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    The Mauritius Command
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    The Mauritius Command
    Unavailable
    The Mauritius Command
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    The Mauritius Command

    Written by Patrick O'Brian

    Narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The fourth of the Aubrey/Maturin series opens with Captain Jack Aubrey gloomily ashore on half-pay until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant. Once there he is to mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and La Reunion. But the difficulties of carrying out his 0rders are compounded by two of his own captains - Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity pushes his crew to the verge of mutiny.


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 5, 2000
    ISBN9780375417054
    Unavailable
    The Mauritius Command
    Author

    Patrick O'Brian

    Patrick O’Brian (1914-2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist, biographer and translator from French. His translations include Henri Charrière’s Papillon, Jean Lacouture’s biography of Charles de Gaulle and many of Simone de Beauvoir’s later works, including Les Belles Images, All Said and Done and A Very Easy Death.

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    Reviews for The Mauritius Command

    4.5/5

    756 ratings21 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I never know what to say about Patrick O'Brian books in reviews. It's another Patrick O'Brian book; it made me laugh, made my pulse mount, made me stay up past my bedtime and lose great chunks of my day. Oh, and this one made me cry as well. This one is particularly notable for the titular frigate, with whom I dare say any susceptible reader, not just Jack Aubrey, will fall deeply in love. The usual heady mixture of Aubrey's action and worries with Maturin's explorations and cogitations, topped off as ever with their great friendship.Notes on rereading: this book is more Maturin's book than Aubrey's, although the massive sea action in the middle does give him his time in the limelight. Also, I think it's even harder to put down than the average Aubrey-Maturin volume. Out of the frying pan into the fire into the fleet action...
    • 5/5
      Not a light read, but well worth it. The descriptions of the ship handling weather extremes going round the Horn are vivid. The difficulties of both sending and receiving mail when ships are travelling far and fast are brought home all too clearly as Aubrey tries to maintain contact with his fiancee.
    • 4/5
      Typical O'Brian. Wonderful language, details and characterisation, masterful battle scene and completely evocative of the time and circumstances. Just a little slow in places, and not quite the page-turner of other Aubrey/Maturin volumes.
    • 3/5
      This is the third book in the Aubrey/Maturin series of books and in many ways it is my favourite but is still not without its faults IMHO.Aubrey believes that he will be made wealthy from the spoils of his raid on a Spanish fleet returning with gold from South America but when he finds out that most of that wealth will go to the crown and not to the various ships' captains he realizes that he is still in debt. He is arrested a thrown into a debtors' jail but on release is given the task of ferrying an envoy to the East in the frigate HMS Surprise. Meanwhile Maturin has been arrested by the French as a spy and is tortured by them on the island of Minorca. In a daring raid Aubrey rescues Maturin and they sail to the East touching on Madeira, Brazil and Bombay,where Maturin reacquaints himself with the love of his life Diana Villiers and her beau Canning, along the way. Once out in the East Surprise comes up against a French fleet lead by his old adversary Linois.O'Brian continues to enhance the Aubrey/Maturin relationship and their somewhat troubled love life and their are some touchingly comedic moments. He also gives a realistic view of life on a wooden sailing ship during the Napoleonic Wars in particular as they battle against the Roaring Forties. However, a lot of the action like Aubrey's arrest and Maturin's torture, happens off stage whereas the battle against Linois's group is fearsome but sadly all to brief. On the plus side Aubrey's love Sophia on makes a couple of short appearances.I certainly intend to continue with this series but I'm not convinced that will become a real devotee of it.
    • 4/5
      Book number three in O'Brian's Napoleonic-era series featuring ship's captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and shipmate Dr. Stephen Maturin. Reading these books is always a bit of an odd experience for me, because, I have to admit, there are inevitably large-ish stretches where I have almost no idea what is going on, as I have no fluency whatsoever in Old Timey Nautical Speak. Which you'd think would be a big barrier to enjoyment, and yet I found this book, like Post Captain before it, strangely delightful. Much of that is because, whatever I may or may not understand, the characters always shine through, and I feel tremendous affection for them. Especially for Maturin, whose eccentricities and enthusiasms are utterly adorable, even if he can be a stubborn idiot about some things. And the relationship between the two is just heart-warming. It's difficult to imagine two more utterly different people, but despite all obstacles, their attachment to each other is steadfast and endearing. There's also a wonderfully vivid sense of place here, especially when that place is aboard ship. Sometimes, I swear, I could almost taste the salt water. And then there's the sly, dry sense of humor, which probably makes the whole thing worth reading all by itself. You wouldn't expect this sort of book to be laugh-out-loud funny, but it often is.Among other events, this particular installment features a trip to India, some continuing complications in affairs of the heart, and, of course, the inevitable skirmish with the French. Although as far as I'm concerned, they could pretty much sail around aimlessly, and I'd probably still be interested.(I am kind of hoping poor Stephen gets to catch a break in the next installment, though, after the multiple kinds of abuse he suffers in this one. Or is that too much to ask?)
    • 5/5
      My favorite of the Aubrey-Maturin "Master and Commander" series. In all honesty, I never thought these books would grab me, as I'd never been particularly interested in tall ships or the involved period of history (era of the Napoleonic wars). But these books really got to me. The characters are so well developed (especially if you start with book 1 of the series). The descriptions are wonderful. O'Brian really puts you on the gun deck. Puts you in the Mediterranean. Puts you in the Galapagos. You can taste the plum duff and the grog. You can feel the sea air blowing your hair back. I love these stories. And H.M.S. Surprise is, so far (I'm on book 12), my favorite.
    • 5/5
      Each book I read of O'Brian knocks me out. Only the first three so far, but yikes. What beautiful language. The dialogue stays true to the period, but the narration does not, which I think is perfect. **Spoiler**The scene in which Stephen is saved from his torturers in an old church by Aubrey and some of his crew is for my money the best scene written by O'Brian so far in the three I've read. Pacing, dialogue, etc. Just amazing.
    • 5/5
      H.M.S. Surprise begins almost immediately after Post Captain ended, with Captain Jack Aubrey's famous luck again failing him on land as his hard-won fortune slips away from him. In Patrick O'Brian's third story, Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin must embark on a mission to the Far East to deliver an ambassador, meanwhile dealing with their respective relationships with Sophie Williams and Diana Villiers. O'Brian continues to demonstrate his mastery of the nautical genre, exploring the idea of the far east in early nineteenth century British thought. There are more examples of Aubrey's tactical brilliance and plenty of depictions of natural philosophy. I consider this book on par with the first novel and better than the second, in which Aubrey and Maturin spent far too much time on land (though this was necessary to show another aspect of naval life).
    • 5/5
      It's interesting, isn't it, that these novels appear to have been marketed originally as "Jack Aubrey novels" (see first edition cover art to the left). But where, oh where, would Jack Aubrey be without Don Esteban Maturin y Domanova, better known as good old Dr. Stephen Maturin, Spock to Aubrey's Kirk if ever there was one.

