He is a completely flawed man. The books are borderline flawless (will admit when I reread them now I skip the last 2 or 3 because he clearly felt the creep of time and started killing off characters I loved deeply).
>O’Brian as “an artificer” whose work lacked the “frisson” one finds “in the presence of creative greatness”
Absolutely zero idea what that even means. The books are wonderful as escapist superhero stuff, as an entry into British history and as a study of human relationships. "Jane Austen on the high seas" isn't far from the truth. The books track an incredible friendship, a couple of hard-won marriages and the meaning of work. A lot of what I learned/ think about the management of multi-person projects is influenced by Jack Aubrey: you don't necessarily have to be right, but you have to decide if you're going to lead. And trying to manage a team larger than can fit in a longboat is a hard road to choose.
The article skips my favorite funny line, "Your friend has a singular genius for striking the wrong note."
I think she's betraying that her knowledge of his personal character colors her interpretation and experience of his work:
> Why, then, does his work not give me the ultimate frisson I get when I feel I am in the presence of creative greatness, and which constantly moves me as I read the pages of Leo Tolstoy? I think it is because in Tolstoy I know I am confronting fundamental truths, expressed in fiction that has grown organically out of human life, out of history, and out of the author's heart. In O'Brian, on the contrary, I am reading the work of an artificer, a contriver of genius and, well, a liar.
It’s that last line though. All three sound like uncharitable descriptions of the literal job of a fiction author. And all three have implied or explicit negative connotations.
I think the article is not doing a good job quoting the person who said that. You can more here and most of what she says is actually in appreciation of the work itself.
> It might well be argued that if the 20 volumes of the Aubrey-Maturin cycle were to be telescoped into one book, it really would rival War and Peace as a supremely grand historical novel. O'Brian's attention to detail is astonishing, his invention never flags, his characters are rounded, his plots are compelling and he is often wonderfully merry. His saga ranges the world through many years of history, and his prose can be beautiful.
Cutting twenty volumes down into a single, good, book would be a pretty superhuman feat of editing though and certainly not something that can be counted on to happen easily or at all.
In other words, the claim is essentially "I can imagine parts of this series appearing in one really good book".
I also recognized Jack’s incredible management skills! He knows exactly how to get the best work out of people and especially how to correct them without making them feel inferior or resentful.
This element of Jack very much comes from his admiration of Nelson. If you are interested in management at all, Nelson's style of leadership was ground-breaking.
Whereas Jack's feats trials and tribulations very much come from Cochrane. Almost verbatim.
Nelson and Cochrane were true heroes, the finest. Ant yet both had very visible flaws of character. I personally admire their achievements more than we criticise their faults...
I see Jack as his own unique character though. He doesn't quite have the talent for making enemies that Cochrane did.
I loved the Peter Weir adaptation and was always hopeful there would be more, particularly with that ending leaving it open like that. I picked up the first book recently so that I could read through it on vacation. I do tend to agree with Jan Morris in that only people who knew the author have reason to care about his personal life. Of course there are limits, and given the author has been dead for 26 years and the events he is accused of happened 70+ years ago, O'Brian can no longer atone for his past misdeeds. I'm not certain if knowing that O'Brian was a horrible family man will change my enjoyment of the first book, but that remains to be seen. I may not even get through reading it due to other factors, anyway.
I was curious if his family ever wrote about him and his son Richard Russ did in below article. I think this gives a good insight into how his son felt about his father, and particularly how his mother felt until her death.
I still like those books, and, for some reason, that didn't affect me. Other people, however, have. Science fiction/fantasy has a long, turgid history of weird and unsavory authors. I tend to ignore that.
I think books have a firewall between the author and the characters on the page. Actors, however, are a different matter. They are the medium.
I've always enjoyed H P Lovecraft and was disappointed to learn about his racism and xenophobia. AI tells me its was way beyond what was normal at the time.
And, for me, it recontextualizes a lot of his writing knowing his racism. Who he thought "the other" was and how they appeared in his work is colored by who he thought the other was in real life.
Related, I read Lovecraft for the first time a while back and the xenophobia was so overt it was almost humorous.
The story was basically a police detective uncovering ritual cult activity by immigrants (from some unspecified place) in a NY slum. And the narrator (the detective) goes on and on about these strange foreigners and their dark skin, weird languages, heathen religions, etc.
But it only occurred to me after finishing that, though the reader is told from the start that weird cult stuff will ensue, the detective doesn't actually find anything nefarious until pretty late in the story. So with the story's timeline it's mostly just a cop being suspicious of foreigners for being foreign, until many months later he suddenly discovers unspeakable horrors of etc. etc.
The AI is incorrect. Lovecraft's views largely reflected the white societal norm, particularly the "scientific racism" of time, and they softened considerably near the end of his life. His letters from the time mention that several of his earlier depictions of race were unfair. If he hadn't died so young I suspect we would have seen a very significant shift in his views.
I stopped after Malloreon more because my interests changed. Finding out their history hasn’t changed anything for me. But Marion Zimmerman Bradley for some reason has and I have no desire to read any of her books ever again.
I stopped reading Eddings because after a while I realized that all of these fun, bantering characters I so enjoyed were (except for Garion, mostly) truly awful people and that I didn't want to spend any more time with them. That was after I'd re-read them many times, and long before any revelations about the author. (Really, Polgara? Your reaction to being balked is to smash everything in sight? You haven't matured at all in your vastly long life?)
As for MZB, I agree completely. No desire at all.
WRT to O'Brian, though--it's clear, as the OP notes, that he knew his faults, recognizes them in his characters, particularly Maturin, and shows them for what they are. To put it another way, his faults don't "poison" his books from within.
I read Atlas Shrugged recently. I went in not knowing anything about the book or author. I liked it for maybe half way through and despised it by the end. Reading about the author after finishing the book, it had a lot of her personality in it.
I haven't read Master and Commander and likely never will after reading this article. I couldn't get over the bad taste in my mouth I don't think. Fortunate for you to have read the book before the article.
Too many good novels that weren't written by dispicable people.
I think it's a mistake to dismiss them just for that reason. He's been dead for 26 years, and you can get the books second-hand, so it's easy to acquire them while ensuring no money goes to him or his estate if that's what you're worried about. They're an absolutely fantastic set of novels, full of joy and adventure and excitement and humor and astonishing erudition.. Tom Stoppard admired him (as mentioned in the article) and Thomas Pynchon even wrote him into a brief scene in Mason & Dixon.
If I can find more media than I could ever possibly consume that a) I'll love to death, b) has a fan community who loves it with me, and c) is written by authors I don't viscerally reject, why would I ever compromise on those?
Vanishingly few works are so good, so life altering, that I'd need to set aside my qualms with the author to read them. Like, I'm sure master and commander is a fine series of books. I'm sure it's many people's favorite series. There's no lack of historical fiction out there though. And more of it is being written every day. It's not dismissing the work, but it's more like making it a low priority. Once I've consumed all the high priority media ahead of it, I'll read it, it's just.... the amount of high priority media is effectively infinite.
None of his personal failures leak through into his books. It's not like reading someone who injects their abhorrent philosophy or ideology into their book and you're worried it will rub off on you. Imagine if you found out tomorrow that the author of your favorite book ever was an awful person - I don't see why that would change how you feel about the book.
Anyway - yes there is a ton of content out there, more than enough for 100 lifetimes. If you have two hours and eighteen minutes the movie Master And Command: Far Side of the World does the source material good justice and is an excellent film in its own right. It's quite true to the books so it is probably a good predictor of whether you'd enjoy the books.
Really, the article referenced a few snippets of information, none of which is new. Its like the press only knew 5 things about him and they were all bad, so keep going.
I can't bring myself to be so judgemental. He once lost his temper in a restaurant, he left his wife (and maybe she was lovely, maybe she did something terrible), he wrote under an assumed name (and the point?). Which one triggered you? Is hardly a character assassination. His son from his first marriage was estranged, as if that is unique.
Do yourself a favour, if you like the arts, I seriously recommend not finding out what the artists are really like at home. I think you will find many are not the people they appear to be.
I greatly enjoy the pastime of understanding the various takes on the personal lives of artists. Many are quite pleasant humans. I read novels on the subject. "the private lives of the impressionists" by Sue Roe is a fantastic read. I came out of it with a passion for Renoir.
To answer your direct question, I find abandoning a fatally-ill child to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Take a look at the quote from the article in the top comment. He admits himself that the journalism is only the surface of his awful character.
But you don't know the circumstances? Just a statement, and one that may not be true. I've seen good people have a complete breakdown over a sick child. Maybe his wife asked him to go? Who knows.
>He admits himself that the journalism is only the surface of his awful character.
And we are to take it literally? That sounds like English self-deprecation to me.
