What book could you read over and over again?
In my life I’ve read many books.
Maybe 5,000. Perhaps more. Perhaps even many more.
None have captured, have indeed stirred my imagination into febrile action more than this saga.
Patrick O’Brian was one of, if not the best illustrator of the Napoleonic Wars.
In this immortal series one finds everything: intrigue, swashbuckling adventures, cloak and dagger action, historical tidbits and paraphernalia one could spend a lifetime without discovering.
The author poured out his soul to give life to his narration. There is no narrative. But the story is there. In fact, there’s more than one storyline.
The life and death of hundreds of people, tens of characters is laid out bare like in Rembrandt’s Lesson of Anatomy.
It is the Saga that defines the genre.
Master and Commander, I salute you!
Hip hip huzzah!
Götterdämmerung 