I’ve docked my O’Brian ship, as noted. Yet, I’m still reading about the Napoleonic wars from the British side, but this time on land. Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books are probably almost as well known as the Aubrey-Maturin books, so I thought I’d give them a try. My first entry is Sharpe’s Tiger. I had a hard time figuring out which was the first book to start with, since there are a score or so, and Cornwell isn’t done. But, after puzzling over it for a bit, I picked up Tiger, as it’s set in 1799, the earliest of the series, though it was written recently.
I can see why these books have earned an audience. The Tiger story is focused: a British army in India is laying seige to a Muslim ruler, the Tippoo, in Mysore. Sharpe, a private, avoids being flogged to death on a trumped-up charge from his sergeant by agreeing to be part of a dangerous mission. He enters the city masquerading as a deserter in an attempt to extract intelligence about the city from a captured spy. As you might guess, he carries it all off better than anyone expected, and Sharpe is promoted to Sergeant at the end of the successful siege. It seems there is little Sharpe can’t do — while imprisoned in a dungeon, he begins to learn to read (his background, from what we’re told, is that of a house burglar). By the end of the book, you find yourself understanding the comparison to James Bond in the Philadelphia Inquirer blurb on the back cover of the paperback I bought. I like Bond, and I like historical fiction, and I am unrepentently happy to read about the world of 200 years ago, all while enjoying modern conveniences. I have Sharpe’s Triumph waiting. That’s also set in India, four years later. I’ll be curious to see how Cornwell handled the success of his novels. O’Brian ran out of historical time for his characters, and had to get a bit inventive. The first one Cornwell wrote, Sharpe’s Eagle, was set in 1809, so I now understand why later books dove into the prior career of our hero.
Last night, we watched Sharpe’s Rifles, a BBC television version of one of the books, set in northern Spain in 1809. It felt much like the A&E Hornblower movies, and it was fine… except for the terrible music! One oddity: in Tiger, Sharpe meets a young Arthur Wellesley. Though he would later be the Duke of Wellington, Wellesley here is a Colonel. All well and good… the real soldier did serve in India. What’s odd is that in the television version of Rifles, Sharpe distinguishes himself right at the beginning by saving Wellesley from French scouts, and Wellesley doesn’t recognize him. Details, details. Only other point of note is that Rifles was, per Cornwell, written with TV in mind: “The book was written at the request of the producers of the TV series who wanted a Spanish hero to share the honours with Sharpe.” Hmmm. Anyway, I’ll read the rest before I rent any more of the television versions from Netflix.