and strong and familiar with the natural world. But she has been dumped by her friends because they couldn’t be bothered to accommodate her deafness. She puts on a brave face, but she is lonely. Kaori Tanaka is an aspiring entrepreneur who fancies herself a psychic, although she mostly seems to be a good listener. She is largely responsible for her little sister, Gen, who follows her around and insists on being involved in everything. Chet Bullins is the school bully, who torments Virgil and Valencia. He has his own problems, though, with a dysfunctional mother, an uninvolved yet pressure inducing father. 

Virgil has been consulting with Kaori about his problem: he is too chicken to say hello to the girl he admires in his study hall - namely Valencia. Kaori, looking to expand her business without her mother stopping her, puts ads at the store, one of which is seen by Valencia. Virgil and his pet guinea pig set out through the patch of woods to visit Kaori, but is set upon by Chet, who steals his backpack and throws it down an abandoned dry well. Virgil becomes stuck in the well trying to rescue the backpack - and his guinea pig. (In the “weird coincidences file: this is a parallel to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which I just read. Although Kaori would be quick to assert “there are NO coincidences!”) Eventually, Kaori realizes that Virgil has disappeared, and sets out with her new client, Valencia, and Gen, to find him. 

In addition to this main plot, there are, interspersed throughout, stories from Filipino folklore told by Virgil’s grandmother. While Virgil is stuck in the well, he is visited both by a malevolent creature, and by the plucky heroine of one of the stories - his ancestor. In this sense, the book contains elements of Magical Realism, although the book remains firmly grounded in this world. 

There are elements of this book which I really liked. In general, the characters are interesting. Virgil is portrayed with the most detail - one could say the book is mostly about him. It is his experience of the Filipino legends and his internal struggles against the disapproval his family and the cruel world fling his way are the core of the story. Even Chet gets some nuance, despite being generally from the ACME villains catalogue. Valencia is very relatable. She is naturally strong and tough, but has trouble admitting that she is lonely and sad. Kaori is the comic relief a lot of the time, although on her part, the comedy is unintentional. She takes herself just a bit too seriously. 

Also rather funny was the episode involving Chet and the snake. We hike regularly, and have seen plenty of snakes, venomous and not, out on the trail. Like Valencia, and unlike Chet, we know how to treat snakes - with respect. (I appreciated that Valencia’s advice on snakes was accurate, by the way.) 

The weaknesses of the book as I see them are twofold. First, despite Chet getting to narrate, and getting enough backstory to be more human, he never gets the chance to grow or develop. He gets a bit of a comeuppance, but we are left without knowing if he learns anything from the experience. His narration is the shortest of any of the characters, and it feels a bit out of place, in my view. It would have been a better book had he been given some manner of growth or at least a final word after the events to reflect on the meaning of his experience. Instead, he just kind of fades away. 

The second weakness is the abrupt and too-neat ending. We are given the impression that Kaori and Valencia will be fast friends. And we know that Virgil, having failed to even say thank you after the rescue, finally screws up the courage to text Valencia. But it would have been interesting to add a little to the story and see what happens next. I mean, you have a big event that clearly had an impact on all the characters. The book isn’t that terribly long. Why not add just a bit more and let us see the aftermath and how the characters have changed? 

I’ll end with the best line in the book. Valencia is reflecting on the unpleasant way she was dumped by her former best friend. Valencia actually likes the book, but the thought behind it bothers her. 

“[O]n my tenth birthday, this girl Roberta gave me a book called Famous Deaf People from History. I would have never given Roberta a book called Famous Blond People or Famous People Who Talk Too Much.” 

This is, in a way, related to another strength of the book. The characters are diverse. Virgil is Filipino-American, obviously. Kaori and Gen are Japanese-American. Valencia is deaf. But as Booklist pointed out, the diversity isn’t treated as a plot point. It just is a fact. I mean, in the one sense, the deafness is important to the plot as it unfolds, but it is a case where the character exists as a fact, and thus will respond to circumstance exactly as she naturally would. The plot serves the characters, not the other way around. (Actually, Kelly said that the book started with a kid in a well, then found characters, and the plot flowed from there.) 

Overall, this is a worthwhile book, and my kids found it interesting. 

***

The audiobook was read by two narrators, Ramon de Ocampo, and Amielynn Abellera. I am not familiar with either of them, but apparently they are veterans of television and audiobooks. They did fine, with Ocampo clearly at home with the Filipino accent. (My father was born and raised in the Philippines, and I was involved in a Filipino-American church in Van Nuys for a number of years as a teen. And, I can cook Pancit and Adobo pretty darn well.) 

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo

Source of book: Audiobook from the library.

Kate DiCamillo does not appear to ever write the same book twice. And by that, I mean, the same sort of book. We first listened to one of her books five years ago, when we were at the beginning of our “see the National Parks” project. My second daughter, who was seriously into mice and rats at the time (and kind of still is even as a teen), introduced us to The Tale of Despereaux, which we loved. Later, we all (my wife included) listened to Flora and Ulysses, which has the distinction of featuring both a magical flying squirrel AND a Rilke poem. 

