I took down Master and Commander last night, and as I held the book in my hands I contemplated the pleasurable feeling of expectation.

 

When I first read a great book I am no longer I, but ego dissolves away into an eye, absorbed completely into the world of the story, remerging at the end with that snap of the spiritual umbilicus.  I use birth imagery here in part because the emotions seem to be akin in a way; the joy that comes of a great book whelms that painful separation and summary reintroduction of the I.

 

What I have born is a memory, which overlays the pages with a palimpsest:  with the story comes a vision of the day I first sat down in my reading chair, curious, disengaged, the warm summer air wafting through my open window the distant cries of children running on the grass.  Another rereading, during the bleakness of a winter day, the sweet spice of cinnamon-laced hot chocolate at my side; a third image, just a flash, splashing across the deep green lawns of Mount Vernon, the book tucked firmly under my arm to protect it, at least, as I cannot protect my clothing, for I had no idea that a storm was coming.  I took the book along in case I had to wait in line to see Washington’s home.

 

These memories, like children, ramify outward, intersecting with others’ memories: ”Oh, you read it too?  What first hooked you?  What did you think of Diana?”  Now I remember what this person said about the opening at Port Mahon (”I was there just last summer, and I actually got to hear music, but it was just a band . . .”), what that person said about  Stephen’s view of the ’98 in Ireland.

 

I open the book.  The chattering voices in my head cease. 

 

For now the boundaries between past and present are thrown down, as are those between this world and that.  A reread means I will remain, to an extent, an I, observing what I know will come to pass (anticipating, relishing, studying); the eye stays right there in the story whose power to draw me in and keep me there has not the least diminished.

 

The music-room in the Governor’s House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli’s C major quartet. . .

 

When I first sat down to read I had no expectations, few images beyond brief flickers of remembered Hornblower and Roderick Random readings, for at that time even the Hornblower series for television had not been shown.

 

Now when I sit down to commence my reread I am equipped with images from both the Hornblower and the recent film Master and Commander; I have located and listened to Locatelli’s C major quartet so I can hear its strains, I have at hand a map of Port Mahon, and it is easy enough to recollect the briny smell of the sea.

 

I know what is going to happen.  So I read the opening chapter to discover the progress of my addiction.

 

 There are no neutral moments in that first chapter; Jack is at first delighted with the music, embarrassed at the studied animosity of the little pale man in the next chair, then angered by the elbow in the ribs when he starts “Pom pom pomming” to the music, conducting with his fist in the air.

 

Molly Harte is watching him covertly, realizes Jack is not happy.

 

Jack returns to his lodging, contemplating whether or not he has to fight a duel—and there is the letter that changes his life; from there, skillfully, outward reaches the narrator, touching everyone’s thoughts, and looking at the world through their eyes.  Contrast the description of dawn through the eyes of James Dillon before he reports for duty, and then of Jack, sitting high up on the masthead of his first command, watching the new sunlight touch the tips of the masts, come down over the sails until it reaches the desk, while he sits there weeping silently.

 

Jack and Stephen contrast brilliantly; each is masterly where the other is ignorant.  Stephen’s “downstairs” when referring to going below is the more humorous because of his subtlety when at last he has private converse with James, and they retrace what happened since their last meeting, touching on the disaster of the uprising—and the emotional toll.  Jack’s “flings at the Pope” are buffoonish after that, a fine contrast to his skill at command.

 

Master and Commander’s cast yields surprises every time I read.  Each character leaves a trace in my mind, causing later pondering; how did Joselito survive when the French retook Mahon?  Did the young lieutenant who looked so longingly at Jack’s new epaulette get his promotion?

 

The character who particularly caught my eye this round was James Dillon.  He was sufficiently complex enough to have driven an entire novel on his own, without the bolos of Jack and Stephen.  O’Brian gives us subsequently a number of fascinating minor characters; he never settles for the neutral, or the faceless Greek chorus telling us what to think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I  pause now and then, my attention caught by moments of anticipated felicity, and by forgotten bits of flavor that burst like shooting stars before the inward eye . . .

 

Discussions of identity, of music, Stephen’s expressed need to spend a quiet night on land amid the noises and scents of his childhood to recruit himself, all moments of felicity amid the ongoing action  The latter scene can also be construed as a hint of Stephen’s secret vocation, though there is no reference—but then a spy must be secret, says the reader who seeks consistency in what might not have been meant, at first, as a roman fleuve, but turns into one.