      As it happens, we get a pretty good idea as this novel opens, finding Jack alone in acting command of the crack frigate Lively, which he admires and enjoys only in principle -- likening it internally to a brother's officer's wife, elegant and chaste and living her life according to sound scientific principles. Not very sexy, but not a slovenly waste of wood and canvas, either. He is alone in command because Stephen, revealed last novel as a valued secret agent, is on assignment and, as it tuns out, in peril, because the new First Lord of the Admiralty blundered into mentioning him by name in a public meeting (Plamegate, anyone?), a remarkable thing that did not go unremarked by enemy agents!

      So while in Post Captain both Jack and Stephen engaged in a ridiculous dual escape, in H.M.S. Surprise the former starts off the story enacting a rescue of the latter, who was captured on one of his spy missions, in deadly earnest. That it is from the very island where they met --Minorca, Port Mahon, since fallen into the hands of the Spanish who are, in 1804, allied with France (the French turned on them in 1808), makes it all the more poignant and interesting. It's a very broken and battered Stephen who joins the Surprise's crew, and his ordeal is far from over: no sooner is he aboard than he's itching to get off the ship again to go explore a rock in the middle of the sea, a rock teeming with bird and insect life the likes of which might well be nondescript, in the old fashioned phrase*, which, this is Patrick O'Brian, so everything gets an old fashioned phrase at some point.

