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Title: The Catalans
Author: Patrick O'Brian
Narrator: Gordon Griffin
Format: Unabridged
Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-29-08
Publisher: ISIS Audio Books
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
As Alain seeks to understand his cousin's complex motivations for wooing the unhappy girl, he is slowly drawn into Xavier's dark crisis of faith, the well-worn pattern of the sleepy Catalan days, and the tight circle of village gossip that surrounds Madeleine.
Members Reviews:
A pleasant read about Southern France and Northern Spain while ...
A pleasant read about Southern France and Northern Spain while I was visiting the area. Small insights into a way of life and family life activities in the area. A difficult place to harvest grapes on steep slopes. The fishing of anchovies has been going on for centuries and the people celebrate their catch in August with dancing and a festival for anchovies.
Sorely Disappointed
I dearly loved ALL the Aubrey/Maturin novels, read them again and again, and hoped this novel in a different genre would be as interesting and entertaining. Alas, I was sorely disappointed. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the thoughts, actions, philosophies of people in a tiny town in Southern France ... and discovered I was totally disinterested in anything they had to say or do. I couldn't even finish the bloody book (an unusual thing for me), and am now caught between giving it away and simply throwing it away. So read the previews carefully, read a bit of the book online if you can, and pay your hard-earned money only if you're sure that's your thing. Because "Master and Commander" it is NOT.
A fascinating view of a master honing his skills
This is a fascinating work. Not a casual read. You have to be prepared to let yourself sink into many lengthy "descriptive" passages about that corner of southern France where the east end of the Pyrenees officially marks the Spanish border. The Catalan world and language bridge the nations, and O'Brian is clearly enthralled by them.
The plot is outlined in other reviews: the story of Alain Roig, the middle-aged learned doctor returning from a long stay in the Far East to the Catalan town of his birth, in response to a summons to help in a huge family issue, and how it plays out to everyone's surprise and probably the family's initial dismay, though as one puts the book down one can consider that they will probably feel it was for the best - except unhappy Xavier.
Mostly, the plot is a framework for O'Brian to create an in-depth exploration of some unusual and troubling states of the human heart, and to develop, try out, aspects of writing technique. Xavier's night-long soliloquy about his frightening lack of true emotion, his dismay at being inhumanly cold in situations that seem to demand a wrenching involvement, is a kind of tour-de-force in both respects.
Some little things amusingly foreshadow the Aubrey-Maturin series: the experiment with switching from regular narrative form, to scripting as in plays: "XAVIER: (some statement) ALAIN: the reply)." He uses this when there is a sustained interchange between two people, just to get away from the monotonous "Xavier said...Alain replied..." And this foreshadows the point in one of the A-M series which many critics have tut-tutted about, where someone has a musical instrument and O'Brian just writes "Plays." exactly like a stage-direction.
Then there is the performer clad in the skin of a bear, foreshadowing Jack's Aubrey's perilous escape through France to Spain.