 

Before the battle with the Cacafuego, when everyone is at their most unhappy, Jack reams the midshipment, exhorting them not to neglect to write home. Babbington, trying to eke out his letter, makes himself homesick by asking about every person, pet, and place in his village, calling to mind this passage:

 

He [Dick Musgrove] had been several years at sea, and had, in the course of those removals to which all midshipment are liable, and especially such midshipment as every captain wishes to get rid of, been six months on board Captain Frederick Wentworth’s frigate, the Laconia; and from the Laconia he had, under the influence of his captain, written the only two letters which his father and mother had ever received from him during the whole of his absence; that is to say, the only two disinterested letters; all the rest had been mere applications for money.

 

When reading Jane Austen’s references to the Navy, which are considerable in Persuasion--quoted above—and Mansfield Park, one skips along with the landman’s eye; rereading these passages after one has read O’Brian, they take on an entirely different meaning.  Babbington’s experience makes midshipmen real, instead of distantly seen rowdy teens shipped away to keep them out of trouble; Wentworth’s bald accounting of the Asp’s brush with a French privateer evokes Aubrey and his crew fighting madly for possession of a prize, the scuttles running with blood—and then forbearing to write any details home lest they upset their wives and families.

 

The Cacafuego sequence is as tight and vivid as I remembered, and all the more remarkable because it does not end with protracted victory gloating, but with grief first, intense and vivid grief, visceral reminders of the terrible cost of such an encounter, no matter who wins. 

 

Like a minor key transition to major in an old folk song Jack is finally permitted his glory, but then he’s removed off-stage, and we see the reflected glory in the extremely funny conversation his clerk, David Richards, has with his family:

 

As everyone knows, the captain’s clerk’s position is the most dangerous there is in a man-of-war: he is up there all the time on the quarter-deck with his slate and his watch, to take remarks, next to the captain, and all the small-arms and a good many of the great guns concentrate their fire on him.  Still, there he must stay, supporting the captain with his countenance and his advice . . .

 

Unusual structure, fascinating shifts in tone, vivid detail given to every character no matter how briefly seen, afford a glimpse of the greatness to come.

 

The first time through a book I only have time to react.  What pulls me back for a second, or third, or uncounted reread?  There is anticipation: whereas on the first read I galloped blind, guided by the author, on the second the blinders are off and I can see where I am going, and even look forward to the highlights of the journey.

 

On subsequent reads, if my metaphor can stand a few more whacks, my attention becomes increasingly absorbed by contemplation of the author’s choice of road, of scenery, of pace: I finally become fascinated by the grip of their hand on the reins.

 

My good books can, no, must be revisited repeatedly.  It’s become a truism how as we grow older and our perceptions change, so too does our perspective on a given book. Only through many readings can one so know a book one nails it: the entirety of it takes shape in the mind.

 

I love to read other readers’ writings on reading, but I get extra pleasure seeing my favorite books, the ones I know well, through others’ eyes. I enjoy writers and readers on their reading, I must admit, far more than formal criticism.  This is not to say that I find literary criticism dull or without value, because I do not.  At worst some critics use their tools of theory and analysis to fit a story into a preconceived hierarchy, but that I find as much a part of meta-narrative (by which I mean the stories a culture tells itself about itself) as I do the stories that are written in homage to this or that writer, whether consciously or un.

 

When I know a book well enough, my interest is drawn beyond the story to the author.  I read what the author wrote outside of fiction, if I can; I read what others have written about the writer’s life.  Sometimes, discovering events or concerns that were integral to the author’s life can radically alter my perception of the story-landscape that I’d once thought so familiar: this happened with Patrick O’Brian and Jane Austen.  That is, I discovered that O’Brian valued Austen to the extent of seeking, and paying major bux for, first editions of her works that had conceivably rested in the hands of her contemporaries, had pleased the minds of people she might even have met.  It was interesting to me, to discover how closely O’Brian tried to engage with Austen, whose brothers had had naval careers, which were followed closely by the family.  And when I reread her novels the naval matters took on a new significance. I discovered I could understand the mild nautical idiom she employs; the sea-going culture took on verisimilitude that had slid right under my radar in previous readings.

 

I can understand why people spend entire lifetimes playing the Shakespeare game, that is trying to descry the human being behind the scintillant words: the densest exegesis is a passionate argument, to another Shakespeare lover, with the ghostly form on the other side of the curtain of time.  Shakespeare—Jane Austen—Patrick O’Brian—were once living, breathing human beings, who sat down with paper and pen to entertain, to banish for a short while the boundaries of their world by creating a new one.  I can walk on stones where they once walked, touch a cushion or a piece of clothing their hands once handled, but their skulls lie locked in vaults.  They are gone, they cannot speak.  What remains are their worlds, which I will continue to circumnavigate as long as I live, discovering new things every visit, and talking about them with other wayfarers I meet on the way.  And so the worlds, at least, will propagate.

 

This is why I always think of Vergil when I contemplate rereading, when he said:  Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia silvae, or  Not to deaf ears I sing, for the woods echo my singing.

 

Read—talk—keep them alive.