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rushthatspeaksOh dear. I appear to have miscounted somewhere, but I can't figure out where. I have entries that entirely cover the segment I was offline, except for the last day of it, but I also have two books left that I read to review, not counting the one I read this morning, and I didn't read them on the same day. I took notes! What the hell?
Anyway, yesterday I read Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, and at some point that cannot, logically, have been yesterday, and cannot, logically, have been at any other time I read the Sarashina Nikki, and as I clearly read these books on alternate-universe versions of the same evening I have decided to review them in terms of one another.
The work now known as Sarashina Nikki was written by an author we now refer to as the Lady Sarashina (although that was not her name; Sarashina is the name of a province discussed at one point in the narrative, which somehow got attached). She was a Heian court lady, slightly later than Shonagon, so this book was composed sometime about the year 1000 A.D.
Due, no doubt, to this early date, there is almost nothing of naval interest about the work at all. Although the lady travels in it from an outlying province to the capital of Heian-Kyo, she makes this journey, and the subsequent pilgrimages to various shrines which form a substantial portion of her narrative, almost entirely overland. In addition, she had very little contact with the army, navy, or matters military, so it is almost impossible to get any idea from her of the lay of the land at the time, although revolts against the centralized government that shaped the core of her life were in fact at that point brewing.
Instead, she is concerned-- quite logically, actually-- with post and preferment, with the jobs available to her father, husband, and son, the wish to have them stay in the capital which is the center of all life and the need to have them leave for minor provinces to gain the experience necessary for advancement. She discusses this in the light of various religious and prophetic dreams over the course of her lifetime, and expresses the belief that all the bad luck in her life has come from failing to acknowledge her dreams: a novel but not terribly believable conceit for persons familiar with the British Admiralty. She also includes a great deal of poetry, although, possibly due to the exigencies of the translation, none of it is terribly singable or has any sort of strong rhythm.
By contrast, Master and Commander is a book about several rather low-class persons attached to a British naval vessel during the Napoleonic wars. Indeed, during the course of the book none of them come anywhere close to the capital at all, and must be regarded as distressingly provincial. Such persons, though they are depicted as being of fair bravery and great loyalty, are naturally on many occasions played for comedy; this is a book not concerned with princes and the conduct of nobility. It goes into great and sometimes distressing detail about its naval actions, which, it must be said, are exciting and well-related, and it even includes a little occasional poetry, of a doggerel fashion. It rather resembles the work of Dorothy Dunnett, but without many of the features that on occasion make Dunnett so annoying: Dunnett occasionally mishandles her women, but so far this series has no women to mishandle, and if you know sailing jargon it avoids entirely that tendency to obscurity which many claim mars the beginnings of the Lymond chronicles. Of course, if you do not know sailing jargon, it is probably as clear as mud. It has the excitement, the confidence, the surety and the scope of a great epic, and is as compulsively readable as one, which means that one may entirely disregard the fact that as far as a plot specific to this book, there really isn't one, or rather if there is one it resolves at entirely the wrong times to fit the usual mold this sort of book is set in. And it gives a fair account of various marine plants, weather conditions, aspects of the coastline, and views of natural phenomena, although not, of course, as much as one might wish for.
I shall certainly read more Patrick O'Brian.
I trust this straightens out whatever confusion happened in my notes.
Anyway, yesterday I read Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, and at some point that cannot, logically, have been yesterday, and cannot, logically, have been at any other time I read the Sarashina Nikki, and as I clearly read these books on alternate-universe versions of the same evening I have decided to review them in terms of one another.
The work now known as Sarashina Nikki was written by an author we now refer to as the Lady Sarashina (although that was not her name; Sarashina is the name of a province discussed at one point in the narrative, which somehow got attached). She was a Heian court lady, slightly later than Shonagon, so this book was composed sometime about the year 1000 A.D.
Due, no doubt, to this early date, there is almost nothing of naval interest about the work at all. Although the lady travels in it from an outlying province to the capital of Heian-Kyo, she makes this journey, and the subsequent pilgrimages to various shrines which form a substantial portion of her narrative, almost entirely overland. In addition, she had very little contact with the army, navy, or matters military, so it is almost impossible to get any idea from her of the lay of the land at the time, although revolts against the centralized government that shaped the core of her life were in fact at that point brewing.
Instead, she is concerned-- quite logically, actually-- with post and preferment, with the jobs available to her father, husband, and son, the wish to have them stay in the capital which is the center of all life and the need to have them leave for minor provinces to gain the experience necessary for advancement. She discusses this in the light of various religious and prophetic dreams over the course of her lifetime, and expresses the belief that all the bad luck in her life has come from failing to acknowledge her dreams: a novel but not terribly believable conceit for persons familiar with the British Admiralty. She also includes a great deal of poetry, although, possibly due to the exigencies of the translation, none of it is terribly singable or has any sort of strong rhythm.
By contrast, Master and Commander is a book about several rather low-class persons attached to a British naval vessel during the Napoleonic wars. Indeed, during the course of the book none of them come anywhere close to the capital at all, and must be regarded as distressingly provincial. Such persons, though they are depicted as being of fair bravery and great loyalty, are naturally on many occasions played for comedy; this is a book not concerned with princes and the conduct of nobility. It goes into great and sometimes distressing detail about its naval actions, which, it must be said, are exciting and well-related, and it even includes a little occasional poetry, of a doggerel fashion. It rather resembles the work of Dorothy Dunnett, but without many of the features that on occasion make Dunnett so annoying: Dunnett occasionally mishandles her women, but so far this series has no women to mishandle, and if you know sailing jargon it avoids entirely that tendency to obscurity which many claim mars the beginnings of the Lymond chronicles. Of course, if you do not know sailing jargon, it is probably as clear as mud. It has the excitement, the confidence, the surety and the scope of a great epic, and is as compulsively readable as one, which means that one may entirely disregard the fact that as far as a plot specific to this book, there really isn't one, or rather if there is one it resolves at entirely the wrong times to fit the usual mold this sort of book is set in. And it gives a fair account of various marine plants, weather conditions, aspects of the coastline, and views of natural phenomena, although not, of course, as much as one might wish for.
I shall certainly read more Patrick O'Brian.
I trust this straightens out whatever confusion happened in my notes.
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Date: 2010-09-18 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 05:10 pm (UTC)These were one of only two things that I did audio-first for despite having the full texts to hand. (The other is Stephen Briggs' more recent readings of Terry Pratchett's books.)
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Date: 2010-09-21 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-19 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 03:39 am (UTC)Indeed, during the course of the book none of them come anywhere close to the capital at all, and must be regarded as distressingly provincial.
Sorry, I love this review.
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Date: 2010-09-18 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-18 05:23 pm (UTC)I have never heard this claim made before, and I absolutely adore the Lymond chronicles. Elaborate?
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Date: 2010-09-19 05:06 pm (UTC)That said, Dunnett is much better than most historical writers at sticking to the mores of her era, which means that I find it less annoying than I might; and I do love the books.
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Date: 2010-09-18 05:39 pm (UTC)(The more so because I've returned to translating from the Kokinshu and so am close to one such headspace than the other.)
---L.
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Date: 2010-09-19 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 01:19 pm (UTC)P. S. Hi! I added you 'cos