      And that's just the first act!

      Really, I generally think that if one is, for some unfathomable reason, going to read just one Aubrey/Maturin novel it should probably be this one, because it packs pretty much everything we love about O'Brian's creations into one dense little book -- staggering geographical scope (England to Minorca to India to Africa to...!), slapstick escapes/rescues, hot naval battle action (this time with a fleet of merchant ships having to fight like military vessels, with Jack having to engage in hard core diplomacy as well as seat-of-his-pants strategizing to pull it off), charming/brutal scenes of shipboard life, and perils ashore in love and war. Especially in love. Poor Stephen. Poor Jack. But mostly, in this novel, poor Stephen, for Diana Villiers leads him quite a merry chase all over India and beyond; he even winds up fighting a duel over her.** And then there's Dil. Ah, Dil.

      And hey, everybody, it's okay. I still have a heart. I know this because once again the story of Dil, the wise-beyond-her-years little girl in Bombay who adopts Stephen and more or less keeps him out of trouble during his wanderings there -- she considers him a sort of idiot saint who can probably fly if he chooses, but would definitely fly the wrong way if not smack into something and knock himself out -- still makes me tear up. I picture her as being played by Sarala Kariyawasam. Brilliantly. Except Sarala might have been too cute. Ah, me.

      *Meaning "not yet described" rather than "not worth describing because it's so boring" as we tend to use the term nowadays.

