regshoe

I read The Commodore a few weeks ago, shortly before the Kidnapped play took over my entire fannish brain, hence the delay in writing it up. And to be honest Kidnapped is still taking up much of my brain right now, but I do want to get caught up on these book review posts, so: Hornblower! :D

The Commodore (1945; Commodore Hornblower in the US, the publisher apparently being afraid that American readers might forget who the main character was) is the fourth Hornblower novel in publication order and the ninth in chronological order. It opens memorably, with Hornblower established in his position as a fortunate gentleman, happily married to Barbara and being officially welcomed to his country estate by his neighbours and tenants there, and absolutely hating it. (He doesn't hate Barbara—there are some rather touching lines about how much he loves her, but he, er, doesn't seem to be very good at remembering it—more on that later). Events soon intervene, however, and Hornblower is appointed Commodore and sent to the Baltic to take a part in the delicate political situation unfolding there, where Russia and Sweden are deciding whether to side with or against Bonaparte. Hornblower picks his chief captain—you'll never guess which captain he chooses—and so he, Captain Bush and the various other captains in the squadron sail off northwards.

The rest of the book is the usual various but relatively fast-paced mix of naval manoeuvres, battles, political occasions (quite a lot of political ceremony, actually; Horatio is getting important these days) and so on, so I'll talk about some particular points that stood out to me rather than trying to summarise the whole thing.

This book doesn't have the amazing sustained Hornblower/Bush shippiness that Flying Colours had, but there are some very lovely moments between them, which I appreciated. Aww, look at them:

Bush brought down his hand from the salute and grasped Hornblower’s, trying hard to act his part, as if there were no friendship in this handshake, but mere professional esteem. Hornblower noted that his hand was as hard as ever—promotion to captain’s rank had not softened it. And try as he would Bush could not keep his face expressionless. The blue eyes were alight with pleasure, and the craggy features kept softening into a smile as they escaped from his control. It made it harder than ever for Hornblower to remain dignified.

Unfortunately both Bush and Hornblower have some decidedly non-likeable moments in this book. Bush's unnerving bloodlust is on full display when he tries to insist on hanging a deserter who's already dying horribly from a gunshot wound to the head; despite all the absurd cuteness in other scenes I find I cannot quite like Bush. And Hornblower has another of his inexplicable heterosexual affairs, this one with a Russian Countess whom he meets at a state occasion. This time, of course, he is cheating on Barbara—whom he apparently does love and is happy to be married to, despite the difficulties of life as the sort of gentleman who can be Barbara's husband—and it apparently never occurs to him that he might be doing Barbara a wrong here. I was baffled by this, and it does not do much good for my sympathy for Hornblower in the meantime.

I did enjoy the political drama of this book, including Hornblower's foiling of an attempt to assassinate the Tsar of Russia and the Prince of Sweden. Hornblower is getting historically important now—something he does at the end seems to be a fairly major action in the real course of the war, and I (knowing very little about the course of the Napoleonic Wars) was curious about how Forester is actually fitting him into real history here. The book also has a lot of the usual clever naval tactics and dramatic sea battles—Hornblower enjoys being in charge of the squadron and being a role model for the younger captains under his command (one of whom gets a very sad tragic death)—and there's quite a bit of fighting on land too, including a somewhat implausible sequence where Hornblower heroically and dramatically leads a charge against Bonaparte's army more or less by accident and is dramatically lauded as a hero.

Forester remains irritatingly fond of the word 'grin' used to mean 'wide smile', which always jolts me out of the story for a moment (I'm not sure how old that sense actually is—the OED doesn't seem to list it separately—but in my experience older books only ever use the word in its various 'expression that bares the teeth, in a bad way' senses).

I say it was published in the US as Commodore Hornblower; in fact these are not quite the same book under two different titles, because an extra chapter was added to the end of the US version. I read a physical copy of the UK edition from the library, and then picked up the extra chapter from fadedpage.com, and having done so I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand the original ending is very abrupt; the main plot is more or less wrapped up but I wasn't at all sure that Hornblower wasn't about to die of exhaustion, and it was nice to get a bit more about what actually happens to him and confirm that he does recover. On the other hand the final part of the extra chapter is much weaker and felt pretty unnecessary, not saying anything you couldn't already have told was going to happen or including any particularly interesting details. I shall combine them for the ideal ending.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

oracne

I adored these books in high school, but haven't re-read for a really, really long time. I'm enjoying seeing them through someone else's eyes!

What I remember most about this book was Hornblower setting up the squadron - all the nitpicky details about the navy were a big attraction for me in these books.

From:

regshoe

I'm glad you're enjoying the posts—I'm certainly having a good time working my way through the books :D

Oh yes, I do like the little naval details, although my understanding of them is a long way from complete. I especially liked the scene in this one where Hornblower and his captains coordinate their firing on the invisible enemy ship using flag signals—it's all very ingenious.

