Masterly

I speak only for myself, mind – it is my own truth alone – but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.

Thus a slightly drunk Stephen Maturin to an even more befuddled James Dillon in their first chance of real conversation on board the Citoyen Durand after they have met again several years after the failed rising of the United Irishmen. It’s part of an extraordinary scene, one I listened to the other day on CD 7 of the Master and Commander set (which I am dragging out as long as possible by repeated playing of individual CDs), the kind of scene that occurs again and again in the Aubrey/Maturin series: just when you think the writing can’t get much better in terms of vivid recreation, at every level, of life in the early nineteenth century, O’Brian hits you with something so rich and illuminating about his characters that you simply want to stand up and cheer. Here it’s the utterly convincing nature of the awkwardness between these two intelligent, decent, humane men as they feel their way towards some kind of accommodation with political and individual failure – and one another - and seek to function in the world.

In these great historical novels O’Brian lets us understand that everything has changed and nothing has changed. This is recognisably our world, though convincingly different even in its most minor details.

Yesterday whilst browsing in a bookshop in which I’d taken refuge during yet another foray to yet another shopping mall in KL (can there ever really be enough of them?) I noticed that there’s a new design for the paperback jackets of the series. The earliest jackets (the Fontana edition) were wonderfully appropriate, possibly the best I’ve ever seen for any series. These were replaced in the mid-nineties by a weaker, but still acceptable design for the HarperCollins. The new design is abominable. No doubt it’s been tested on some panel of ‘consumers’ by some ‘marketing’ department somewhere. I wonder if any of those involved can read? Progress.