Patrick O’Brian compared to Jane Austen
A review of a biography of Patrick O’Brian and the final, unfinished work by O’Brian in the Sunday Times (U.K.) mentions Jane Austen.
Then came an occasion in October 1996, when O’Brian was fêted in the great Painted Hall at Greenwich — a magnificent dinner at which I saw more admirals than I thought the Royal Navy still possessed, all there to honour the creator of — as John Bayley wrote — “this incomparable series (which) will live forever in the reader’s mind . . . he has been called ‘Jane Austen sur mer’!”
We also bring it to the attention of our readers because we know that many Janeites share with Jane a fascination with and affection for stories of the Royal Navy of that time.
The review was written by Robert Hardy, who portrayed General Tilney in NA1 and Sir John Middleton in S&S2 (and Harry Potter fans know him as Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic). Judging from this article, Mr. Hardy has led a most interesting life himself!
My tutor at Magdalen, very many years ago, was C. S. Lewis. Before the war he and E. M. W. Tillyard of Cambridge published a controversy called The Personal Heresy. It was about the value of pursuing details of the lives and personalities of artists. Lewis’s most valid point for me was that any great artist gives us a window to look through into a world of his creation, and that it is neither wise nor rewarding to look inwards through that window, into the shadows of the room within. It is much more difficult now to avoid the peering gaze of the media, and it is a natural human desire to know more about the lives of those whose achievements we admire. But I am tempted to believe that what O’Brian has created will enthral and endure far longer than the details of his own life.
Fortunately, we have never had occasion to regret reading any Jane Austen biographies.
