It’s difficult to know how much to talk about books in a series. I knew the major plot point of the eleventh of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series, The Reverse of the Medal, ahead of time, and while I appreciated seeing how the novel was constructed to lead up to that, I think I would have liked the suspense of not knowing how it comes out. On the other hand, it’s very hard for a new reader to avoid finding out about this book—as shown by my example, and because the back cover copy and most other descriptions of the next book will give it away.
Which is all a long way of saying that this is a pivotal novel in the series, in which a long-running arc finally climaxes, with some resolution but with serious consequences for the characters’ futures. It’s a really admirable piece of work on a number of levels. This individual book is beautifully constructed, precisely setting up both the major plot point and all the surrounding events that foreshadow it or echo the themes. The characters and the emotion are as true as I’ve come to expect from O’Brian. And as part of the larger series, this book is a very canny structural development. I’m impressed.
I note with regret that Patrick Tull died in September 2006 (Wikipedia; NYT death notice). His narrations are literally the reason I love the series so much: as I said when logging the first one, I’d read the first three and they just didn’t stick, but Tull’s characterizations, humor, and fine sense of pacing made the books come alive for me, to my great enjoyment and enrichment.
On a happier note: The Butcher’s Bill, by Michael R. Schuyler, is a free pdf download that fully indexes injuries, deaths, births, marriages, prizes, and other such things in the series. I can’t wait for my printed copy to arrive (I asked Lulu to generate a single copy for me, reasoning that this was equivalent to printing it out myself, except that I don’t have a laser printer).
As usual, a spoiler post follows.