The Ionian Mission (51 page)

   Another important narrative theme is more suitably ambiguous. Almost unknown to Jack, at least in the earlier books of the sequence, Stephen is an undercover agent of naval intelligence. Nothing improbable in that, and it does lead to some interesting situations, although the reader may feel that such goings-on are there more for the benefit of plot and adventure than real assets to the felt life of the fiction. The two traitors inside the Admiralty who are a feature of the later novels bear a not altogether comfortable resemblance to more recent traitors like Burgess and Maclean. There are moments, too, when Stephen's erudition and expertise in all matters except love become a little oppressive, as does Jack's superb seamanship and childlike lack of business sense. But these are the kinds of irritation we feel at times with those who have become old friends. Stephen and Jack have their occasional quarrels too, and their moments of mutual dissatisfaction.

   For indeed the most striking thing about the series is the high degree of fictional reality; of Henry James's 'felt life', that it has managed to generate. This may be partly because we grow accustomed and familiar, as in the homelier case of the comic strip; and yet the more surprising and impressive virtue in the novels is their wide range of feeling and of literary sensibility. At least two tragic characters—Lieutenant James Dillon in the opening novel, and the erratic Lord Clonfert who makes a mess of things in
The Mauritius Command
—have their psychology subtly and sympathetically explored; and there are some scenes too in the series of almost supernatural fear and strangeness: two pathetic lovers seeking sanctuary on a Pacific island, or the weird and grisly chapter, like something out of
Moby-Dick
, when a Dutch seventy-four pursues Jack's smaller vessel implacably through the icebergs and mountainous waves of the great southern ocean. And no other writer, not even Melville, has described the whale or the wandering albatross with O'Brian's studious and yet lyrical accuracy.

   The vicissitudes in Jack's naval career—the many fiascos and disasters as well as the occasional triumphs—come from naval careers of the period, like that of Lord Cochrane and his brother, who was dismissed from the service for alleged financial irregularities. Such resourceful heroes often made a second career for themselves—Cochrane became a Chilean admiral in the South American war of liberation—and there seems every hope that Jack and Stephen may turn up in those parts when their author can no longer put off the conclusion of hostilities in Europe. Most historical novels suffer from the fatal twin defects of emphasising the pastness of the past too much while at the same time seeking to be over-familiar with it ('Have some more of this Chian,' drawled Alcibiades). O'Brian does neither. Indeed 'history' as such does not seem greatly to interest him: his originality consists in the unpretentious use he makes of it to invent a new style of fiction.

That unpretentiousness has become a rare asset among novelists. The reader today has become conditioned, partly by academic critics, to look in Melville and Conrad for the larger issues and deeper significances, rather than enjoying the play of life, the humour and detail of the performance. Yet surface is what matters in good fiction, and Melville on the whale, and on the
Pequod's
crew, is more absorbing to his readers in the long run that is the parabolic significance of Captain Ahab. Patrick O'Brian has contrived to invent a new world that is almost entirely, in this sense, a world of enchanting fictional surfaces, and all the better for it. As narrator he never obtrudes his own personality, is himself never present in the role of author at all; but we know well what most pleases, intrigues, and fascinates him; and there is a kind of sweetness in his books, an enthusiasm and love for the setting of the fiction, which will remind older readers of Sir Walter Scott. It is worth remembering that Melville too worshipped Scott, and that the young Conrad pored over the Waverley novels in Poland long before he went to Sea.

This retrospective review first appeared in November 1991 in
The New York Review of Books
. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Professor Bayley.