Hornblower : Beat to Quarters by C. S. Forester
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Book Reviews of Hornblower : Beat to Quarters
Book Review: Engrossing and enjoyable, but heavy on the jargon
Summary: 3 Stars
I came to Forester's series on the "recommendation" of David Weber, who attributes to Forester's Hornblower the inspiration for his highly enjoyable space opera Honor Harrington series. Having read only the first, I must say I am glad I took the time to read (or listen) to it, as Horatio Hornblower is a character that one can like, admire, and sympathize with, even having never served in the military.I found Hornblower to be a character of great depth. While I pity his self-deprication, I admire him for it. I see the contradiction, the struggle in him, and I sympathize. I admire his sense of duty and his willingness to carry it out. I admire his compassion in a compassionless business, but his duty takes prescedence. While I don't always agree with him, he is a believable and likable character.
I don't know if Forester assumed that everyone who would read his novels was a seaman or if everyone in Britain in the 1940's WAS a seaman, but there is a great deal of jargon in the novel. I'm afraid that, having grown up in suburban America, I have no idea what the difference between a mizzenmast and a mainmast, what a forecastle is, which one is the quarterdeck, or (I looked up the others but still can't figure this one out) why they would SAND the decks for Hornblower's morning walks. I'd rather NOT have to look these things up in order to enjoy the book.
Forester has no gift for dialogue; there is not much speaking in the books, but for some reason, though I love dialogue, I don't mind it that much. I wish he would have dwelt more on some of the conversations between Hornblower and Lady Barbara, but I can live without them. Their relationship grows in a believable way nevertheless.
I am told this is the best book to start the Hornblower series with, and I believe it. It explains some of the relevant nuances the of Post-Napoleonic British Navy to the reader and gives a true feel for what it MIGHT be like to be a Captain in His Majesty's Navy. Despite the jargon, I did not feel like I was missing anything.
A good book overall. I will read the rest.
Book Review: Mildly entertaining
Summary: 3 Stars
Though I'm not a huge fan of maritime adventure novels, this one was quite enjoyable and in my opinion is much more readable than the Aubrey/Maturin series. Horatio Hornblower is a much more engaging main character, and C.S. Forester does an admirable job of including enough detail about seamanship without making it a boring, technical manual. I couldn't say the same for Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander, the first installment of the Aubrey/Maturin series. Beat To Quarters isn't so much a maritime adventure novel as it is simply an adventure novel that happens to take place at sea.
There's a little bit of everything in this book - some good battle scenes, a bit of humor, and even some romance. It's one small step above "fluff" fiction, a good summer read at the beach.
It took me a long time to figure out which book in the series to read first. Beat To Quarters was the first one Forester wrote, even though it chronicles the middle the main character's life. (Five books in the series detail earlier periods of his life even though they were written later.) I would recommend starting with this one. It has the feel of a complete novel, with a beginning, middle, and end, and it doesn't reveal anything that would spoil the works that precede it in the series.
Book Review: Racist and sexist comments throughout
Summary: 2 Stars
I just don't relate to any of the reviews. Did any of you read the same book that I did? Specifically, did any of you read it any more recently than, say, when Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated?
Practically every character is introduced with derogatory racial statements. The author has painfully outdated attitudes against every single non-English person in the book. I learned a new slur for southern Europeans while reading the second chapter (page 19, and throughout the book). All Spanish sailors are sweepingly condemned as talkative, lazy, and incompetent.
Of course, Europeans fare better than non-Europeans. The people in Central America are all swarthy, dirty, and ragged. Their loyalty and convictions are constantly suspect. Nearly every person in the villain's service is disparaged as multiracial. Not described -- disparaged. The most fearsome and least sympathetic characters, such as the major domo, are those multiracial characters with some African blood.
Speaking of Africans, Lady Barbara Wellesley announces within minutes of setting foot on the deck that she will have to lock up her black maid because otherwise the maid will unashamedly have sex with every possible man on the ship: '"It is not on my account, Captain, that I need a key. It is Hebe here whom I have to lock in unless she is directly under my eye. She can no more keep from the men than a moth from the candle." The little negress grinned widely at this speech, showing no resentment and a good deal of pride.' (page 110 -111). Lady Barbara then explains that her method of keeping her maid in line is simply to beat her into submission -- just the kind of sweet lady you want for a story's love interest, right?
I've read the entire Aubrey/Maturin series repeatedly. Jack Aubrey would have had nothing but contempt for Hornblower. He's a scrub with absolutely zero respect for the men under him. The lower deck consists solely of men that can't do anything except wring their hands unless an officer tells them what to do. (Yes, these would be the same men that are supposedly at risk for self-organizing a mutiny in the first pages of the book.) He flogs twice a week. He lies to and deliberately manipulates his junior officers. He deliberately tortures them with unfelt displays of serene chat about playing cards when they would rather be preparing for battle because he thinks it might improve their opinion of his god-like infallibility.
His first lieutenant is best characterized as the son who wants his father's approval -- and will never get it, because his father is a stuffed shirt. Hornblower's hang up about talking to his staff results in withholding critical information. The men under him are supposed to mindlessly obey his orders like automata, and nevermind that a little bit of fair warning would have saved at least one life.
There are certain stupidities in the storyline, like the author's decision that Hornblower would be the sole person aboard that speaks any Spanish. Nevermind that this is unbelievably unlikely in a collection of nearly 400 sailors that had spent so many years at war in and around the Mediterranean, and that lifelong sailors picked up a few words here and there of all sorts of languages. The average sailor's speech might not amount to much more than "Woman" or "Beer", but speaking none at all is 'poetic license' at best.
In the initial capture of the Natividad, the timing on the action is completely wrong. The ship drops sails, closes a significant distance, fires a broadside, and lashes its yardarms to the Natividad -- in the length of time that it takes Hornblower to run from one end of his smallish frigate to the other; nevermind that in the very first pages of the book, just setting (all) the sails takes 24 minutes, and a fifty-yard dash is usually measured in mere seconds.
There are things in this book that are well done -- they do exist, and for that, see all the other reviews -- but overall I cannot recommend it, and I hope that future readers will go into it with more awareness of its contents than I did.
Book Review: Which Came First? The chicken or the egg.
Summary: 2 Stars
Forester may have helped create the genre of historical naval novels, but , quite frankly... Patrick O'Brian was the more capable writer. Forester's Hornblower is a cardboard figure compared to O'Brian's Maturin and Aubrey. Perhaps O'Brian's work could be considered "derivative"... but this would be a good example of the pupil trumping his Master.
As light reading, with a fascinating dose of well-researched 19th C. naval history, I think O'Brian is the place to start, despite the "longevity" of the Hornblower saga.
But.. reading both authors will give you material to form your own opinions about their relative merits.