Desolation Island

It must be me. I am completely baffled by the raving reviews. This book was written in a dialogue that is completely unreadable. Do the English really speak like that? What an excruciatingly boring tale that talks about horses, and women, and drinking but little of actually the experiences of someone on a British naval ship which is what I bought the book for. Had to give up on it about a third of the way through. Get the Hornblower series for real stories.

_Desolation Island_ begins with a picture of domestic bliss: Aubrey at home with wife and children, waiting orders, and a little bewildered at how to fill the role of husband and father (to which is totally unaccustomed) rather than as captain and commander. From personal experience, such adjustment is at best difficult; then, as now, sharing a life at sea with a family can be a cause of friction, resentment and strife (I suspect this is the reason the sea services have such a high rate of divorce.) While awaiting orders, the newspapers are full of the story of Cpt. Bligh and the mutiny on his ship, The Bounty. Given the title, I anticipated Aubrey would face a similar fate once underway. I won’t go further, for fear of spoilers.

Once orders are in hand, Aubrey’s new command is almost immediately fraught with troubles: the ship has to take on a compliment of convicts bound for Australia, as well as several women – both are sure sources of conflict on such a long voyage. Underway, problems multiply as the ship is soon beset with disease, chased by a Dutch warship 1/3 again the size of Aubrey’s, and his ship is beaten and battered by storms and severely damaged by icebergs.

I was initially attracted to the O’Brian series through his almost obsessive detail to life under sail and the vivid writing of naval warfare. Soon, however, I was pulled in by the growth of his characters and the depths of the bonds between Aubrey and Maturin. O’Brian again impresses, this time with the description of daily life at sea (which one would normally imagine to be one of monotony, but somehow here is both romantic and engaging) and the development of Maturin, both as intelligence officer as well as naturalist. The creative ways in which Aubrey addresses and resolves the myriad of problems he is best with also kept me in rapt attention. Further, O’Brian also shows another aspect of life in the Royal Navy at the dawn of the 19th century: that of floating diplomat, Cpt. Aubrey walking a fine line as he negotiates and works with the crew of an American whaler, precisely at a time when tensions between Britain and America are particularly frayed, relations simmering just prior to the War of 1812.

That five books in to the series an author can still suprise and create a world with such detail and specificity and can still develop characters without becoming cliched or worn continues to impress me. The series is occupying most of my spare time, such is the way in which my imagination has been captured by O’Brian’s writing. The series gets my highest recommendations.

Everyone should read the Patrick O’Brian “Aubrey/Maturin” series. Great writing – whether you’re a seafarer or a landlubber! Great way to learn a bit of history and dream of having a “Lucky” Jack Aubrey life! Or, if the life of a 19th Century Royal Navy captain ain’t your thing – how about a Dr. Maturin life? That might do. Read one or read them all. Great reads for the pandemic!!

I have read the entire 20 book series twice. This volume stands a head over the others for me. It’s a compelling sea story – as are all the others – but DESOLATION ISLAND has a little bit of everything that made life at sea a life or death challenge in the days following Napoleon. Women, being forever bad luck aboard ship, feature in this book as simultaneously a love interest (for the Doctor, give him joy!) a curse and distraction for all hands from the Captain down, and a point of manipulation for the transmission of bad intelligence to a potential enemy. The bad luck surfaces soon enough in the form of a menacing superior Dutch ship which relentlessly pursues the horrible old LEOPARD and they are forced to pepper each other with round shot through towering seas and typical high-latitude weather. After that affair, which ends shockingly, the LEOPARD strikes an iceberg and tears off her rudder while opening a giant leak that must be dealt with before the ship sinks with all hands frantically pumping to near mutiny with no land in sight. At last they find a speck of an island, for which the book is named, and living on seal and penguin they manage to heel the ship over and patch the bottom, while enduring cold and short hands, since the Captain let most of the crew take the boats when it looked like all was lost. Basically, everything that could go wrong, did. But Lucky Jack and his crafty surgeon pull through just in time for the next volume. Literally, on the edge of the chair action from the moment they weigh until they find DESOLATION ISLAND. It’s my favorite! And all the new words! These books are a treasure and this is the best.

If you’ve stumbled across this review and are thinking Desolation Island is probably just another of the many ripping yarns about Napoleonic warfare, pause a moment; you are on the brink of reading one of the fine writers of our times.

While this is the 5th book in the Aubrey/Maturin saga, I felt that this was where Patrick O’Brian really got into his stride, with both the characters and story-telling. (Though it could of course just be that I got into the story!). By now, both Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin have richly-textured depth of character, much more so than almost any other characters I’ve come across in 40 years of reading novels, and entirely so in the case of age-of-sail sagas. This might be because both are so imperfect. You will laugh at some aspects of their personalities, see deep intelligence and humanity in others, and find some corners of each that are quite dis-likable. In other words, they are like real people.

The focus seems to shift too in this novel; whereas Aubrey felt like the central character in the previous books, with Maturin gradually becoming more present, in Desolation Island the story is much more rooted around Maturin, and all the better for it.

I found the (almost obligatory in a sea saga) battle with the dutch 74-gun Waakzaamheid the most gripping sea battle I’ve ever read about, possibly because it was so different to the usual type of battles. I won’t say more in case I spoil this treasure for other readers. But it must also be said that Patrick O’Brian’s writing at this stage was well up there on the literary stage, equal to greats such as William Golding and Graham Greene.

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