Dragaera

The criticism of O'Brian

Matthew Jennings attjen at gwu.edu
Fri Apr 28 11:35:11 PDT 2006

"O'Brian is more realistic and better with language, but Forrestor 
tells a better story." 

This is interesting, and though I've never read Forrestor, it does make 
a bit of sense to me.  The way I imagine Forrestor to be is a much more 
of a canned plot (point a to point b, huzzah huzzah).

Why I love O'Brian, is that the characters drive the plot far more than 
they probably have any right too. I never really know where the story 
is going to end up. (And most of the time, the story never wraps up at 
the end of one novel anyway.) I think this reminds me of some other 
author... I wish I could remember who...

"what idiot in the Admiralty would ever think that you could get much 
use out of a spy in such a position"

This is interesting too, because although there are large periods where 
Maturin is 'at-sea', he also finds himself in enough places/times 
to 'thwart the enemy' that it is worth gaps.

Matt

Guil: What a shambles! We're just not getting anywhere.
Ros: Not even England. I don't believe in it anyway.
Guil: What?
Ros: England.
Guil: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, you mean?
~~~Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard