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    The Wine-Dark Sea
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    The Wine-Dark Sea
    Unavailable
    The Wine-Dark Sea
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    The Wine-Dark Sea

    Written by Patrick O'Brian

    Narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In their 16th outing, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue a prize into the Great Southern Ocean.

    The story takes Maturin to South America. Caught up in a failed coup, he flees across the Andes. Aubrey makes a desperate voyage in a open boat, but both survive and are reunited.

    "The best chapter yet in the continuing saga of life in Nelson's navy." (Publishers Weekly)


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 22, 2002
    ISBN9780739300633
    Unavailable
    The Wine-Dark Sea
    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 Wine-Dark Sea

    4/5

    423 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Doctor Stephen Maturin, an intelligence agent of formidable powers, is dispatched to discomfit the Napoleonic French and their allies. With him comes his particular friend, naval captain Jack Aubrey. Each of them has some successes on this long voyage--Jack takes a truly ridiculous number of prizes--but are battered by their adventures and happy to head home.

      I love this series so much. At this point,the continued travails of the Surprise's crew, captain, and surgeon are as comforting and interesting as hearing about my home town.
    • 5/5
      Among the pleasures of this volume was the tour of the high altitudes of Peru and of their particular flora and fauna. Stephen Maturin examines condors first hand, and bromeliads, and three kinds of llamas. Adventures include Maturin's party being sideswiped by a sudden blizzard, and Jack Aubrey being seriously wounded in the eye and leg. Even though I barely follow the political events that inform Stephen's espionage missions, Stephen survives through his wits, and with very helpful allies, and Jack survives miraculously one injury after another. I wonder how Maturin can manage all of his various addictions. First came laudanum, now coca leaves.

      I can hardly wait for the two friends to touch down on native soil so that we can hear from Sophie and Diana again.
    • 4/5
      Another excellent installment in the series, featuring an underwater volcanic eruption, Pacific travels, Maturin's trek in the Andes observing the wildlife and fomenting rebellion, and the usual Aubrey-Maturin dynamic. I'm beginning to think that as soon as I finish the last volume, I may just start over again ...
    • 4/5
      Lacked a certain something. Usual evocative prose, rich characterisation, but somehow a little less focused than other Aubrey/Maturins.Would really like to have given it a 3.75.
    • 5/5
      The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O’Brian’s sixteenth book in his Aubrey-Maturin series, picks up immediately where the previous novel, Clarissa Oakes, left off with Captain Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin, and Thomas Pullings aboard the Surprise chasing the American privateer Franklin, under command of French privateersmen, from Moahu where they recently thwarted French ambitions on the strategic island. Turbulent seas from an underwater volcanic eruption enable the Surprise to overtake and capture the Franklin, gaining the crew another prize.Aboard the Franklin, Aubrey finds her owner, Jean Dutourd, who had sought to finance a utopia on Moahu by enticing one group to overthrow the monarch. Doutard sails without papers for himself, putting Aubrey in the awkward position of how to classify him – either a privateer or a pirate. An encounter with a whaler brings news of the Alastor, a French vessel flying the black flag of piracy, and Aubrey determines to find and take her. Once the crew of the Surprise accomplishes that, they send the Surprise and the Alastor into Callao, the port for Lima, along with Maturin who can finally begin the mission upon which he embarked in The Thirteen Gun Salute. While Stephen begins making contact with locals who might support Peruvian independence, Jack looks for further prizes in the Franklin. Unfortunately for Stephen, Doutard manages to stowaway on one of the prizes and reaches Peru, intending to send up an alarm. Though neither the French nor Spanish authorities trust Doutard – he showing an alarming lack of tact and his views on religion putting him at odds with the Spanish – his words do pose a threat to any English attempt to support Peruvian independence and Stephen must flee overland. The breeze being against them, Aubrey attempts to reach Callao by cutter, though the winds delay and batter them. Fortunately, Captain Pullings finds them struggling to enter the harbor and brings them aboard Surprise, where word of Stephen’s overland trek meets them. The Surprise sails down the coast and rendezvous with Stephen before heading to the Cape to try and take three American China ships. There they encounter further misfortune when an unexpected U.S. frigate appears, giving the Surprise a brief chase in which she suffers ice damage. The Surprise escapes, but a lightning strike further damages her mast. The novel closes with the HMS Berenice under Captain Heneage Dundas finding them and transferring provisions to repair Surprise in order that they may return home.Like the previous nine novels, The Wine-Dark Sea exists outside the normal flow of time – this novel being the tenth of eleven to exist in what O’Brian described as an extended 1812, with these books taking place between the beginning of June 1813 and November 1813. Further, this continues the circumnavigation of the globe that began in The Thirteen Gun Salute and will end in The Commodore. The title quotes Homer’s Odyssey: “And if some god should strike me, out on the wine-dark sea, I will endure it.” O’Brian uses this novel to examine the nature of fortune, with Captain Dundas commenting on it when he finds Surprise damaged while Aubrey remarks that the failure in the mission is balanced by the joy of being alive and homeward bound. While the events of the previous nine novels would normally take several years, those looking for a perfect chronology are advised to simply enjoy the story and the way in which O’Brian perfectly recreates the world of the Napoleonic Wars, using Aubrey and Stephen’s activities to comment on the rapid changes occurring in this era and the passage of time in the series’ internal chronology. This Folio Society edition reprints the original text with insets containing historical portraits and sketches to illustrate some of the scenes.
    • 3/5
      Tbook is towards the end of the series and close to the end of Patrick O'Brian's life. Stell a good tale and crisp writing, but like The Truelove it does not stand up as well as the earilier books in the series. I think that it is the plot of this tale is awkward.
    • 4/5
      Jack and Stephen find themselves in the middle of a Pacific volcanic eruption and the reader is treated to Stephen's trek across the Andes. These are just a few of the things that give "The Wine Dark Sea" a unique feel. Mr. O'Brian's ability to offer up something different in the midst of such familiarity is truly a gift. I was particularly taken with the descriptions of llamas - and their reactions to Stephen. Lots of humor and tragedy equally mixed.
    • 3/5
      Perhaps I missed something by jumping into this series so near to the end; while I got the gist of the story, I imagine I'd have understood more if I'd started with book one. On the other hand, after this I saw the movie Master and Commander, and I think between this book and the movie I've picked out what I consider to be the interesting history in the series, while I don't find the rest compelling enough to justify attacking the other books.