After a number of years of desiring to learn by way of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin collection of seafaring novels, I’ve lastly launched into that voyage, and I’m delighted to notice that O’Brian proves that writers can draw classes in approach from fiction that doesn’t essentially make it onto too many Nice Literature studying lists.
O’Brian wrote twenty novels that includes fictional early nineteenth-century Royal Navy officer Jack Aubrey and his good friend, naval surgeon Stephen Maturin, over the course of a number of a long time, leaving one other one unfinished when he died in 1999. (It was later printed in its incomplete type.) After finishing the primary installment, Grasp and Commander, I think that they’re all ripping good yarns however not (regardless of some comparisons to the works of Jane Austen and different literary giants) classics for the ages. But they’re instructive in easy methods to write — and, in a single respect, how to not write.
First, the unhealthy information: O’Brian, going through the numerous problem of explaining the naval terminology, traditions, and hierarchy of the Napoleonic period to the numerous readers unfamiliar with such issues, solved it by having numerous characters clarify nautical ideas to Maturin, a landlubber. Sadly, although this system is cheap moderately, right here it’s employed to extremes. At occasions, it’s no extra delicate than the satirically extreme exposition within the Austin Powers film collection, with the character Basil Exposition laboriously offering background info to the protagonist (and the viewers).
However the creator’s profitable avoidance of narrative exposition (that’s, apart from in dialogue) is said to his nice power: O’Brian hardly ever employs attribution; the reader normally is aware of who’s speaking. However much more outstanding, he hardly ever has to explain his masterfully well-developed characters. Aubrey and Maturin are an odd couple; the officer is an enormous and brash but charismatic chief, whereas his good friend is a quiet, studious surgeon/naturalist/thinker. The creator subtly alerts the physician’s preliminary unease with shipboard life (he will get in sailors’ means or hits his head on the low beams belowdecks) and his preoccupation with surgical procedures and pure phenomena by oblique reference. Among the many finest small moments are these by which Maturin tries to interact the sensible and clever however unschooled Aubrey in mental dialogue.
I didn’t benefit from alternatives to work my means by way of the literary-classics canon throughout my very own education, and I’m at sea in the case of lit crit. (If I had been requested to investigate the subtext of a cornerstone of the literary custom, I might most likely blithely blink with out comprehension very like Aubrey does when confronted with a Latin expression.) However I discovered myself very a lot impressed (with out being very a lot distracted) by the mastery with which O’Brian conveys character with out describing his characters.
I’m sure that such classes in narrative approach could be drawn from many novelists nice and small (and in between), and also you probably can relate your favourite epiphany of this kind. This level solely proves that knowledge and inspiration are to be present in surprising locations. Take pleasure in your pulp fiction, airport novels, seashore books, gentle studying — in no matter type your leisure studying takes (together with having fun with Nice Literature) — however be receptive to such insights.
