"Master and Commander" by Patrick O'Brian
Title: Master and Commander
Author: Patrick O'Brian
My Grade: B-
To start off, let me just say that this series of books is not for everyone. "Master and Commander" is the first of 20 books in the Aubrey/Maturin series and I hate to say it, but in my opinion, most men would probably enjoy it more than the average woman... a sort of manly Jane Austen. I can't believe I just said that. -___- But, from my encounters with people who are familiar with the books, it seems to be the case. The guys breeze through them like it's a bit of light reading, where I know very few women who would even attempt them and it took me over a month to get through! Despite that, I'm glad I read it. I feel an enormous amount of accomplishment finishing it (and not hating it). I think I will make it a goal to read t least 1 - 2 in the series a year (we'll see how that goes). The basic premise of the series is the adventures at sea in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. A lot of the sea-talk was lost on me, and there's not much of a plot, but that's not the real strength of the stories... it's the characters that do it for me. The lead characters being Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin are people you can genuinely care for. I particularly liked Jack (referred by his men as "Goldilocks" behind his back)... he's a complicated man who has a natural gift for what he does at sea, yet you wonder about his judgments offshore... like having an open affair with one of his superiors wives. He's flawed but that just makes him more interesting.
This series is being introduced on film in a movie called Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World... taking the titles of the 1st and 10th books in the series. From what I've read and seen about the movie, it doesn't take much from M&C at all, if it takes any plot from the books, it's likely to be from TFSOTW. Russell Crowe, who may seem like an odd choice to play Aubrey fits my idea of him... but that may be because I had seen him in character before I read the book. He's not nearly as heavy as he's described in the books... but that's understandable. I read an interview with Crowe who was in the process of gaining all the weight to fit Jack's description but was told to stop at a certain point as the role was physically demanding enough without the extra EXTRA weight. Despite that, he's still got a bit of a belly, he's got the golden hair, and I noticed they even got his ear to look right (a bit of his ear get's shot off in M&C). Should be interesting. I'll probably be able to enjoy the film better than the die-hard O'Brian fans.