Book three in O'Brian's classic Master and Commander series lives up to and exceeds the standards set by the first two books. H.M.S. Surprise continues to follow the adventures, friendships, and loves of Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin. I have thoroughly enjoyed this series for the compelling characters, beautiful prose, and historical attention to naval detail. The chapter in which Dr. Maturin explores 16th century Bombay is some of the most exquisite writing I have read in a long while.
I leave you with a sampling of favorite quotes:
"Yet autumn is a kind of spring, too: for there is never a one but is pushed off by its own next-coming bud."
"Two hundred and fifty-nine men living in promiscuity, extreme promiscuity for the lower-deck, and the two hundred and sixtieth a hermit: of course it was the common lot of captains, it was the naval condition, and like all other lieutenants he had strained every nerve to reach this stark isolation; but admitting the fact made precious little odds to what it felt like."
"do you not find that a spoken language wafts in and out of your mind, leaving little trace unless you anchor it with print?"
"Once he had established that Jack and Hervey were connected with families he knew, he treated them as human beings; all the others as dogs - but as good, quite intelligent dogs in a dog-loving community."
"Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.'"
"They will not be pleased. But they know we must catch the monsoon with a well-found ship; and they know they are in the Navy - they have chosen their cake, and must lie on it."
"I had expected wonders from Bombay; but my heated expectations, founded upon the Arabian Nights, a glimpse of the Moorish towns in Africa, and books of travel, were poor thin insubstantial things compared with the reality."
"I was speaking today with an unclothed Hindu religious, a params-hamsa, on the steps of a Portuguese church, a true gymnosophist; and I remarked that in such a climate wisdom and clothing might bear an inverse proportion to one another."
"This city has immense piety, but old Adam walks about; bodies I have seen, some starved to death, some clubbed, stabbed, or strangled; and in any mercantile city one man's evil is another's good. Yet a materialism that would excite no comment in Dublin or Barcelona shocks the stranger in Bombay."
"A true spit-and-polish frigate, with the highest rate of punishment and desertion in the fleet."
"Gunnery and seamanship come first, and there never was a ship that fought well without she was a happy ship."
"...and when I think that their teeming loins will people the East...Pray pour me out another cup of coffee."
"It occurs to me, that our race must have a natural propensity to ugliness. You are not an ill-looking fellow, and were almost handsome before you were so pierced, blown up and banged by the enemy and so exposed to the elements; and you are to marry a truly beautiful young woman; yet I make no doubt you will between you produce little common babies, that mewl, pewl, and roar all in that same tedious, deeply vulgar, self-centered monotone, drool, cut their teeth, and grow up into plain blockheads."
"War is nine parts boredom, and we grow used to it in the service. But the last hour makes up for all, believe me."
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