Raymie Nightingale is nothing like either of these books. Or like The Magician’s Elephant. In fact, it contains nothing that could truly be considered magical. Well, unless you count a re-appearing cat. But there was a whole song about that since 1893, so it hardly seems magical. (I like the kid friendly “Stray Cats” style version…) Instead, the book is about loss, trauma, and, above all, friendship.

It is not surprising that loss and trauma are themes. Really, DiCamillo’s books all seem to involve them. Bad things happen. Children get hurt. Life sucks. Except there is always a way to muddle on through. There are good people (and even rats!) There is hope, and friendship, and love. The trauma doesn’t go away, but resilience wins in the end.

The three tween girls in Raymie Nightingale are the title character (except her name is actually Raymie Clarke - the “Nightingale” comes from a book about Florence Nightingale which figures in the plot), whose father has run off with another woman and abandoned her and her mother; Louisiana Elefante, whose parents are dead so she lives with her impoverished and slightly wacky grandmother; and Beverly Tapinski, who never knew her father - he apparently had a fling with Beverly’s mother, who seems like a grown up Honey Boo Boo.

The three girls meet at a class for baton spinners. Raymie and Louisiana are there to learn - they want to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition. Beverly knows how to twirl - it’s her mother’s claim to fame - but would rather sabotage the contest - and practice her lock picking skills. Beverly hides her insecurities behind a fearless bravado - and an outright rejection of her mother’s values. Louisiana is a real misfit - between the poverty and her ill health. Raymie’s trauma is the most recent, so she is really struggling with that for most of the book, which is told from her perspective.

The girls start out navigating the lessons (which are pretty nearly non-existent) and the teacher (who is halfway between a fraud and a lush), but end up becoming friends and co-conspirators. Raymie attempts to do a “good deed” within the definition of the contest by trying to read a book to a nursing home resident. This does not go as expected, with the woman deciding she would rather have Raymie write a letter complaining about the janitor playing too much Chopin. (No such thing! Heresy! Away from me, Satan!) And leaving her book there. After which shenanigans ensue. Likewise when Louisiana tries to rescue her cat from the clutches of the local shelter. I won’t give any more away.

As usual, DiCamillo’s writing is full of delightful turns of phrase, and some social satire that the kids probably won’t get. (Although my teens certainly did.) I would never call her books “sweet,” and certainly not “moralizing.” DiCamillo doesn’t have kids, but she seems to remember being one just fine, and is pretty non-judgmental about typical kid silliness and troublemaking. But she is also quite empathetic in her portrayals of older people. In this book, there is the older man who teaches Raymie how to rescue a drowning victim, an elderly neighbor who discusses the meaning of life (and whose death devastates Raymie), Louisiana’s grandmother, and two residents at the nursing home. I love that DiCamillo doesn’t turn away, but is honest about both dementia and the need for love. The three main characters are each unique, but memorable and believable.

One of the fascinating things about DiCamillo’s writing is how she manages to use fairly small words, aimed at younger readers, and yet create a depth of description of places, events, and especially emotions. Many addicts of purple prose could stand to learn from her technique.

As usual, this was an enjoyable book for both kids and adults. DiCamillo remains one of the most reliably good children’s authors in our audiobook rotation.

***

True story: my mom let me fall asleep with my walkman and classical music. I remember The Firebird was a bit much for sleeping, but Chopin...oh yes. It is impossible to pick just one favorite. But the Eb Nocturne #2 makes me feel like that little kid tucked in bed with his headphones.

The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian

Source of book: I own this.

This book is number 17 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.

The Letter of Marque

            The Nutmeg of Consolation

The Thirteen Gun Salute

            The Truelove

            The Wine Dark Sea

This book picks up at the end of the fairly disastrous South American campaign in the last book. The Surprise returns to England, where both Stephen and Jack have family issues to deal with. 

Stephen’s wife, Diana, has given birth a few years back - Stephen hasn’t yet met his daughter Brigid. However, Diana, apparently overstressed by parenthood, has run off to goodness knows where, leaving Brigid in the care of Clarissa Oakes (a fascinating character from The Truelove). Brigid also appears to be autistic, unable to speak.

Jack, meanwhile, finds he has offended his wife Sophie by using some of the fabric intended for her to make a wedding dress for Ms. Oakes. (As I said, a really fascinating story…) So all is not well at the Aubry home, and Jack is predictably eager to be off on his next adventure.

If that wasn’t bad enough, one of Stephen’s enemies in Parliament has decided to make trouble for him. Technically, Clarissa is a criminal, having been transported to Australia, where she managed to stow away on the Surprise. Likewise, Stephen’s loyal assistant, Padeen, was transported a few books back for an incident involving Stephen’s laudanum. Basically, they both need an official pardon before they can legally be in England. This would be forthcoming in light of the circumstances (and Stephen’s influence), but for this enemy.

