Now that I’ve finished Blue at the Mizzen, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin have sailed off into the sunset. Yes, Norton decided to publish three chapters from the unfinished 21st book which O’Brian was working on before he died in 2000, but a score of novels feels like a tidy sum. I also have lots of other books I want to get to, so while I floated comfortably with the Surprise all this time, I am ready to move on. I own all twenty, and I’ve been known to re-read books from time to time, but for now I’ll let Aubrey sail to his flag and his new fleet off South Africa.
If you, too, have read them all but find yourself wanting more, you can join the fanatics at The Gunroom, a collection of fervent readers of the canon whose mailing list volume frightened even me, an information junkie. From the FAQ:
List traffic can be overwhelming — up to a couple hundred messages a day is not unexpected. In fact, heavy volume is the number one reason that people leave the list.
I subscribed a year or two ago for about two weeks, in digest form, and then turned tail and ran. There is always someone reading and rereading the entire series there, all the better to debate the finer points of spotted dog and the trim of the main topgallant staysail. I should fit right in, having read not only “The Canon” but two of his earlier novels and a biography, but I clearly don’t read with enough intent, beyond escape.