>I read novels on the subject
If I write a novel that shows Patrick O'brien as a tortured genius whose family didn't understand him, and drove him away, presumably you would change your mind on him too?
Did the novel talk about Renoir's antisemitism? His misogyny towards female painters? His stubborness? His nostalgia for Bourbon France? His treatment of models?
See it's pretty easy to do a character assassination.
He's quoted as saying the truth is worse than the journalism, and you're brushing off the worst part as "may not be true".
It's relevant to the discussion that I care a lot about their romantic relationships ending amicably. It's not the least bit unusual for this to not be the case, and very much open to interpretation regarding their character, but I do care about it personally.
The flaws of Renoir bother me less. I think you or your source are off about his misogyny toward female painters. In fact, I enjoy his story for the very reason of his treatment of the women he was involved with romantically. Perhaps you're confusing him with Manet or Monet, both of whom were bad on that front (Manet guilty of being a womanizer as well). Regardless, even if he was, he was the least misogynistic of the original bunch (Manet, Monet, Pizarro, Degas, etc.), which is good enough for me.
[edit] congrats by the way, you've convinced me that my general outlook on the subject was flawed
>And then it all went bad. The Daily Telegraph, following up on biographical discrepancy in a BBC documentary, uncovered proof that Patrick O’Brian…was not Patrick O’Brian.
About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial things, e.g., how they looked).
I remember mentioning that to a co-worker, when discussing a band I had just learned about and enjoyed, and he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person. I figured if the person was bad enough, the information would get to me somehow.
The "human connection to the artist" is believed to be important by some, but I disagree. People tend to create an image of a musician and are too often disappointed because, for example, they disapprove of the musician's lifestyle (the expression sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll exists for a reason), or because of disagreement with the social or political causes the musicians support. Occasionally, fans follow an artist for their commitment to their art later to discover they sell out, like their style changes to pursue mass appeal, or they sell their work to become a jingle for sugar pops or similar.
I think it is best to appreciate an artist's creation and leave it at that. To quote a film, I think it is best to "separate the art from the artist".
Indeed, unless the artist is some kind of moralist, where i may be concerned about hypocrisy, I believe their public appearance to be part of the act, what they are like at home is none of my business.
I don't, especially when the artist flows into the art.
Take H.P. Lovecraft. Very big name in supernatural horror, created Great Cthulu and various other tropes that survive and are influential to today. Famously misogynistic and racist. Particularly on the racism side it's not really even fair to say he was 'of his time', it seems to go beyond that.
And it's all there in the fiction. Fear of the other, racist tropes about clothing and appearance and mistrust of women. The works are pretty amazing, he spins an atmosphere so well. His ideas of horrors beyond time and space are well realised (with a lot of emphasis on what is not seen) and his dreamy fantasy sequences really work and draw me into a dreamlike state. But they're all run through with racist stereotypes about people (or demons) with darker skin or racialised features.
Does this mean no Cthulu for anyone? I don't believe that's a good answer either, but I also don't believe one should consume the art in ignorance.
(And I very much enjoyed reading Lovecraft Country a few years back)
The interesting thing about Lovecraft is that, despite all those racist tropes you mentioned, he actually tried to make horror that wasn't about fear of falling down the evolutionary ladder. This idea was absolutely everywhere for at least 100 years, and Lovecraft definitely perpetuated it sometimes. But he did actually try to find horror in completely different ideas.
So, despite his own extreme personal racism, he probably managed to shift the culture away from at least one very racially-loaded trope.
Some authors are indeed very hard to separate from their work, and Lovecraft is one of them.
I still enjoy reading him, but I always struggle reading his passages about mongrels, halfbreeds or dark skinned people being evil or deceitful, because that's what he truly believed. So yes, it flowed into what he wrote.
A much less odious -- and better! -- writer who I also had trouble with was Jack London, who also wrote some racist descriptions of blacks and Native Americans, doubly troubling because he was a socialist.
I get what you're saying. The problem is that I cannot stand ironic (or otherwise) racists comments on 4chan, so reading it like that wouldn't be a saving grace for Lovecraft. I actually find 4chan more grating.
I appreciate Lovecraft, especially for the influence it had on other writers, on comics, tabletop and video games; and some of this stories are pretty good (e.g. The Color Out of Space, The Outsider). But it's really hard to swallow his racism and xenophobia, especially since as mentioned by others, it cannot simply be excused by saying he was "a man of his time". He was xenophobic even for his time.
I guess you have to have the right outlook for it. An ironic comment is (supposed to be) funny because it makes you think "haha, what if someone actually said that?" In Lovecraft's case there's no irony to it, so I think it helps to try to empathize with him. Why is he like this? He's not just some monster that hates/fears people for no reason. There must be a reason, and it's probably either his upbringing or his lifestyle. At that point, at least for me, it can no longer evoke disgust, and it just causes either pity or laughter, like listening to a flat-earther.
> he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person.
I don't consider that to be something worth worrying about. On the contrary, I find the obsession that some have with moral purity and not ever supporting the wrong type of person to be a serious mark of immaturity. Every person, without exception, is a collection of both good and bad traits. I believe that the adult thing to do is to encourage and reward the good, while discouraging and punishing the bad. When I support an artist's work, I do not thereby endorse everything that person does. I think that the desire to reduce everyone to "good guy" or "bad guy" (and acting towards them accordingly) is literally the sort of thing one would expect from a child, not an adult who has learned to have some nuance in thinking.
Someone pointed it out to me that, if a person does something bad and faces the consequences by law, then that should be the end of it. Applying a personal punishment individually like avoiding anything they have involved in, is pointless or even unfair.
It can’t apply to all scenarios. But that struck me as an important thing to consider. Sometimes people get out of the consequences by using the riches they accumulated by being bad.
Why are we even thinking about "fairness" in this context? It's not like we read every book in the world, in order to be fair to all authors. Or all genres, all qualities, all equally. You have to make some choices and actually make every second a choice, to pick a book, to pick it up, to continue it after page 100...
I think the desire to not have to be accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world is also childlike, personally.
One of the powers we have in this capitalist world is to decide where our money goes. If there's a decent chance it'll end up perpetuating something I find massively objectionable, it's my choice not to fund that.
Beyond that it's not just about reducing everything to good or bad, it's also about understanding the context of the works you're consuming. Sometimes the author's life, prejudices and mores seep into the work, and put a new spin on the characters and scenarios.
> One of the powers we have in this capitalist world is to decide where our money goes. If there's a decent chance it'll end up perpetuating something I find massively objectionable, it's my choice not to fund that.
“I believe that almost everyone fails to completely understand how badly they need the people they can’t stand.”
Eh, I'm not watching a video to see a quote from someone I've never heard of and have no particular reason to value.
And whatever he might have to say, I'm not reliant on the work of a specific author, which is the context here.
Nor do I buy into "you can't survive without relying on/funding some people you disagree with therefore you shouldn't seek to act consistently with your own ethics in any regard" as a philosophy.
> Eh, I'm not watching a video to see a quote from someone I've never heard of and have no particular reason to value.
Your loss.
> Nor do I buy into "you can't survive without relying on/funding some people you disagree with therefore you shouldn't seek to act consistently with your own ethics in any regard" as a philosophy.
But what exactly is your ethics here? Is it that nobody should rely on people who have done something bad? If it is, then how should these condemned people live? And if not, would you then happily allow other people to rely on them, without decrying those people, as well?
Seems unlikely. I'd have read an argument but I don't generally consider links-to-youtube to be an argument.
> Is it that nobody should rely on people who have done something bad?
My point is it's not impossible to make ethical choices about spending, even in a world where you don't have full control.
The idea that it is wrong to make ethical decisions about how to spend your money, time or attention, either because the system we live in makes complete consistency impossible or because of some notion that we might force people judged as bad to starve, is just so bizarre.
A thread here the other day covered several brands of "Italian" or "Australian" tomato paste in Australia that have been caught using Chinese tomatoes, which are largely from areas we know use forced labour. I don't approve of forced labour and I'm willing to pay a little more to avoid contributing to that. If enough others join me, it might make a small difference. By directing what economic activity I can to products from nations with good standards of worker rights, I hope I help keep slavery-free products viable, until such time as we get a government with a backbone.
But am I boycotting everything made in China? Could I even conceptually avoid using all Chinese products when they're literally everywhere? No, that seems very unlikely to even be possible in this day and age. But I don't consider that the inability to do that negates the choices I make where I can. Your quote makes it seem like you do think that? All or nothing? Go live in a locally made yurt and grow your own food or just give up?
> If it is, then how should these condemned people live?
Well if there's no more profit to be had in selling the output of indentured servitude, it might stop? And these "condemned" people could do something else to make a living rather than being slavers?