From:

oracne

Anything I learned came from context! Though years later I started reading the Aubrey/Maturin series - I'm not quite done with that one. And I did a little research for a writing project once.

From:

regshoe

I've started reading the Aubrey-Maturin books too, but paused because I wasn't getting into them as much as the Hornblower books—I'll go back to the rest sometime. I am slowly picking up more ship vocabulary as I go :D

From:

sanguinity

It's not a super shippy novel, but there are some nice moments, yes. In addition to the one you quoted, I'm also fond of 'better than a wife,' and his watching Bush sleep.

Yeah, sometimes other fans go on about what a cinnamon roll Bush is, and I always squint and think of him quick wanting to hang that guy before he 'escapes justice', and shake my head sadly. (And it's not just this one incident; I also think of his weekly flogging of that simple-minded sailor who can't be taught not to spit on the deck; Bush is almost portrayed as simple-minded himself, in that he can't be taught not to flog sailors who can't be taught etc. etc.) I love the guy, but Forester also stuck him with all the less-laudable traits of a Georgian Navy officer in order to use him as a foil for the more enlightened, more-palatable-to-modern-eyes Hornblower, and it shows.

Hornblower and the Countess... *sigh* The 1950s radio adaptation (which is ordinarily very close to the books) has Hornblower turn her down and come back to the ship and write a letter to Barbara about how he misses her, and I much prefer that version. You'll be happy to know, though, that this is the last of Hornblower's inexplicable heterosexual philandering.

(one of whom gets a very sad tragic death) Never get attached to a side character in a Hornblower novel! Just about the time I start thinking that I really like a guy...

I prefer the UK ending of Commodore just because it's such an emotional sledgehammer drop; it's very Forester, to have a professional triumph prefigure a personal disaster. That ending is also a nice launching point for fic -- even to the point that I tend to think of the additional US chapter, with its cloyingly sweet fixit Christmassy ending, as if it were just one more fic. *shrug* But I suppose it might depend on what you imprint upon first; it was a long time before I found out there was a US ending.

It sounds like you're not really in a Hornblower fic place, but I'll go ahead and get my Commodore fic recs up anyway, and you can explore them or not when it suits you.

From:

regshoe

I'm also fond of 'better than a wife,' and his watching Bush sleep.

Aww, yes :D

Yes, that's true—Bush is more of a cinnamon roll by the standards of his own time (and hence perhaps to Hornblower) than from our point of view.

You'll be happy to know, though, that this is the last of Hornblower's inexplicable heterosexual philandering.

Oh good! And it sounds like the adaptation had the right idea there.

I see what you mean about the original ending being a good opening for fic, and the US ending being kind of a fic itself! I think I needed just a bit more closure/explanation for the impact of the original ending really to work for me—as it was I was just going, 'wait, what happened? why???'—but I can also see how having that as the only ending you knew about for a long time would make the additional chapter even less satisfying.

Yes, I look forward to working my way through those recs when I have a little bit more brain space—thank you :)

From:

sanguinity

Forgive me, I forgot a major incident of philandering and I'm going to have to walk my promise back: there is more philandering in the next book. After Lord I do believe you'll have seen the last of it, but... I'm sorry to say there is definitely philandering in Lord. :-(

Ah, yes, if you were confused about the UK ending, then of course it would be unsatisfying. For myself, I really like the unreliable narration of it, where tone-deaf Hornblower is hallucinating music and cannot correctly parse Brown's reaction. And of course the whole plague-ship ruse earlier in the book is meant to be foreshadowing/setup for why Hornblower bringing typhus back to the ship would be an unthinkable disaster -- Bush is about to discover he has a major crisis on his hands.

But if some readers were missing all that, then yes, I can see why the US editors wanted another chapter.

From:

regshoe

Oh dear...! I remember you saying Hornblower does something particularly awful in one of the latest-set books—is this what that was about?

Yes—I'm afraid I am too literal-minded for a lot of unreliable narration and minimal-explanation writing styles, so I hadn't put the pieces together to figure out what was really happening (nor had I twigged that the plague ship was foreshadowing—that's neat). I do expect that having that as the only ending I knew for years and re-reading it several times on its own would have improved it for me.

From:

sanguinity

(nor had I twigged that the plague ship was foreshadowing—that's neat)

Forester does a lot of that: introduce a nautical concept or scenario in an early chapter that's going to become critical in a later chapter. It's one of the things I like about his writing.

I remember you saying Hornblower does something particularly awful in one of the latest-set books—is this what that was about?

I don't remember the specific conversation, but I was likely talking about another event in Lord. Sadly, Lord is rich in things not to like. :-(

From:

regshoe

I was likely talking about another event in Lord. Sadly, Lord is rich in things not to like. :-(

...Well, forewarned is forearmed, and I can see that this next book is not going to be a dull one, at least. :D