      **And getting wounded. And surgically removing a pistol ball from his own gut in a scene wonderfully depicted in the film adaptation of Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World but in the film his wound is gotten quite, quite differently. And much less tragically.
    • 5/5
      My favorite of the Aubrey-Maturin "Master and Commander" series. In all honesty, I never thought these books would grab me, as I'd never been particularly interested in tall ships or the involved period of history (era of the Napoleonic wars). But these books really got to me. The characters are so well developed (especially if you start with book 1 of the series). The descriptions are wonderful. O'Brian really puts you on the gun deck. Puts you in the Mediterranean. Puts you in the Galapagos. You can taste the plum duff and the grog. You can feel the sea air blowing your hair back. I love these stories. And H.M.S. Surprise is, so far (I'm on book 12), my favorite.
    • 5/5
      I don't know if I will be able to put in words why I love this book. I enjoy spending time with the characters: they are larger than life, but accessible; human, drastically flawed, but honorable and good company. I find life at sea fascinating, all of it: the ocean, the storms, the navigation, the shipboard life, the ports of call, the little islands along the way. The battle scenes are fabulous, and the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin just makes me feel good about humankind. Some of my favorite scenes from this book: Stephen's last glimpse of Dil, her arms spread out like a kite; the albatross; Jack and Sophia; the battle with Linois; Stephen caught in the storm on the rock in the ocean. Side note. This was my first audiobook. I read the first two in the series with my eyeballs. This worked well: With Book 1 I spent a lot of time with the dictionary, and by Book 3 I understood enough of the vocabulary to be able to listen and follow all the action. This is a great book to "read" on your commute since you can pretend you are sailing over the glorious ocean and not crawling down the highway. Also, this book started very, very slowly, until they actually got on the Surprise, and if I hadn't been trapped in the car I might not have had the patience to get to the good stuff, which would have been a shame.Another side note. I occasionally wonder if this is the sort of life Captain Wentworth led in those years without Anne. Despite all the glory and grandeur, did he feel like Jack, that life lacked color without her waiting at home? Final side note. It's clear Stephen could never make Diana happy, so I think if he really loved her he wouldn't have asked her to marry him. The life he could give her would be suffocating to her, and because she truly likes him she would only feel bad about making him unhappy. They would have both been a lot better off if he could have settled for being her very good friend. But that is hard to pull off even in the modern world, maybe it would have been impossible then. Or maybe he was so obsessed with her it just never crossed his mind.
    • 5/5
      This may well be my favorite of the series which is saying something since I love this series.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoy Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. I have read and enjoyed many of them. I continue to fear I will become jaded "They sailed, they fought, same old, same old". However, I continue to find this series, and this book in particular, some of the best reading I have ever done. There is the sailing and the fighting, which does not grow dull, no matter how much I read. The range of emotions expressed by the characters continues to amaze. The range of experiences and the reactions are so brilliantly concieved and described. HMS Surprise in particular, and the series in general, are treasures worth reading.
    • 4/5
      There is plenty of action in this third installment-sea battles, rescues, duels, deaths... How much I like Jack! He's staightforward, loyal, and courageous. And how much Stephen suffers in this novel. I have to hope for better fortune in the next book.
    • 4/5
      Another great Capt. Aubrey, Dr. Maturin novel.
    • 4/5
      These just keep getting better. And funnier. While by no means a comic book, there are many moments of genuine hilarity. I just love these books.
    • 5/5
      Great, rollicking read, and I apologise to anyone in Leicester that I confused while reading it as I walked. An absolute page-turner gem of a book, filled with more vim than Post Captain, but explaining that book's occasional languors as being part of the set up, because we needed to know Sophie for Jack's motivation in this, and we needed to meet Diana Villiers in order for Stephen's actions to make sense.The secondary characters were once again quickly and thoughtfully drawn, and there was a great mix of humour and seriousness, action and thought. Delightful.
    • 4/5
      Another excellent volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series; I liked it even better than the first two. There's really not much to say—if you're this far in, you know what to expect. About the only difference in this story from the previous is that Maturin is the trial to his friends this time, instead of Jack.I haven't decided whether I like Patrick Tull or Simon Vance better as narrator. I feel the former does a slightly better job of characters; the latter does a better job of pace on the story. I'll continue to give them both a try.
    • 4/5
      My friend Sean Boles and another online friend with whom I play chess got me interested in Patrick O'Brien's series of novels involving the characters Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Although I have to admit that I don't consume the Aubrey-Maturin novels as regularly or with the same gusto as other books and authors I follow, I enjoyed "Surprise" quite a bit, just as I enjoyed the previous two in the series ("Master and Command", and "Post-Captain").I will again avoid spoiling the work for anyone who hasn't read it by describing particular details. The serial nature of the work makes it especially important to encounter the events in sequence. Instead, I will focus on the qualities of the writing that I find particularly appealing.I won't presume to be able to do better justice to the period authenticity or O'Brien's ability to portray the seagoing life, many other reviewers have commented on this, included the afterward in the particular edition of "Surprise" I picked up, which was written by Charles Heston himself. (As an aside, I wonder about his other reading tastes, in particular whether he read "I am Legend" before being presented with the script of and agreeing to portray the lead role in "Omega Man").What I admire so much about the series is O'Brien's ability to start with truly excellent characters and to continually give us a more intimate understanding of their lives, their growth, their interactions with each other. He also has a fine sense of detail, narrative, pacing, and is on the whole a great writer in every sense.Reading this work, I can't help but think of "Moby Dick", "Middle Passage", and any number of sea-going works (sadly few of which I've read). The Aubrey-Maturin series is written for a relatively modern ear, making it easier to parse than Melville. However, far from diluting the spirit of the age he describes, O'Brien's writing is believably rooted in the time and culture he describes, and does not engage in obvious revisionism by inserting overly modern characters and situations.I look forward to continuing to read the series, and would love to hear from others who enjoy the series.
    • 5/5
      The third entry in the Aubrey-Maturin series. This one finds the HMS Surprise on a run to India and back, crossing paths with a French fleet and an equally dangerous contender, Diana Villiers. I really enjoyed this book, and it had some of the funniest Jack/Stephen moments I've yet read.
    • 5/5
      My recomendation to anyone starting on the Patrick O'Brian series is simple: wait at least three books. If you're not willing to give a twenty book (and then some) epic a good chance, then you won't finish it anyway. It's a rule which has helped me time and again in introducing unsuspecting friends to the wonders of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Even after reading the series, this is and remains my favorite Aubrey-Maturin book. It contains both highs and lows, some of the funniest moments, animal misadventures, and truly daring battles, but also the personal depth and emotion which defines this series and makes it greater than simply 'naval fiction'.