If a particular author was known to be (for example) funding white supremacist groups, am I supposed to feel guilt that I might not buy their book? Why? They need to eat? Maybe they could stop the funding then?
Now, where your specific red lines are is going to be variable, and where it comes to artistic output things are always blurry. But I still don't think it's wrong to ask "Where is my money going? What second order effect is this purchase having on the world?"
An author who abandoned his family and lied about large parts of his life is clearly not a good person. Whether that puts you off reading them is up to you. I still (occasionally) reread HP Lovecraft, with the knowledge he was a pretty godawful racist, even for his times, and so is some of his work. That said, buying a book of his isn't going to fund him or his views these days, as there is no identifiable estate.
I think boycotts are effectively useless. If you disagree, can you name a few, or even one, consumer-level boycott in, say, the last 50 years, which actually accomplished its goal? Accomplished by the actual boycott alone, I mean.
Boycotts are, as I understand it, only a way for you to feel that you still are morally pure. But the counterargument is that it is impossible to be actually morally pure. When you last needed, say, a plumber, did you know how they voted before you engaged them? How does your electricity company CEO vote? How about your local grocery store cashier? If you would actually go though every single thing and person that you depend on, and boycotted every one who is a terrible person or organization, you would not be able to live.
Therefore, boycotts are doubly bad: They don’t accomplish anything, but they feel useful, and therefore they rob you of any incentive or energy to do anything actually useful, like changing relevant laws. Also, many people go at least one step further, and denounce people who simply do not participate in their pet boycotts.
Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system.
And doing so certainly wouldn’t make me less likely to vote for a party promising to address the issue.
And I mean, isn’t this just how capitalism works? Buy stuff you want to see more of? Don’t buy things you don’t like. I try to buy local when I can, because I like local produce and I want the local economy to thrive. It’s just taking an active role in the feedback mechanisms that exist around us and deciding where you want to put your very small level of personal influence.
> can you name a few, or even one, consumer-level boycott in, say, the last 50 years, which actually accomplished its goal?
The Bud Light Boycott of 2023 springs immediately to mind. Not that I agree with the people doing the boycotting, or would drink bud light anyway, but it certainly made the company backpedal.
> Boycotts are, as I understand it, only a way for you to feel that you still are morally pure
Then I guess you don’t understand very much, and you certainly don’t understand my posts higher up if you think I’m demanding moral purity of myself or anyone else.
To me, this all just sounds like a justification for your own lack of conscientiousness.
> Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system.
Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even the total number of people participating in this boycott will not change a single thing.
> The Bud Light Boycott of 2023 springs to mind. Not that I agree with the people doing the boycotting, but it certainly made the company backpedal.
Unlikely, since, from what I hear, the brand everyone switched to was owned by the same company. The most a boycott can accomplish is a public statement, no actual change. Also, this statement was a result of the publicity, not the boycott itself. The company fought publicity with publicity by making a public statement of their own.
> you certainly don’t understand my posts higher up if you think I’m demanding moral purity of myself or anyone else.
You did say that those not participating in boycotts should be held “accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world”.
> To me, this all just sounds like a justification for your own lack of conscientiousness.
> O’Brian’s ear for dialogue produced some of his finest comedy. From The 13 Gun Salute (1989):
>
> “A lovely young woman indeed, Heaven,” said Jack. “Mrs Heaven, if I do not mistake?”
> “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.”
> “There is a great deal to be said for porcupines, Heaven: Solomon had a thousand, and Solomon knew what o’clock it was.”
>
> Or from The Yellow Admiral (1996):
>
> Stephen nodded, and with a curiously knowing look, his head on one side, he asked, > “Can you foretell the dark of the moon with reasonable accuracy?”
> “I believe so,” said Jack. “Her motions are of some importance in navigation you know, and we learn them quite early.”
I just read this one. The other thing that's going on is that Stephen has a secret mission that requires him to be put on shore in France, so he wants to do that during a new moon. The question is Stephen's adorable way of "encrypting" that question so as not to reveal the mission to the rest of the crew.
Imagine that you were in a big meeting and you wanted an excuse to leave, so you whispered to your co-worker "Do you think my phone can receive messages in this room?" And he replied "Phones are the foundation of modern telecommunication infrastructure and we're in a large city, I assure you that you will promptly receive any messages that are sent to you."
Funnily enough I think it is much less funny out of context. It is an in-joke that Stephen has picked up very little of nautical life, despite being on ship for many years.
I honestly thought concubine would fit in here to make the joke but without other clues, dismissed the idea. I wonder why the writer picked this as an example of the author’s supposed humor skills. It seems rather contrived.
Even charitably, we’d have to be super familiar with everything the author has written to understand than Heaven could mistake porcupine for concubine.
I had a similar author shock when I learned James Herriot’s books were not the autobiographies I thought they were but instead were the fictionalized compilations of stories from multiple veterinarians. I had such a great time reading the books as a young man and was dismayed to learn they weren’t authentic. I appreciated learning the truth but wondered if perhaps believing the lie would’ve been better for something relatively unimportant.
A practising vet introduced me to Herriot. He told me they were like PG Wodehouse but with animals.
Surely the enjoyment they provided was that counts: why stress out over "authenticity."
(Banksy comes to mind for some reason: he vandalises property over various causes and no one questions his authenticity. Does anyone think he's suffered like the caricatures he depicts?)
I think they remain enjoyable even as fictional; I just would’ve preferred having them described that way to me at the start rather than the pretense of them being autobiographical.
I dunno. In the case of Herriot, whose books I utterly love, I only half believed in my teenage years they were truly autobiographical (too funny, too neat to be true), and I wasn't surprised when I found they weren't. Well, they have some tidbits from his actual life, but yeah, a blend of multiple stories, some from others, some made up.
I still believe they are undiminished as books and enjoy them from time to time.
Some things hit harder when you know stuff from his real life, for example those stories about depressed people (I remember the story of the young man who takes his own life when his dog dies, and how cheerful he seemed) and then I read the real Herriot suffered from depression. So I guess he was somewhat writing about himself?
Also, somewhat contradicting what I said above, the stories might be fictional but they ring true of the English countryside and the farmers of the transitional time Herriot describes. That the stories aren't literally true doesn't detract from that. It's a bit like what American author Tim O'Brien explores in his writings, that verosimilitude can be as important, if not more, than actual truth.
I don't know if Herriot was a vet in real life. If he was and suffered from depression it wouldn't surprise me.
I have seen statistics which state that vets more likely to commit suicide than GPs.
And the story about the young man and his dog rings true. A close friend always breaks up when he remembers how he had to put down his dog due to cancer.
Excellent books, full of understated spectacle and really excellent wordplay. If you get into them you may want to pick up "A Sea of Words" as a guide to some of the more esoteric terminology. Pretty much guaranteed you'll be stumped quite a few times in every book.
One of the great things about reading on the Kindle is that you can just highlight the esoteric words and the dictionary will explain it to you. Or you can use wikipedia if you need more info.
It's genuinely a great feature, especially when reading in non-native languages. (Can also translate the words then as needed)
I read the whole series on the Kindle about 10 years ago and the obscure nautical words were not in the Kindle's internal dictionary. It would try to connect to an online service to look up those words, but that doesn't help if you are on an airplane. Has the dictionary grown more comprehensive in newer Kindle models?
The scenes with shipwrecks always stood out to me. One ship was lost during a storm with all hands, and he simply ended the chapter with something like "My god, 600 men..."
> really excellent wordplay.
I am a rather simple man, like Jack. One of my favorites remains:
“Two weevils crept from the crumbs.
‘You see those weevils, Stephen?’ said Jack solemnly.
‘I do.’
‘Which would you choose?’
‘There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.’
‘But suppose you had to choose?’
‘Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.’
‘There I have you,’ cried Jack. ‘You are bit – you are completely dished. Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!”
-
I've found myself cracking up with Jack so many times. A truly excellent series that I'm actually currently re-reading :)
Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C.
After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare.
I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill.
Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.
Such an abrupt, visceral sense of revulsion after an otherwise pleasant anecdote. Like finding a used band-aid at the bottom of your plate of comfy stew.
That can be difficult, depending on who the "author" may be.
I still love Apple, even though Steve Jobs was a ... shall we say ... complicated ... man; but I have a problem, watching certain movies or TV shows, because the actors or producers got up to some unsavory hijinks.
Pretty much every single person whose name is commonly known or read about in history books is complicated in that way. Some clearly have no saving graces but most have some mix of admirable and unsavory qualities, especially if you judge them in their own time.
It’s Jack talking through his hat again. I think he’s trying to determine if a woman is married or not and when it turns out they having a roving eye, he conflates “porcupine” (no idea what a porcupine-lay might be) with “concubine”.
So: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.”
Translates to: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the concubine-occupation, the roving-line [of work], if you understand me.”
