Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Master and Commander: Part I

A fellow at work lent me his copy of Master and Commander. This book, if you were not aware, is one of the two books that is the basis for the film adaptation. The other is the tenth book of the series.

I am only 80 pages into the book or so, so i don't know quite how much the book is different from the film, but i'm guessing quite a bit. See, in the film, Captain Jack Aubrey is the captain of the HMS Surprise, but in this book he is only getting his first captain assignment of the Sophie. He is just meeting Maturin the surgeon for the first time.

One thing that i have noticed is that the book is detail heavy and that author Patrick O'Brien intended the books to be as accurate as humanely possible, though in the forward he freely admits to changing the locations of some naval battles. I am enjoying the book so far and i'm not ashamed to admit that i have had to skim a little bit over the heavy nautical details of which i neither truly understand nor think i require to enjoy the book. I'm sure someone will disagree with me about that, but i just can't get that detail orientated.

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