NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Patrick O'Brian characters discuss time and longitude
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2016 Jun 25, 16:19 -0400
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2016 Jun 25, 16:19 -0400
On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 2:58 PM, Francis Upchurch <NoReply_Upchurch@fer3.com> wrote:
I have read all his books several times. He is the modern male equivalent of Jane Austen of the Georgian period. Infinitely better than CS Forester et al from a literature perspective. He also really knows his Darwin and Cel Nav.
I am as great an O'Brian fan as anyone (I used to have an Aubrey-Maturin election bumper sticker on my car), but multiple readings of the canon have made me aware of those subjects in which he was a master and those in which his knowledge was superficial. Cel Nav is the latter, along with astronomy. His references to the night sky add wonderful color to his writing but are full of technical errors.
Jack Aubrey's reprimand of his midshipman, with the instance that they should always know their position to within half a minute is hyperbole, but O'Brian seriously declares that on one occasion Jack shot a lunar to determine his position to within a second of longitude.
Don Seltzer