Then Jack, not wanting to embarrass Heaven for his malapropism, intentionaly reuses "porcupine" incorrectly.
I started reading the first book (and since stopped as I wasn't ready for the detailed nautical terminology), but one thing really jarred me was, in this section of very dry terminology when setting up a ship for sail, the use of the 'olde' terminology for 'cut splice'.
It's great that he uses the time specific terminology, but it threw me because I really wasn't expecting that word at that time.
It's become my favourite knot to reference though, because I'm still a child.
If you enjoyed that experience, read The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (5 books, 1-2 and 3-4 commonly printed as combined volumes: Shadow & Claw, Sword & Citadel, The Urth of the New Sun). I re-read them this spring, and they remain among the top ~3 series I've ever (re-)read.
I'm slowly collecting this set of novels from various second-hand book shops, and I'm looking forward to reading them in order, most likely some time in retirement. I'm happy not to know anything about the author, reading is all about the suspension of disbelief, so I will continue to let myself have that outlet.
Forgetting the infelicities of Patrick Russ is reasonable because he's both dead and his estate isn't (to my knowledge) funneling money from the sale of his books to odious causes. Would that I could say the same about other authors.
I don't get this examination of the character of the man, an extremely private man, behind the books. I don't think he ever held himself as an example to people. He didn't claim to be a role model. He stayed private, so private that every time we see an article like that we just get the same tiny snippets. We have little idea what he was really like and frankly i have little interest. Great books, the end
I have read somewhere that there is a whole separate book that explains the nautical terminology used in the books, which was recommended as a reference to keep by ones side whilst reading the books. I wonder if it also applies to porcupine-lay or roving line.
I had no idea floccinaucihipilification was a real word. I saw it in a fake spelling bee for a commercial decades ago and assumed it was just a comically long fake word.
It was invented as a comically long fake word, but gained enough currency to be used in real writing, though in a tongue-in-cheek way.
It's a Latin calque. I'm sure the spelling should be floccipaucinihil... from pauci, few and nihil, nothing - you and the reviewer have used spellings that differ from this and from each other, but I doubt O'Brian did.
I find it difficult to understand the immaturity of not being able to separate the art and artist. It’s really not difficult. I think some of it is performative for signaling to one’s peers that they are on the “right side” of some issue or imagined virtue.
It's not about immature people being unable to separate art from artist because it's difficult. The issue is whether it's the right thing to do.
I feel pretty confident that I could describe to you a case (either real or hypothetical) where you would reject an artist based on their personal behavior, rather than their art. You would find it quite difficult in such a case to separate the two.
So the question is where to draw the line, and everyone answers that question differently.
What you are doing is not maturity, but compartmentalisation. If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia, or Roman Polanski’s repeated rape accusations, you are choosing willful ignorance, especially since often the artist’s status and fame make their criminal behaviour possible and provides them shelter from prosecution.
I myself am far from innocent of this. For more than 20 years Polanski has been, and in many ways still is, my favourite film maker. Repulsion, Tenant, Chinatown etc. are masterpieces of cinema. But they are inherently, even on plot level (at least in the case of Chinatown) intertwined with the horror of his actions. There is no virtue signalling in my personal connection to his set of work (who would even care anyway), but for me to continue pretend I know nothing about his behaviour or that it doesn’t directly inflect upon his work would be deeply dishonest.
I too thought of Polanski (Roman, not Zac) while reading these threads. I’m not sure the comparison or perhaps, the parallel holds though. PO’b may have been a bad husband. Or he may have been married to a bad wife. Or maybe they were both a bit rough. I don’t know an any real evidence either way, and life has taught me that it’s hard to see inside the truth of other people’s relationships. I have trouble enough with my own, and I’m present in real-time!
Polanski R is not the same thing. He drugged and raped a child and was defended for decades by people who ought to know better because of his directorial genius. I don’t dispute that genius. I just can’t watch his movies again without feeling a little sick.
All of this to say, judging Polanski for being a monster is not the same as judging PO’b for being a jerk. I reread the Aubrey-Maturin novels every four or five years and they enrich my life on every occasion. And I don’t feel even slightly bad about it.
(Disappointingly, I did lose an argument over a big family dinner several years ago when it turned it that tracklement is a neologism. Imagine my embarrassment!)
I hoped it obvious that I am not comparing being a liar and a bad family man to being a serial rapist (unsurprisingly there is quite few allegations of this exact same behaviour against Polanski). I simply used Polanski and MJ as obvious examples of A) why not separating the art and artist absolutely is not just “immature virtue signaling” B) how people loving the art are able to compartmentalise the evidence and suffering of the victims to keep enjoying the art, meanwhile making any justice very difficult.
There’s artist with whom we can “forget everything else”, then there’s not. Where one draws the line, well, I suppose that up to one’s own discretion, but I would recommend offering a serious thought on where oneself draws the line.
ah, my apologies. I read more than you wrote. I think you and I are probably more in agreement than not. I read a book last year, "Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People" by Claire Dederer, on this topic. Good in parts. Left me hanging. She talks a lot about several probably bad people, Polanski, Woody Allen, Picasso etc. But she never seems to hit a conclusion. Maybe that's the answer; there is no easy, pat answer. You just have to push through each case, as you find it, according to your judgement at the time.
While writing this, I dug out a Reddit thread about the book, where one of the participants (YakSlothLemon FTW!) hits us with Wagner. Well, yes, game over. I'm not a fan of that sort of (to my ears) overcooked opera, but if you like it, play it. The dirtbag isn't getting any royalties because he's good and dead.
Well after that article and these comments, I need to burn a lot of books, art and music that I once loved.
I used to love Millais' 'Ophelia', but he now seems arrogant and even bedded his patrons wife. The scandal. On the fire.
I used to love the Rolling Stones, but it seems they took drugs and held concerts organised by an organised crime group. On the fire.
Master and Commander was one of the most touching and uplifting reads of my life, all at a tragic time for me. But he left his wife, didn't like talking about his past and wrote under a book de plume, it seems. On the fire.
I loved Oscar Wilde's work, but the rogue was a jail bird, and very arrogant. On the fire
Can we compile an approved list of quality works from faultless individuals? I don't want to be sullied by their human faults...AI slop to the rescue
I'm not religious, but this quote often comes to mind in these situations, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone." Clearly everyone else is perfect, and only these authors had faults.
As a percentage, most of my 'reading' has been outputs of frontier AI models. Need to increase my ratio of consuming human-written and human-produced text. Sometimes I fear drifting away from the 'core reality' of everyday life here in the US Midwest given how much I use AI.
He is a completely flawed man. The books are borderline flawless (will admit when I reread them now I skip the last 2 or 3 because he clearly felt the creep of time and started killing off characters I loved deeply).
>O’Brian as “an artificer” whose work lacked the “frisson” one finds “in the presence of creative greatness”
Absolutely zero idea what that even means. The books are wonderful as escapist superhero stuff, as an entry into British history and as a study of human relationships. "Jane Austen on the high seas" isn't far from the truth. The books track an incredible friendship, a couple of hard-won marriages and the meaning of work. A lot of what I learned/ think about the management of multi-person projects is influenced by Jack Aubrey: you don't necessarily have to be right, but you have to decide if you're going to lead. And trying to manage a team larger than can fit in a longboat is a hard road to choose.
The article skips my favorite funny line, "Your friend has a singular genius for striking the wrong note."
I think the quoted sentence is basically saying his work is workman like and doesn't cause the chills that reading something truly great does.
(I don't agree)
I think she's betraying that her knowledge of his personal character colors her interpretation and experience of his work:
> Why, then, does his work not give me the ultimate frisson I get when I feel I am in the presence of creative greatness, and which constantly moves me as I read the pages of Leo Tolstoy? I think it is because in Tolstoy I know I am confronting fundamental truths, expressed in fiction that has grown organically out of human life, out of history, and out of the author's heart. In O'Brian, on the contrary, I am reading the work of an artificer, a contriver of genius and, well, a liar.
From https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/03/biography (link posted elsewhere, though not before I had to resort to using ChatGPT to dredge it up).
It’s that last line though. All three sound like uncharitable descriptions of the literal job of a fiction author. And all three have implied or explicit negative connotations.
I think the article is not doing a good job quoting the person who said that. You can more here and most of what she says is actually in appreciation of the work itself.
> It might well be argued that if the 20 volumes of the Aubrey-Maturin cycle were to be telescoped into one book, it really would rival War and Peace as a supremely grand historical novel. O'Brian's attention to detail is astonishing, his invention never flags, his characters are rounded, his plots are compelling and he is often wonderfully merry. His saga ranges the world through many years of history, and his prose can be beautiful.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/03/biography
Cutting twenty volumes down into a single, good, book would be a pretty superhuman feat of editing though and certainly not something that can be counted on to happen easily or at all.
