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(More customer reviews)Patrick O'Brian's fans who mope about hoping for still another Aubrey/Maturin masterpiece should read this, his first historical tale of the sea. An incredible adventure surrounding the true account of Commodore Anson's small fleet intent on circumnavigating the globe. Some of the most gut-wrenching tragedies imaginable are tempered with subtle humor and sidesplitting hilarity. The fleet is eventually reduced by the ravages of the sea to one ship, Anson's Centurion, but it returns to England laden to the gunnels with an incredible fortune wrested from a Spanish galleon.
You few million Aubrey/Maturin addicts out there will love this book as well as any of the seventeen in the Aubrey/Maturin series. You'll notice that his superb writing skill was wholly present then as now, treating us to every human emotion in his uniquely masterful style. I've heard him compared to Conrad in his ability to describe the terror of an ocean run amuck, ravaging those small ships,the desp! ! erate efforts of the mariners to save their ships -- and themselves, sometimes successful, sometimes not. But after going back to Conrad for a fresh look at his work, my opinion is that O'Brian excels him.
Following this brilliant work is The Unknown Shore, O'Brian's account of what might have happened to the survivors of one -- or was it two? -- ships in Anson's fleet that were wrecked during the voyage.
In The Golden Ocean, as in all of O'Brian's stories, the characters live and breathe, love and hate, are often courageous but sometimes are not, often behave as we would wish but occasionally veer off the straight and narrow. Above all, though, they are always true to their individual characters.
Readers who lament that they have read all his novels -- thereby feeling themselves left dashed on a lee shore -- might do as I do, keep reading them over and over. I promise there is more there in each book than can be gleaned in a single reading. I'm on my sixth pass through ! ! the Aubrey/Maturin series and loving every story anew.
Th! e Golden Ocean, like everything else from O'Brian's pen (yes, he writes with a pen) is an exquisite example of the true craft of writing.
I put no writer above him in craftsmanship. Writers wishing to sharpen their own skills would do well to carefully study O'Brian's work. I shamelessly admit to adopting as much as I can from his compact yet radiantly illustrative style.
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