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Review by Eric Pilsk
One of the many strengths of Patrick O'Brian's novels featuring Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin is that he doesn't give his characters any breaks: fortunes, love, fame, and honor are gained and lost. What distinguishes these novels, however, is that fate is not used as a simple plot device to move the story along, but as a way of exploring the character of his heroes, the times in which they lived, and the nature of friendship, love, and honor.
The Yellow Admiral, the eighteenth novel in the series, is no exception to this tried and true formula. Aubrey's successes in The Commodore, the previous novel in the series, are followed in The Yellow Admiral by misfortunes that threaten to end Jack Aubrey's career with the ignominy of "being yellowed" -- promoted to admiral but without an active command. Worse -- or perhaps not to Aubrey -- his mother-in-law's discovery of a previous liaison threatens to destroy his marriage.
In The Yellow Admiral Aubrey, now the manor lord of the family estate, finds himself in a bitter battle with neighboring landowners who want to enclose the commons in order to reap large profits through large-scale agriculture. Through his opposition, we learn not just about Aubrey's unsuspected love for the land on which he and his ancestors grew up, but about his deep-seated fellow feeling for the peasants who depend on the common for their livelihood. A fierce Tory, Aubrey's defense of the commons anticipates Karl Marx by several decades. Yet his strongly held views, and his impolitic opinions on naval issues, loudly expressed in parliament, put him out of favor with both his commanding admiral at the Brest blockade and the Admiralty, thus making his yellow flag almost inevitable.
With the war winding down, the dreary Brest blockade provides no opportunity for Aubrey's undeniable talents at sea to salvage his reputation and career. Facing the end of his career, and the war, with no rank, no honor and no fortune, Aubrey turns, reluctantly, to naval opportunities outside the Royal Navy made possible by Stephen Maturin's contacts among South American revolutionaries who need help creating a navy to overthrow Spanish rule.
But the most surprising revelation in The Yellow Admiral is the reaction of Aubrey's wife Sophie to her discovery of a packet of letters to Jack from a long-forgotten paramour. Indignant, Sophie begins divorce proceedings. The dissolution of their marriage is prevented by her cousin Diane's more private -- and less righteous -- method of redressing Jack's marital transgressions.
After 18 novels about the same characters in the same essential setting, the series has lost some of its freshness. O'Brian spends a little too much time at the beginning reintroducing characters who are by now old friends. Many of the plot devices are by now familiar to readers of these novels. It is almost a given that, left ashore for any length of time, Aubrey will land himself in legal and political difficulties that threaten to leave him broke and without a ship. Similarly, domestic difficulties, both financial and romantic, will compare unfavorably with the hardships of sea and war.
Yet this is a familiarity born of fondness and long acquaintance, like renewing a lapsed friendship as if no time had passed. And O'Brian's novel is so rich on so many levels that there are many reasons to read on even if the fireworks are not quite so spectacular. His commentary on the social issues of the time -- land enclosure, the relationship between the classes and sexes, the history of the Royal Navy and scientific discovery -- is rewarding in itself. O'Brian's language and style alone make the reading -- and rereading -- of these books worthwhile.
In the end, though, it is O'Brian's "tough love" that make these books, including The Yellow Admiral, so good. By refusing to coddle his heroes, they are forced to confront and address their own strengths, weaknesses, and true desires. The result is a subtle, sensitive, sympathetic, and entirely captivating rendering of Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin, and their times.
Eric Pilsk is an attorney in Washington, D.C.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.