In other words, the claim is essentially "I can imagine parts of this series appearing in one really good book".
I also recognized Jack’s incredible management skills! He knows exactly how to get the best work out of people and especially how to correct them without making them feel inferior or resentful.
This element of Jack very much comes from his admiration of Nelson. If you are interested in management at all, Nelson's style of leadership was ground-breaking.
Whereas Jack's feats trials and tribulations very much come from Cochrane. Almost verbatim.
Nelson and Cochrane were true heroes, the finest. Ant yet both had very visible flaws of character. I personally admire their achievements more than we criticise their faults...
I see Jack as his own unique character though. He doesn't quite have the talent for making enemies that Cochrane did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane,_10th_Earl_of_...
Can you recommend anything to read about Nelson that touches on his management?
Well Jack is great, but surely not in the same level. Nelson could do it all with one arm behind his back.
And what he has in someone like Pullings as the details/ implementation man for Jack’s C-suite visions.
I loved the Peter Weir adaptation and was always hopeful there would be more, particularly with that ending leaving it open like that. I picked up the first book recently so that I could read through it on vacation. I do tend to agree with Jan Morris in that only people who knew the author have reason to care about his personal life. Of course there are limits, and given the author has been dead for 26 years and the events he is accused of happened 70+ years ago, O'Brian can no longer atone for his past misdeeds. I'm not certain if knowing that O'Brian was a horrible family man will change my enjoyment of the first book, but that remains to be seen. I may not even get through reading it due to other factors, anyway.
I was curious if his family ever wrote about him and his son Richard Russ did in below article. I think this gives a good insight into how his son felt about his father, and particularly how his mother felt until her death.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/28/fiction.film
I think the best heuristic for separating artist from their work is: How much does the artist try to put their own personality into it?
Woody Allen films are very much soaked through with Woody Allen. I don't get the sense that O'Brian's books are to the same degree.
You have to question what of the person filtered through to their works.
As a teen I voraciously read my way through the Belgariad, and later the Malloreon, Elenium and the Tamuli.
Shocked to learn that Eddings and his wife were both convicted and jailed for child abuse prior to writing those novels.
I still like those books, and, for some reason, that didn't affect me. Other people, however, have. Science fiction/fantasy has a long, turgid history of weird and unsavory authors. I tend to ignore that.
I think books have a firewall between the author and the characters on the page. Actors, however, are a different matter. They are the medium.
I've always enjoyed H P Lovecraft and was disappointed to learn about his racism and xenophobia. AI tells me its was way beyond what was normal at the time.
And, for me, it recontextualizes a lot of his writing knowing his racism. Who he thought "the other" was and how they appeared in his work is colored by who he thought the other was in real life.
Related, I read Lovecraft for the first time a while back and the xenophobia was so overt it was almost humorous.
The story was basically a police detective uncovering ritual cult activity by immigrants (from some unspecified place) in a NY slum. And the narrator (the detective) goes on and on about these strange foreigners and their dark skin, weird languages, heathen religions, etc.
But it only occurred to me after finishing that, though the reader is told from the start that weird cult stuff will ensue, the detective doesn't actually find anything nefarious until pretty late in the story. So with the story's timeline it's mostly just a cop being suspicious of foreigners for being foreign, until many months later he suddenly discovers unspeakable horrors of etc. etc.
The AI is incorrect. Lovecraft's views largely reflected the white societal norm, particularly the "scientific racism" of time, and they softened considerably near the end of his life. His letters from the time mention that several of his earlier depictions of race were unfair. If he hadn't died so young I suspect we would have seen a very significant shift in his views.
> AI tells me
You are using AI to form personal opinions?
<speechless>
I stopped after Malloreon more because my interests changed. Finding out their history hasn’t changed anything for me. But Marion Zimmerman Bradley for some reason has and I have no desire to read any of her books ever again.
I stopped reading Eddings because after a while I realized that all of these fun, bantering characters I so enjoyed were (except for Garion, mostly) truly awful people and that I didn't want to spend any more time with them. That was after I'd re-read them many times, and long before any revelations about the author. (Really, Polgara? Your reaction to being balked is to smash everything in sight? You haven't matured at all in your vastly long life?)
As for MZB, I agree completely. No desire at all.
WRT to O'Brian, though--it's clear, as the OP notes, that he knew his faults, recognizes them in his characters, particularly Maturin, and shows them for what they are. To put it another way, his faults don't "poison" his books from within.
I read Atlas Shrugged recently. I went in not knowing anything about the book or author. I liked it for maybe half way through and despised it by the end. Reading about the author after finishing the book, it had a lot of her personality in it.
I haven't read Master and Commander and likely never will after reading this article. I couldn't get over the bad taste in my mouth I don't think. Fortunate for you to have read the book before the article.
Too many good novels that weren't written by dispicable people.
I think it's a mistake to dismiss them just for that reason. He's been dead for 26 years, and you can get the books second-hand, so it's easy to acquire them while ensuring no money goes to him or his estate if that's what you're worried about. They're an absolutely fantastic set of novels, full of joy and adventure and excitement and humor and astonishing erudition.. Tom Stoppard admired him (as mentioned in the article) and Thomas Pynchon even wrote him into a brief scene in Mason & Dixon.
If I can find more media than I could ever possibly consume that a) I'll love to death, b) has a fan community who loves it with me, and c) is written by authors I don't viscerally reject, why would I ever compromise on those?
Vanishingly few works are so good, so life altering, that I'd need to set aside my qualms with the author to read them. Like, I'm sure master and commander is a fine series of books. I'm sure it's many people's favorite series. There's no lack of historical fiction out there though. And more of it is being written every day. It's not dismissing the work, but it's more like making it a low priority. Once I've consumed all the high priority media ahead of it, I'll read it, it's just.... the amount of high priority media is effectively infinite.
None of his personal failures leak through into his books. It's not like reading someone who injects their abhorrent philosophy or ideology into their book and you're worried it will rub off on you. Imagine if you found out tomorrow that the author of your favorite book ever was an awful person - I don't see why that would change how you feel about the book.
Anyway - yes there is a ton of content out there, more than enough for 100 lifetimes. If you have two hours and eighteen minutes the movie Master And Command: Far Side of the World does the source material good justice and is an excellent film in its own right. It's quite true to the books so it is probably a good predictor of whether you'd enjoy the books.
>c) is written by authors I don't viscerally reject, why would I ever compromise on those?
just curious, but how much research do you put into the background of any author to determine if their moral status matches with your requirements?
Really, the article referenced a few snippets of information, none of which is new. Its like the press only knew 5 things about him and they were all bad, so keep going.
I can't bring myself to be so judgemental. He once lost his temper in a restaurant, he left his wife (and maybe she was lovely, maybe she did something terrible), he wrote under an assumed name (and the point?). Which one triggered you? Is hardly a character assassination. His son from his first marriage was estranged, as if that is unique.
Do yourself a favour, if you like the arts, I seriously recommend not finding out what the artists are really like at home. I think you will find many are not the people they appear to be.
I greatly enjoy the pastime of understanding the various takes on the personal lives of artists. Many are quite pleasant humans. I read novels on the subject. "the private lives of the impressionists" by Sue Roe is a fantastic read. I came out of it with a passion for Renoir.
To answer your direct question, I find abandoning a fatally-ill child to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Take a look at the quote from the article in the top comment. He admits himself that the journalism is only the surface of his awful character.
But you don't know the circumstances? Just a statement, and one that may not be true. I've seen good people have a complete breakdown over a sick child. Maybe his wife asked him to go? Who knows.
>He admits himself that the journalism is only the surface of his awful character.
And we are to take it literally? That sounds like English self-deprecation to me.
>I read novels on the subject
If I write a novel that shows Patrick O'brien as a tortured genius whose family didn't understand him, and drove him away, presumably you would change your mind on him too?
Did the novel talk about Renoir's antisemitism? His misogyny towards female painters? His stubborness? His nostalgia for Bourbon France? His treatment of models?
See it's pretty easy to do a character assassination.
He's quoted as saying the truth is worse than the journalism, and you're brushing off the worst part as "may not be true".
It's relevant to the discussion that I care a lot about their romantic relationships ending amicably. It's not the least bit unusual for this to not be the case, and very much open to interpretation regarding their character, but I do care about it personally.
The flaws of Renoir bother me less. I think you or your source are off about his misogyny toward female painters. In fact, I enjoy his story for the very reason of his treatment of the women he was involved with romantically. Perhaps you're confusing him with Manet or Monet, both of whom were bad on that front (Manet guilty of being a womanizer as well). Regardless, even if he was, he was the least misogynistic of the original bunch (Manet, Monet, Pizarro, Degas, etc.), which is good enough for me.
