ecl@ahuta.UUCP (ecl) (01/02/85)
The Hornblower Series by C. S. Forester A review of a series of books by Mark R. Leeper Back in grad school one day I was sitting in an Advanced Probability course watching a less than inspiring professor prove an inequality, neither side of which made any sense to me. In such times my mind wanders, and this time it somehow wandered to a film I had seen on TV some five years earlier. The film was CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER with Gregory Peck. At that time almost all my fiction reading was devoted to science fiction, but it occurred to me that there might be a certain appeal to reading about British navel warfare about the time of the Napoleanic Wars. Such, I guess, is the power of cinema. When the lecture was over (as I remember, it was about 37 hours later), I rushed over to the library and picked up my first Hornblower novel, BEAT TO QUARTERS. Rather unexpectedly, I found a lot of what I like in good science fiction in the Hornblower series. It takes place against a background that makes one hungry to know more. C. S. Forester apparently knew a good deal about maritime history, and there is a real spell-binding quality about his attention to detail. Some of the things that were commonplace in the 17th century we would consider appalling. For example, rather than just saying that Hornblower ate a meal or even just describing the meal, he explains how Hornblower taps the biscuits on the table to rid them of maggots, though others seem to like the biscuits with the maggots still in them. Still, Forester's descriptions form a consistent reality and leave the reader with more to think about than most similarly light reading. The self-doubting--often self-punishing--Hornblower grows from book to book. He is something of a fool about his personal life, which he messes up with a loveless marriage and a slavish effort to chase status, not because he wants it, but because it is expected of him. At home he is an uncomfortable and ungainly stranger; at sea, he transforms into an incomparable leader of men and a brilliant tactician. At sea or on land he has the same fears and doubts, which he covers as well as he can with a self-assured front. But his nautical skills always stand him in better stead at sea than his social skills do on land. Forester wrote three consecutive novels BEAT TO QUARTERS (THE HAPPY RETURN), SHIP OF THE LINE, and FLYING COLORS in 1937 and 1938. The first, involving a megalomaniacal South American dictator, is the most immediately enjoyable Hornblower novel. The film, incidentally, is based on the three novels, though mostly on the first. He then waited until 1945 to continue the exploits with COMMODORE HORNBLOWER, followed by LORD HORNBLOWER the next year. He then wrote a number of short stories about Hornblower's very early career (the best of which concerns a shipment of rice) collected in MR. MIDSHIPMAN HORNBLOWER. He followed that with the direct sequels LIEUTENANT HORNBLOWER and HORNBLOWER AND THE ATROPOS in 1952 and 1953. Then, in 1958, he jumped to events after LORD HORNBLOWER with ADMIRAL HORNBLOWER IN THE WEST INDIES. Forester's last novel about Hornblower was HORNBLOWER AND THE HOTSPUR, written in 1962. Forester died while preparing HORNBLOWER DURING THE CRISIS in 1967. As it stands, it contains two stories and part of a third from various points in Hornblower's career. There are also YOUNG HORNBLOWER, CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER, and THE INDOMITABLE HORNBLOWER--each a collection of three Hornblower novels--and HORNBLOWER'S TRIUMPH--excerpted incidents from two Hornblower novels. Of some note to Hornblower readers are two books: THE HORNBLOWER COMPANION contains charts of Hornblower's battles and personal notes by Forester. C. Northcote Parkinson, best known for humorous essays like "Parkinson's Law," wrote a complete biography of the character called THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HORATIO HORNBLOWER. Also it should be noted that a number of well-known fictional characters have been based on Hornblower, including A. Bertram Chandler's Commander Grimes and Gene Roddenberry's Captain James Kirk. Internal Chronological Listing of Hornblower Stories MR. MIDSHIPMAN HORNBLOWER "Hornblower and the Widow McCool" (*) LIEUTENANT HORNBLOWER HORNBLOWER AND THE HOTSPUR "Hornblower During the Crisis" (*) HORNBLOWER AND THE ATROPOS BEAT TO QUARTERS SHIP OF THE LINE FLYING COLOURS COMMODORE HORNBLOWER LORD HORNBLOWER "The Point and the Edge" (+) ADMIRAL HORNBLOWER IN THE WEST INDIES "The Last Encounter" (*) (*) Contained in HORNBLOWER DURING THE CRISIS (+) Outlined in THE HORNBLOWER COMPANION (Evelyn C. Leeper for) Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!lznv!mrl
mat@amdahl.UUCP (Mike Taylor) (01/05/85)
> > The Hornblower Series by C. S. Forester > A review of a series of books by Mark R. Leeper > Of some note to Hornblower readers are two books: THE HORNBLOWER > COMPANION contains charts of Hornblower's battles and personal notes by > Forester. C. Northcote Parkinson, best known for humorous essays like > "Parkinson's Law," wrote a complete biography of the character called THE > LIFE AND TIMES OF HORATIO HORNBLOWER. mber C. Northcote Parkinson has also written several sea novels along the same lines, which I think are the best of the genre and superior to the Hornblower series. -- Mike Taylor ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!mat [ This may not reflect my opinion, let alone anyone else's. ]