On Sun, Nov 16, 2003 at 01:45:28PM -0500, Talpianna at aol.com wrote: > My housemates went to see it yesterday and liked it very much. I haven't > tried the books, having spent most of my youth reading the complete Hornblower > saga; I feel I've been there, done that, and gotten the sailcloth tee shirt. I > would be interested to hear comparisons from anyone who has read both series. I have read both series. The subject matter is similar, but the whole approach could hardly be more different, given that both writers are using the English language. Forester uses contemporary language and literary techniques. O'Brian uses those, but he also uses a hundred quirky old-fashioned linguistic and literary techniques as well as some remarkably modern versions of the latter. His pacing and emphasis vary radically from book to book; you might have the same basic elements, a battle at sea, a navigation problem, strange natural phenomena, whether meteorological or biological or botanical; a smoldering below-decks romance, an estrangement between old friends; but how they are treated varies all over the place depending on what he wants the book to do. O'Brian is deeper than Forester, and he's also about a hundred times funnier, and his entire range is far wider. I adore the O'Brian; I like and admire the Forester. Having said all this, I guess I should add that O'Brian is as good as anybody in creating and extending suspense, in creating narrative lust (the sensation that you must keep reading, you can't stop, you must know WHAT HAPPENED). But he does far, far more than this, sometimes separately and sometimes all intertwined. I mean, come on, the AUTHOR OF THE VLAD AND PAARFI NOVELS loves O'Brian. What more need be said? -- Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pddb at demesne.com) "I will open my heart to a blank page and interview the witnesses." John M. Ford, "Shared World"