[edit] congrats by the way, you've convinced me that my general outlook on the subject was flawed
I think it's not to absurd to view these books as his channel to redemption.
>And then it all went bad. The Daily Telegraph, following up on biographical discrepancy in a BBC documentary, uncovered proof that Patrick O’Brian…was not Patrick O’Brian.
About 15 years ago, I decided to know as little as possible about the musicians/artists/writers whose work I was consuming, because I didn't want my enjoyment of their work to be influenced or spoiled by what I knew about them (even superficial things, e.g., how they looked).
I remember mentioning that to a co-worker, when discussing a band I had just learned about and enjoyed, and he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person. I figured if the person was bad enough, the information would get to me somehow.
The "human connection to the artist" is believed to be important by some, but I disagree. People tend to create an image of a musician and are too often disappointed because, for example, they disapprove of the musician's lifestyle (the expression sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll exists for a reason), or because of disagreement with the social or political causes the musicians support. Occasionally, fans follow an artist for their commitment to their art later to discover they sell out, like their style changes to pursue mass appeal, or they sell their work to become a jingle for sugar pops or similar.
I think it is best to appreciate an artist's creation and leave it at that. To quote a film, I think it is best to "separate the art from the artist".
Indeed, unless the artist is some kind of moralist, where i may be concerned about hypocrisy, I believe their public appearance to be part of the act, what they are like at home is none of my business.
I don't, especially when the artist flows into the art.
Take H.P. Lovecraft. Very big name in supernatural horror, created Great Cthulu and various other tropes that survive and are influential to today. Famously misogynistic and racist. Particularly on the racism side it's not really even fair to say he was 'of his time', it seems to go beyond that.
And it's all there in the fiction. Fear of the other, racist tropes about clothing and appearance and mistrust of women. The works are pretty amazing, he spins an atmosphere so well. His ideas of horrors beyond time and space are well realised (with a lot of emphasis on what is not seen) and his dreamy fantasy sequences really work and draw me into a dreamlike state. But they're all run through with racist stereotypes about people (or demons) with darker skin or racialised features.
Does this mean no Cthulu for anyone? I don't believe that's a good answer either, but I also don't believe one should consume the art in ignorance.
(And I very much enjoyed reading Lovecraft Country a few years back)
The interesting thing about Lovecraft is that, despite all those racist tropes you mentioned, he actually tried to make horror that wasn't about fear of falling down the evolutionary ladder. This idea was absolutely everywhere for at least 100 years, and Lovecraft definitely perpetuated it sometimes. But he did actually try to find horror in completely different ideas.
So, despite his own extreme personal racism, he probably managed to shift the culture away from at least one very racially-loaded trope.
Some authors are indeed very hard to separate from their work, and Lovecraft is one of them.
I still enjoy reading him, but I always struggle reading his passages about mongrels, halfbreeds or dark skinned people being evil or deceitful, because that's what he truly believed. So yes, it flowed into what he wrote.
A much less odious -- and better! -- writer who I also had trouble with was Jack London, who also wrote some racist descriptions of blacks and Native Americans, doubly troubling because he was a socialist.
I drink it all in. It enhances the art for me while making sure I sharpen my own ethics (“don’t ever wanna believe the B.S. this person did.”)
I couldn't really stand Lovecraft's style, but I'm with you. I'd read it like I read an ironic racist comment on 4chan and chuckle to myself.
I get what you're saying. The problem is that I cannot stand ironic (or otherwise) racists comments on 4chan, so reading it like that wouldn't be a saving grace for Lovecraft. I actually find 4chan more grating.
I appreciate Lovecraft, especially for the influence it had on other writers, on comics, tabletop and video games; and some of this stories are pretty good (e.g. The Color Out of Space, The Outsider). But it's really hard to swallow his racism and xenophobia, especially since as mentioned by others, it cannot simply be excused by saying he was "a man of his time". He was xenophobic even for his time.
I guess you have to have the right outlook for it. An ironic comment is (supposed to be) funny because it makes you think "haha, what if someone actually said that?" In Lovecraft's case there's no irony to it, so I think it helps to try to empathize with him. Why is he like this? He's not just some monster that hates/fears people for no reason. There must be a reason, and it's probably either his upbringing or his lifestyle. At that point, at least for me, it can no longer evoke disgust, and it just causes either pity or laughter, like listening to a flat-earther.
> he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person.
I don't consider that to be something worth worrying about. On the contrary, I find the obsession that some have with moral purity and not ever supporting the wrong type of person to be a serious mark of immaturity. Every person, without exception, is a collection of both good and bad traits. I believe that the adult thing to do is to encourage and reward the good, while discouraging and punishing the bad. When I support an artist's work, I do not thereby endorse everything that person does. I think that the desire to reduce everyone to "good guy" or "bad guy" (and acting towards them accordingly) is literally the sort of thing one would expect from a child, not an adult who has learned to have some nuance in thinking.
Someone pointed it out to me that, if a person does something bad and faces the consequences by law, then that should be the end of it. Applying a personal punishment individually like avoiding anything they have involved in, is pointless or even unfair.
It can’t apply to all scenarios. But that struck me as an important thing to consider. Sometimes people get out of the consequences by using the riches they accumulated by being bad.
Why are we even thinking about "fairness" in this context? It's not like we read every book in the world, in order to be fair to all authors. Or all genres, all qualities, all equally. You have to make some choices and actually make every second a choice, to pick a book, to pick it up, to continue it after page 100...
I think the desire to not have to be accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world is also childlike, personally.
One of the powers we have in this capitalist world is to decide where our money goes. If there's a decent chance it'll end up perpetuating something I find massively objectionable, it's my choice not to fund that.
Beyond that it's not just about reducing everything to good or bad, it's also about understanding the context of the works you're consuming. Sometimes the author's life, prejudices and mores seep into the work, and put a new spin on the characters and scenarios.
> One of the powers we have in this capitalist world is to decide where our money goes. If there's a decent chance it'll end up perpetuating something I find massively objectionable, it's my choice not to fund that.
“I believe that almost everyone fails to completely understand how badly they need the people they can’t stand.”
— Jason K. Pargin: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3GzrYI8Tj4>
“It's not easy being green.”
- Kermit The Frog: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRZ-IxZ46ng>
Eh, I'm not watching a video to see a quote from someone I've never heard of and have no particular reason to value.
And whatever he might have to say, I'm not reliant on the work of a specific author, which is the context here.
Nor do I buy into "you can't survive without relying on/funding some people you disagree with therefore you shouldn't seek to act consistently with your own ethics in any regard" as a philosophy.
> Eh, I'm not watching a video to see a quote from someone I've never heard of and have no particular reason to value.
Your loss.
> Nor do I buy into "you can't survive without relying on/funding some people you disagree with therefore you shouldn't seek to act consistently with your own ethics in any regard" as a philosophy.
But what exactly is your ethics here? Is it that nobody should rely on people who have done something bad? If it is, then how should these condemned people live? And if not, would you then happily allow other people to rely on them, without decrying those people, as well?
> Your loss.
Seems unlikely. I'd have read an argument but I don't generally consider links-to-youtube to be an argument.
> Is it that nobody should rely on people who have done something bad?
My point is it's not impossible to make ethical choices about spending, even in a world where you don't have full control.
The idea that it is wrong to make ethical decisions about how to spend your money, time or attention, either because the system we live in makes complete consistency impossible or because of some notion that we might force people judged as bad to starve, is just so bizarre.
A thread here the other day covered several brands of "Italian" or "Australian" tomato paste in Australia that have been caught using Chinese tomatoes, which are largely from areas we know use forced labour. I don't approve of forced labour and I'm willing to pay a little more to avoid contributing to that. If enough others join me, it might make a small difference. By directing what economic activity I can to products from nations with good standards of worker rights, I hope I help keep slavery-free products viable, until such time as we get a government with a backbone.
But am I boycotting everything made in China? Could I even conceptually avoid using all Chinese products when they're literally everywhere? No, that seems very unlikely to even be possible in this day and age. But I don't consider that the inability to do that negates the choices I make where I can. Your quote makes it seem like you do think that? All or nothing? Go live in a locally made yurt and grow your own food or just give up?
> If it is, then how should these condemned people live?
Well if there's no more profit to be had in selling the output of indentured servitude, it might stop? And these "condemned" people could do something else to make a living rather than being slavers?
If a particular author was known to be (for example) funding white supremacist groups, am I supposed to feel guilt that I might not buy their book? Why? They need to eat? Maybe they could stop the funding then?
Now, where your specific red lines are is going to be variable, and where it comes to artistic output things are always blurry. But I still don't think it's wrong to ask "Where is my money going? What second order effect is this purchase having on the world?"