Fortunately for all concerned, a new mission is at hand. They will spend some time off the coast of Africa suppressing the slave trade while they wait for news that a French fleet has left for Ireland. They are to intercept this fleet and prevent it from inciting rebellion there.

So much for the basic setup of the plot. I won’t reveal the rest.

However, there are some great lines and passages worth mentioning.

Preserved Killick is one of the great characters in the series. Jack’s steward, he is described in this book as a “lean, cantankerous, and out of work ratcatcher.” And of course, plenty more of “Which I was already doing, ain’t I?”

Also interesting on the psychological side in this book was Jack’s response to female sexuality - both in theory and in practice. Anyone who is familiar with this series knows that Jack - particularly the younger Jack - slept around a good deal. He has an illegitimate son he fathered with an African woman, and spent a portion of the first book in bed with the wife of a fellow captain - an act which came back to bite him big time.

In a conversation with Stephen, Jack discusses a fellow captain who just came home to find his wife pregnant by another man. Jack notes that the captain “has never set up for chastity any more than I have,” and Jack reminded him of that. Of course, the captain responded with the double standard: “Oh, it is different for women.” At this point, Jack actually asserts that fair is fair.

And it is. But the problem is that Jack’s emotions do not follow his logic, and later in the book, when he believes (probably incorrectly) that Sophie is cheating on him, he cannot just let it go as “fair is fair.” Ah, such a difficult thing in practice when men are used to the entitlement to sow their oats when and how they like, but woe to the woman who does likewise.

The issue of slavery is front and center for the middle part of the book. O’Brian does not gloss over the horrors of the trade, and there are some very difficult scenes to read. (For what it is worth, I am concurrently reading Homegoing by Yaa Gayasi, which centers around the slave trade and its consequences over the ensuing centuries. Stay tuned for a review on that one.)

At one point, a particular sailor who has been stymied in his advancement is promoted by Jack, who, having a black son, understands that the “African great-grandmother” is the reason this competent seaman has been unable to become a lieutenant despite passing the test.

Another harrowing chapter in this book is the one where Stephen nearly dies of Yellow Fever. Poor Stephen has had a bad run of late, suffering greatly for his love of nature and attempts to collect specimens. Of course, back then, they didn’t know mosquitoes spread the disease, so prevention was difficult at best.

However, Stephen does manage to obtain a Potto, which is a cousin of the Loris. O’Brian manages to sneak some fauna into most of his books, and this is a particularly cute one. 

It isn’t just questions of sex that disquiet Jack in this book. There is also that of the captains he commands. For this mission, Jack is a Commodore and has several ships under his command. However, he mistrusts two of the captains greatly. One of them is a disciplinarian, intent on having the ship look good. But his seamanship is sloppy, his crew ill trained, and their gunnery is unspeakably bad. Another ship has a different problem. The captain is openly homosexual, and has a series of young men in and out of his cabin - men he then favors in front of the other sailors. Jack’s objection to this isn’t the sexuality per se: he likens it to keeping a hooker on board - it destroys morale and discipline, particularly since the captain is involved. He will not be respected if he doesn’t show respect to all his crew. So Jack is uneasy, because he does not have confidence in his captains. The one may face mutiny, and the other may not fight well at all.

Predictably, this leads to serious tension, particularly when the crews of each of the two ships get into it under the influence of adult beverages. One lieutenant insults another, and as noted in Commandment One (see below), if offense is given and no apology is forthcoming, then a duel is inevitable. Sadly, the young men forgot the 11th Commandment - shoot in the air - and they end up killing each other.

(And yes, that was definitely a good enough excuse to link “Ten Duel Commandments.”)

There is a great line before the climactic scene, where Stephen and Jack, each worried for their own reasons, exchange sympathy.

Stephen looked up, and after a moment said, “To a tormented mind there is nothing, I believe, more irritating that comfort. Apart from anything else it often implies superior wisdom in the comforter. But I am very sorry for your trouble, my dear.”

“Thank you, Stephen. Had you told me that there was always a tomorrow, I think I should have thrust your calendar down your throat.”

That’s just outstanding. And true.

One final humorous bit. Jack and Stephen are string players. (The large Jack on violin, the scrawny Stephen on cello.) Many evenings on board are wiled away with duets - and the pieces mentioned are often fun. In this book, Jack asks Stephen (again…) to borrow his rosin.

“I wonder - I have my own reasons for wondering - that a man of your I might almost say wealth, and of your standing, a member of Parliament, high on the post-captain’s list, and well at court, cannot or rather will not afford himself a piece of rosin.”

“You are to consider that I am a family man, Stephen, with a boy to educate and daughters to provide a dowry for, and clothes - half-boots twice and sometimes three times a year. Tippets. When you come to worry about Brigid’s fortune, and Brigid’s tippets, you too may economise on rosin.”

As the guy who always has extra strings, rosin, and a pencil, I sympathise with Stephen. At least my colleagues are great about paying me back.

Anyway, this book was another solid entry in a truly epic series. Unfortunately, I am nearing its end. If you haven’t discovered O’Brian, I do indeed recommend these books. But definitely read them in order.