Patrick O'Brian, The Great Conservative

Yes I'm finally writing something about Master and Commander

My family moved this summer, and that, combined with the start of the school year, hasn’t left any time for frivolities like writing. But I have three posts bouncing around my head, and I’ve finally carved out some time to get one of them out into the world. Here goes:

I recommend that you read Henry Farrell’s post, “Patrick O’Brian is a great conservative writer.” Here’s the thesis statement:

Patrick O’Brian is one of the great conservative writers of the last century. I hesitate to say the great conservative writer, because I am not a conservative myself, and hence not the best judge. But I am prepared to argue that he is the writer who is most capable of bringing out the best points of conservatism in a way that non-conservatives like myself can understand and find sympathy with.

Specifically, O’Brian returns again and again to the theme of right authority:

The great problem in Patrick O’Brian is the problem of right authority. When you have complete authority over others, what does that do to them and what does it do to you? How do you exercise it without destroying them or becoming a monster yourself? This is a problem that standard issue liberals and lefties have great difficulty thinking about clearly, because it doesn’t fit easily with their understandings of how the world works. But authority relations riddle our society, even if we might prefer to ignore them.

Farrell goes on to illustrate O’Brian’s nuanced conservative perspective on right authority with well-chosen excerpts from the first few books. He even recommends the Patrick Tull audiobook versions, which were the versions that I first heard with my dad as a seventh grader. I hear Tull’s voice in my head when I re-read the books to this day. As I said, read the whole thing.

Obligatory. Russell Crowe, violinist, was less-than-convincing.

I have two additions to Farrell’s post.

The first is the question of the nature of the Aubrey-Maturin relationship, which is obviously the heart of the books. For Farrell, it is that relationship which enables the dialogue about authority, and which prevents that dialogue from becoming simply a series of lectures in conservatism:

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are individual humans with a particular relationship, and it is only because of this that their relationship can bear the argument.

But what is the actual nature of their relationship? Seth LeJacq has led the academic charge for a queer reading of their relationship. Seth said in an interview a few years ago:

The central relationship is open to queer interpretations. I would say, I don't see it in my reading as being explicitly queer, but these men really love each other and it's about a loving male friendship. And the, the male friendship is central to both of their lives. It's the most important relationship. The author himself clearly thought about the queer possibility there too because he has characters joking about them being lovers in the book. There are scenes where he's clearly playing with it. … [Stephen is] Jack's doctor. There's this incredible scene in one of the books where he, he gives Jack an enema. But in any case, that, that's not even the extent of the queer stuff.

And he’s by no means the only person to have noticed O’Brian’s surprising depiction of homosexuality. To be clear, a queer reading of the Aubrey-Maturin relationship does not change Farrell’s point about how O’Brian uses it to engage in a dialogue about authority, nor does it invalidate O’Brian’s bona fides as a great conservative writer. I just think it’s worth highlighting this perspective since I’m never sure the extent to which other readers of the series have been exposed to it. (I sure wasn’t when I was twelve!)

Russell Crowe leading a boarding party was much more convincing.

My second point is going to tackle the question of authority more directly. Without putting too much emphasis on it, Farrell explains, “The books are set in that moment when the old ways are giving way to the new.” But when, exactly, are the Aubrey-Maturin books set? To find out why the Wikipedia answer isn’t good enough, you’ll have to wait for the next post.

In the meantime, if you want to hear me talk about the movie and “how real” it was (eye roll), here you go.