An author who abandoned his family and lied about large parts of his life is clearly not a good person. Whether that puts you off reading them is up to you. I still (occasionally) reread HP Lovecraft, with the knowledge he was a pretty godawful racist, even for his times, and so is some of his work. That said, buying a book of his isn't going to fund him or his views these days, as there is no identifiable estate.
I think boycotts are effectively useless. If you disagree, can you name a few, or even one, consumer-level boycott in, say, the last 50 years, which actually accomplished its goal? Accomplished by the actual boycott alone, I mean.
Boycotts are, as I understand it, only a way for you to feel that you still are morally pure. But the counterargument is that it is impossible to be actually morally pure. When you last needed, say, a plumber, did you know how they voted before you engaged them? How does your electricity company CEO vote? How about your local grocery store cashier? If you would actually go though every single thing and person that you depend on, and boycotted every one who is a terrible person or organization, you would not be able to live.
Therefore, boycotts are doubly bad: They don’t accomplish anything, but they feel useful, and therefore they rob you of any incentive or energy to do anything actually useful, like changing relevant laws. Also, many people go at least one step further, and denounce people who simply do not participate in their pet boycotts.
Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system.
And doing so certainly wouldn’t make me less likely to vote for a party promising to address the issue.
And I mean, isn’t this just how capitalism works? Buy stuff you want to see more of? Don’t buy things you don’t like. I try to buy local when I can, because I like local produce and I want the local economy to thrive. It’s just taking an active role in the feedback mechanisms that exist around us and deciding where you want to put your very small level of personal influence.
> can you name a few, or even one, consumer-level boycott in, say, the last 50 years, which actually accomplished its goal?
The Bud Light Boycott of 2023 springs immediately to mind. Not that I agree with the people doing the boycotting, or would drink bud light anyway, but it certainly made the company backpedal.
> Boycotts are, as I understand it, only a way for you to feel that you still are morally pure
Then I guess you don’t understand very much, and you certainly don’t understand my posts higher up if you think I’m demanding moral purity of myself or anyone else.
To me, this all just sounds like a justification for your own lack of conscientiousness.
> Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system.
Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even the total number of people participating in this boycott will not change a single thing.
> The Bud Light Boycott of 2023 springs to mind. Not that I agree with the people doing the boycotting, but it certainly made the company backpedal.
Unlikely, since, from what I hear, the brand everyone switched to was owned by the same company. The most a boycott can accomplish is a public statement, no actual change. Also, this statement was a result of the publicity, not the boycott itself. The company fought publicity with publicity by making a public statement of their own.
> you certainly don’t understand my posts higher up if you think I’m demanding moral purity of myself or anyone else.
You did say that those not participating in boycotts should be held “accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world”.
> To me, this all just sounds like a justification for your own lack of conscientiousness.
No personal attacks, please.
I am quite sure that not a penny from my purchase of Master and Commander went to Patrick O'Brian.
Just as I am sure that not a single penny of my purchase of Tales of the Cthulu Mythos went to HP Lovecraft.
But knowing about the artist can still inform views about the art.
> he pointed out that by insisting on maintaining ignorance, I could be funding a very bad person
Does your friend use a smartphone?
He could be funding very bad people.
https://voiceofenvironment.com/2019/06/21/conflict-minerals-...
> O’Brian’s ear for dialogue produced some of his finest comedy. From The 13 Gun Salute (1989):
>
> “A lovely young woman indeed, Heaven,” said Jack. “Mrs Heaven, if I do not mistake?”
> “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.”
> “There is a great deal to be said for porcupines, Heaven: Solomon had a thousand, and Solomon knew what o’clock it was.”
>
> Or from The Yellow Admiral (1996):
>
> Stephen nodded, and with a curiously knowing look, his head on one side, he asked, > “Can you foretell the dark of the moon with reasonable accuracy?”
> “I believe so,” said Jack. “Her motions are of some importance in navigation you know, and we learn them quite early.”
I didn't get either of these jokes.
I got the second one.
Jack’s saying that since he’s a seafarer, navigating by the moon is important. It’s standard British-understatement-as-comedy trope.
I just read this one. The other thing that's going on is that Stephen has a secret mission that requires him to be put on shore in France, so he wants to do that during a new moon. The question is Stephen's adorable way of "encrypting" that question so as not to reveal the mission to the rest of the crew.
Imagine that you were in a big meeting and you wanted an excuse to leave, so you whispered to your co-worker "Do you think my phone can receive messages in this room?" And he replied "Phones are the foundation of modern telecommunication infrastructure and we're in a large city, I assure you that you will promptly receive any messages that are sent to you."
Funnily enough I think it is much less funny out of context. It is an in-joke that Stephen has picked up very little of nautical life, despite being on ship for many years.
"Porcupine" confused with "concubine".
I honestly thought concubine would fit in here to make the joke but without other clues, dismissed the idea. I wonder why the writer picked this as an example of the author’s supposed humor skills. It seems rather contrived.
Even charitably, we’d have to be super familiar with everything the author has written to understand than Heaven could mistake porcupine for concubine.
I had a similar author shock when I learned James Herriot’s books were not the autobiographies I thought they were but instead were the fictionalized compilations of stories from multiple veterinarians. I had such a great time reading the books as a young man and was dismayed to learn they weren’t authentic. I appreciated learning the truth but wondered if perhaps believing the lie would’ve been better for something relatively unimportant.
A practising vet introduced me to Herriot. He told me they were like PG Wodehouse but with animals.
Surely the enjoyment they provided was that counts: why stress out over "authenticity."
(Banksy comes to mind for some reason: he vandalises property over various causes and no one questions his authenticity. Does anyone think he's suffered like the caricatures he depicts?)
I think they remain enjoyable even as fictional; I just would’ve preferred having them described that way to me at the start rather than the pretense of them being autobiographical.
I dunno. In the case of Herriot, whose books I utterly love, I only half believed in my teenage years they were truly autobiographical (too funny, too neat to be true), and I wasn't surprised when I found they weren't. Well, they have some tidbits from his actual life, but yeah, a blend of multiple stories, some from others, some made up.
I still believe they are undiminished as books and enjoy them from time to time.
Some things hit harder when you know stuff from his real life, for example those stories about depressed people (I remember the story of the young man who takes his own life when his dog dies, and how cheerful he seemed) and then I read the real Herriot suffered from depression. So I guess he was somewhat writing about himself?
Also, somewhat contradicting what I said above, the stories might be fictional but they ring true of the English countryside and the farmers of the transitional time Herriot describes. That the stories aren't literally true doesn't detract from that. It's a bit like what American author Tim O'Brien explores in his writings, that verosimilitude can be as important, if not more, than actual truth.
I don't know if Herriot was a vet in real life. If he was and suffered from depression it wouldn't surprise me.
I have seen statistics which state that vets more likely to commit suicide than GPs.
And the story about the young man and his dog rings true. A close friend always breaks up when he remembers how he had to put down his dog due to cancer.
Herriot was a vet in real life. His stories were embellished, but they weren't entirely made up either! That's why they felt so authentic.
Excellent books, full of understated spectacle and really excellent wordplay. If you get into them you may want to pick up "A Sea of Words" as a guide to some of the more esoteric terminology. Pretty much guaranteed you'll be stumped quite a few times in every book.
One of the great things about reading on the Kindle is that you can just highlight the esoteric words and the dictionary will explain it to you. Or you can use wikipedia if you need more info.
It's genuinely a great feature, especially when reading in non-native languages. (Can also translate the words then as needed)
I read the whole series on the Kindle about 10 years ago and the obscure nautical words were not in the Kindle's internal dictionary. It would try to connect to an online service to look up those words, but that doesn't help if you are on an airplane. Has the dictionary grown more comprehensive in newer Kindle models?
No. I had to find a more complete dictionary to properly enjoy them. (I also added some fantasy dictionaries like for LoTR)
> full of understated spectacle
The scenes with shipwrecks always stood out to me. One ship was lost during a storm with all hands, and he simply ended the chapter with something like "My god, 600 men..."
> really excellent wordplay.
I am a rather simple man, like Jack. One of my favorites remains:
“Two weevils crept from the crumbs.
‘You see those weevils, Stephen?’ said Jack solemnly. ‘I do.’
‘Which would you choose?’
‘There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.’
‘But suppose you had to choose?’
‘Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.’
‘There I have you,’ cried Jack. ‘You are bit – you are completely dished. Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!”
-
I've found myself cracking up with Jack so many times. A truly excellent series that I'm actually currently re-reading :)
Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C.
After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare.
I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill.
Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.
> Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.
That's what you took away from that?!
> Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.
This bothered me in ways I cannot currently put into words.
Such an abrupt, visceral sense of revulsion after an otherwise pleasant anecdote. Like finding a used band-aid at the bottom of your plate of comfy stew.
