Commodore (Paperback)

Enhanced Muze Note

A brilliantly imagined world that one scarcely wishes ever to leave....Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.

Enhanced Muze Note

At the risk of alienating the self-improving reader, let me say that these books are, in fact, extraordinarily exciting, with adventure very much on the page. Patrick O'Brian is indeed the true heir of Captain Marryat (1792-1848), another witty and intelligent writer who has been tarred with the genre brush.

Enhanced Muze Note

One fears that 'The Commodore', the 17th novel by Patrick O'Brian in the Aubrey-Maturin series, will not quite come up to the standard. Fear not.

Enhanced Muze Note

The time of genuine mourning for our civilization's lost values--those values of enlightened humanism, based on loyalty and decency, generosity and honor, which for all their superficial differences Aubrey and Maturin constantly reflect--may indeed be over. But until we have something worthy to replace them, there's still a curious consolation to be found in going through the motions of sailing that lost past over and over at the relaxed narrative pace which is Patrick O'Brian's stylistic signature, so like a calm, deep, grandly serene, only occasionally troubled sea's.