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jyrgennAs mentioned before, I have read the ten Hornblower novels about 20 years ago, although in German. For quite a while I wanted to read them again in the original version, among other reasons for learning the nautical jargon. I am nearly through with the ninth book now. (Bonaparte has just come to power again, and Hornblower builds a partisan army together with his french hosts.)
These books are significantly better than I remembered them. That may be due to weaknesses in the german translation, but I think it is just too long ago. The characters are quite believable, and, while clichéd in parts, less so than I had in mind. Forester draws much from depicting the war and heroism, but -- and I had forgotten that -- he does nowhere omit the horrors of war. And he is always entertaining, and often really suspenseful, captivating; and there is more humour in these books than I remembered. And that is a good thing, since the darling wife still is not yet done with the new Harry Potter.
Addendum: I think I'll just have to try Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. It should be quite interesting to see a different approach to the same nautical theme, and a more modern one at that: Forester wrote Hornblower, except for the unfinished Hornblower and the Crisis, from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, while the Aubrey-Maturins were written over three decades from 1970 on.
Wikipedia writes that O'Brian employs a narrative voice in style with the early 19th century he writes about, which sounds particularly interesting. This should be a style nearly a century older than that of Stevenson's Kidnapped and Catriona, which I found not difficult to read, but those were the oldest books I have read so far in English. Let's see.
These books are significantly better than I remembered them. That may be due to weaknesses in the german translation, but I think it is just too long ago. The characters are quite believable, and, while clichéd in parts, less so than I had in mind. Forester draws much from depicting the war and heroism, but -- and I had forgotten that -- he does nowhere omit the horrors of war. And he is always entertaining, and often really suspenseful, captivating; and there is more humour in these books than I remembered. And that is a good thing, since the darling wife still is not yet done with the new Harry Potter.
Addendum: I think I'll just have to try Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. It should be quite interesting to see a different approach to the same nautical theme, and a more modern one at that: Forester wrote Hornblower, except for the unfinished Hornblower and the Crisis, from the late 1930s to the early 1960s, while the Aubrey-Maturins were written over three decades from 1970 on.
Wikipedia writes that O'Brian employs a narrative voice in style with the early 19th century he writes about, which sounds particularly interesting. This should be a style nearly a century older than that of Stevenson's Kidnapped and Catriona, which I found not difficult to read, but those were the oldest books I have read so far in English. Let's see.