That can be difficult, depending on who the "author" may be.
I still love Apple, even though Steve Jobs was a ... shall we say ... complicated ... man; but I have a problem, watching certain movies or TV shows, because the actors or producers got up to some unsavory hijinks.
Pretty much every single person whose name is commonly known or read about in history books is complicated in that way. Some clearly have no saving graces but most have some mix of admirable and unsavory qualities, especially if you judge them in their own time.
I liked Master and Commander, I still prefer C.S. Forrester’s “Hornblower” books.
Forrester is the Andy Weir of naval warfare with sailing ships. Even the tiny technical details are well researched.
Despite reading the entire series twice, I never understood the porcupine line. Can someone ELI5?
It’s Jack talking through his hat again. I think he’s trying to determine if a woman is married or not and when it turns out they having a roving eye, he conflates “porcupine” (no idea what a porcupine-lay might be) with “concubine”.
I think "lay" might be as literal as we would use it now.
It's probably slang for "line of work: occupation":
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay
See 3b under its noun definition.
So: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the porcupine-lay, the roving-line, if you understand me.”
Translates to: “Why, sir, in a manner of speaking: but some might say more on the concubine-occupation, the roving-line [of work], if you understand me.”
Then Jack, not wanting to embarrass Heaven for his malapropism, intentionaly reuses "porcupine" incorrectly.
I've rarely read anything that had so many words I had never heard of!
I started reading the first book (and since stopped as I wasn't ready for the detailed nautical terminology), but one thing really jarred me was, in this section of very dry terminology when setting up a ship for sail, the use of the 'olde' terminology for 'cut splice'.
It's great that he uses the time specific terminology, but it threw me because I really wasn't expecting that word at that time.
It's become my favourite knot to reference though, because I'm still a child.
If you enjoyed that experience, read The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe (5 books, 1-2 and 3-4 commonly printed as combined volumes: Shadow & Claw, Sword & Citadel, The Urth of the New Sun). I re-read them this spring, and they remain among the top ~3 series I've ever (re-)read.
Was hoping this would be an essay saying they started reading novels - ideally classics - and ignoring all other forms of "media".
I'm slowly collecting this set of novels from various second-hand book shops, and I'm looking forward to reading them in order, most likely some time in retirement. I'm happy not to know anything about the author, reading is all about the suspension of disbelief, so I will continue to let myself have that outlet.
The movie is one of my all time favourites.
I thought the movie was pretty good, but I really wished I enjoyed it more. I think the casting of Jack and Stephen both really didn't work for me.
I really hope they make more movies about them though.
I want to know, or care, about zero details about an artist, except their name, (so that I can find their other works). period.
Forgetting the infelicities of Patrick Russ is reasonable because he's both dead and his estate isn't (to my knowledge) funneling money from the sale of his books to odious causes. Would that I could say the same about other authors.
I don't get this examination of the character of the man, an extremely private man, behind the books. I don't think he ever held himself as an example to people. He didn't claim to be a role model. He stayed private, so private that every time we see an article like that we just get the same tiny snippets. We have little idea what he was really like and frankly i have little interest. Great books, the end
I'm afraid the examples of 'his finest comedy' are so 'dry' I'm missing it completely. My loss I guess.
You're not the only one.
I have read somewhere that there is a whole separate book that explains the nautical terminology used in the books, which was recommended as a reference to keep by ones side whilst reading the books. I wonder if it also applies to porcupine-lay or roving line.
I just ran it past an LLM and it provided a decent explanation. Also see @tclancy's reply to @jvandonsel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49149969
I had no idea floccinaucihipilification was a real word. I saw it in a fake spelling bee for a commercial decades ago and assumed it was just a comically long fake word.
It was invented as a comically long fake word, but gained enough currency to be used in real writing, though in a tongue-in-cheek way.
It's a Latin calque. I'm sure the spelling should be floccipaucinihil... from pauci, few and nihil, nothing - you and the reviewer have used spellings that differ from this and from each other, but I doubt O'Brian did.
[removed] made the mistake of assuming the contents of the article before reading it. My comment does not apply.
To comfortably indulge in all that, inherit old money.
I find it difficult to understand the immaturity of not being able to separate the art and artist. It’s really not difficult. I think some of it is performative for signaling to one’s peers that they are on the “right side” of some issue or imagined virtue.
It's not about immature people being unable to separate art from artist because it's difficult. The issue is whether it's the right thing to do.
I feel pretty confident that I could describe to you a case (either real or hypothetical) where you would reject an artist based on their personal behavior, rather than their art. You would find it quite difficult in such a case to separate the two.
So the question is where to draw the line, and everyone answers that question differently.
What you are doing is not maturity, but compartmentalisation. If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia, or Roman Polanski’s repeated rape accusations, you are choosing willful ignorance, especially since often the artist’s status and fame make their criminal behaviour possible and provides them shelter from prosecution.
I myself am far from innocent of this. For more than 20 years Polanski has been, and in many ways still is, my favourite film maker. Repulsion, Tenant, Chinatown etc. are masterpieces of cinema. But they are inherently, even on plot level (at least in the case of Chinatown) intertwined with the horror of his actions. There is no virtue signalling in my personal connection to his set of work (who would even care anyway), but for me to continue pretend I know nothing about his behaviour or that it doesn’t directly inflect upon his work would be deeply dishonest.
> If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia
Interesting example. There is more credible evidence of parents of “his child friends” being in it for a cash grab than actual wrong doing.
Evidence was your bar there.
I too thought of Polanski (Roman, not Zac) while reading these threads. I’m not sure the comparison or perhaps, the parallel holds though. PO’b may have been a bad husband. Or he may have been married to a bad wife. Or maybe they were both a bit rough. I don’t know an any real evidence either way, and life has taught me that it’s hard to see inside the truth of other people’s relationships. I have trouble enough with my own, and I’m present in real-time!
Polanski R is not the same thing. He drugged and raped a child and was defended for decades by people who ought to know better because of his directorial genius. I don’t dispute that genius. I just can’t watch his movies again without feeling a little sick.
All of this to say, judging Polanski for being a monster is not the same as judging PO’b for being a jerk. I reread the Aubrey-Maturin novels every four or five years and they enrich my life on every occasion. And I don’t feel even slightly bad about it.
(Disappointingly, I did lose an argument over a big family dinner several years ago when it turned it that tracklement is a neologism. Imagine my embarrassment!)
I hoped it obvious that I am not comparing being a liar and a bad family man to being a serial rapist (unsurprisingly there is quite few allegations of this exact same behaviour against Polanski). I simply used Polanski and MJ as obvious examples of A) why not separating the art and artist absolutely is not just “immature virtue signaling” B) how people loving the art are able to compartmentalise the evidence and suffering of the victims to keep enjoying the art, meanwhile making any justice very difficult.
There’s artist with whom we can “forget everything else”, then there’s not. Where one draws the line, well, I suppose that up to one’s own discretion, but I would recommend offering a serious thought on where oneself draws the line.
ah, my apologies. I read more than you wrote. I think you and I are probably more in agreement than not. I read a book last year, "Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People" by Claire Dederer, on this topic. Good in parts. Left me hanging. She talks a lot about several probably bad people, Polanski, Woody Allen, Picasso etc. But she never seems to hit a conclusion. Maybe that's the answer; there is no easy, pat answer. You just have to push through each case, as you find it, according to your judgement at the time.
While writing this, I dug out a Reddit thread about the book, where one of the participants (YakSlothLemon FTW!) hits us with Wagner. Well, yes, game over. I'm not a fan of that sort of (to my ears) overcooked opera, but if you like it, play it. The dirtbag isn't getting any royalties because he's good and dead.
Well after that article and these comments, I need to burn a lot of books, art and music that I once loved.
I used to love Millais' 'Ophelia', but he now seems arrogant and even bedded his patrons wife. The scandal. On the fire.
I used to love the Rolling Stones, but it seems they took drugs and held concerts organised by an organised crime group. On the fire.
Master and Commander was one of the most touching and uplifting reads of my life, all at a tragic time for me. But he left his wife, didn't like talking about his past and wrote under a book de plume, it seems. On the fire.
I loved Oscar Wilde's work, but the rogue was a jail bird, and very arrogant. On the fire
Can we compile an approved list of quality works from faultless individuals? I don't want to be sullied by their human faults...AI slop to the rescue
I'm not religious, but this quote often comes to mind in these situations, "he who is without sin, cast the first stone." Clearly everyone else is perfect, and only these authors had faults.
Good reminder.
As a percentage, most of my 'reading' has been outputs of frontier AI models. Need to increase my ratio of consuming human-written and human-produced text. Sometimes I fear drifting away from the 'core reality' of everyday life here in the US Midwest given how much I use AI.