The Hundred Days

by Patrick O'Brian

Book Overview

Napoleon, escaped from Elba, pursues his enemies across Europe like a vengeful phoenix. If he can corner the British and Prussians before their Russian and Austrian allies arrive, his genius will lead the French armies to triumph at Waterloo. In the Balkans, preparing a thrust northwards into Central Europe to block the Russians and Austrians, a horde of Muslim mercenaries is gathering. They are inclined toward Napoleon because of his conversion...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393319792
• ISBN13: 9780393319798
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Joint Review of All Aubrey-Maturin Books

Some critics have referred to the Aubrey/Maturin books as one long novel united not only by their historical setting but also by the central plot element of the Aubrey/Maturin friendship. Having read these fine books over a period of several years, I decided to evaluate their cumulative integrity by reading them consecutively in order of publication over a period of a few weeks. This turned out to be a rewarding enterprise. For readers unfamiliar with these books, they describe the experiences of a Royal Navy officer and his close friend and traveling companion, a naval surgeon. The experiences cover a broad swath of the Napoleonic Wars and virtually the whole globe. Rereading all the books confirmed that O'Brian is a superb writer and that his ability to evoke the past is outstanding. O'Brian has numerous gifts as a writer. He is the master of the long, careful description, and the short, telling episode. His ability to construct ingenious but creditable plots is first-rate, probably because he based much of the action of his books on actual events. For example, some of the episodes of Jack Aubrey's career are based on the life of the famous frigate captain, Lord Cochrane. O'Brian excels also in his depiction of characters. His ability to develop psychologically creditable characters through a combination of dialogue, comments by other characters, and description is tremendous. O'Brien's interest in psychology went well beyond normal character development, some books contain excellent case studies of anxiety, depression, and mania. Reading O'Brien gives vivid view of the early 19th century. The historian Bernard Bailyn, writing of colonial America, stated once that the 18th century world was not only pre-industrial but also pre-humanitarian (paraphrase). This is true as well for the early 19th century depicted by O'Brien. The casual and invariable presence of violence, brutality, and death is a theme running through all the books. The constant threats to life are the product not only of natural forces beyond human control, particularly the weather and disease, but also of relative human indifference to suffering. There is nothing particularly romantic about the world O'Brien describes but it also a certain grim grandeur. O'Brien also shows the somewhat transitional nature of the early 19th century. The British Navy and its vessals were the apogee of what could be achieved by pre-industrial technology. This is true both of the technology itself and the social organization needed to produce and use the massive sailing vessals. Aubrey's navy is an organization reflecting its society; an order based on deference, rigid hierarchy, primitive notions of honor, favoritism, and very, very corrupt. At the same time, it was one of the largest and most effective bureaucracies in human history to that time. The nature of service exacted great penalities for failure in a particularly environment, and great success was rewarded greatl

Killick gets his comeuppence . . . !

This nineteenth installment in the series is something of a return to the blood-and-thunder days of the earlier volumes, as Jack Aubrey, pausing at Madeira with his family before setting off on a putative hydrographic expedition to Chile (as always when Dr. Maturin is involved, there's a good deal more here than meets the eye), is told of Bonaparte's escape from Elba -- and is ordered to hoist his commodore's pennant once more, to take command of all the available ships in the area, and to repair at once to Gibralter to seal up the Med and protect Allied shipping. Then he's off to the Adriatic to disable the French ship-building activities in the region and to cut off the shipment of an astonishing amount of gold from North Africa to the Balkan Moslems to encourage them to intercede on the Emperor's behalf against the Russians and Austrians. Okay, there's a lot of politics here -- but it's a side of the last days of the Napoleonic Empire most of us know little if anything about, and there's plenty of skullduggery on Stephen Maturin's part as well as naval action against an Algerine galley. And not to forget the Adventure of the Unicorn's Horn and the Hand of Glory, which is one of the falling-down funniest episodes O'Brian has ever produced. On the other hand, there are two quite shocking deaths, too, one early in the book and one late, . . . but that, as they say, is life. An excellent entry in the saga.

A worthy chapter in a brilliant saga.

I confess I peeked at the reviews of this book before settling in to read it and was a bit worried by the rather harsh remarks by a number of readers. Shouldn't have been. This is a novel of real power. Witty (often darkly humorous), intelligent and beautifully written it is completely at a piece with rest of the series. Still puzzled by those reviewers who claim this was ghosted and a bit troubled by one writer who complained Villier's death was a problem because she was such a strong female character. Well yes, but this isn't Oprah nor is this about consciousness raising as we know it at the end of the twentieth century. Rather, this work is a fantistically imagined glimpse into the very early nineteenth century-a time quite different from our own. I had heard of O'Brian first in the mid-1970's but couldn't rally much interest. Napoleonic Wars? Royal Navy? So? Then, for some reason or another, I picked up 'Master and Commander' over the New Year's Holiday. Three months later, I had read each of the nineteen novels in sequence. One of the great reading experiences of my life. 'The Hundred Days' is an altogether tougher work than those which preceed it. Aubrey and Maturin have been at this for a great long while. The war with Napoleon drags on and on. Fortunes are made and lost. Friends and family die. There indeed is very little of the joy to be found in the earlier books. Choices available to a person were far fewer in number in the early 1800's. Societal constraints, class strictures, duty-any number of factors conspired to grind a person down. By the end of 'The Hundred Days' Aubrey seems tired and spiritless. And why not? Good friends killed. Endless political intrigue. He faces huge responsibilities as the 'Lord of the Manor' and member of Parliament as well those in his naval career. The death of his best friend's wife and the death of his long time coxswain Bonden are terribly painful. Remember, Aubrey has been at sea since the age of twelve. It is not a warm and fuzzy place to live. It is a painful and isolated existence. No,'The Hundred Days' gets it really, really right. It has been a wonderful trip for Aubrey and Maturin and all the rest, but the cost has been huge.

Subtle, shocking, superb

I cannot agree that this book is flat, lifeless, and lacking in the drama of the previous Aubrey-Maturin novels. In The Hundred Days, O'Brian creates and explores a different topography of the heart and spirit. The deaths of Diana and Barrett Bonden are shocking, because there's no preparation, but as some other reviewers have said, there's never adequate preparation in life for such losses. No amount of verbal handwringing can make it right, in life and in this novel, and O'Brian does not indulge in even the attempt to cater to the wish for it. How would any of us attempt to depict Maturin, that reserved, disciplined man so profoundly in love, fresh on the news of Diana's death? The term "unimaginable grief" could suggest that O'Brian quite properly does not describe what can't be delineated, except in the heart of each reader who confronts his or her own losses in reading about Maturin's. As for Bonden, his death no doubt reverberates through the lives of Aubrey, Sophie, Maturin, and all his recent and former shipmates--again, O'Brian demands that we do a little imaginative work once we've caught our breath, just as Aubrey and the others will have to catch theirs after the shock. It takes time to absorb a loss, time O'Brian has not created for his other characters with respect to the death of Bonden, at least in this novel. And that's a final point. Patrick O'Brian is an older man, and each novel is a gift, likely to him, certainly to his readers. Blithe suggestions regarding what he ought to do in the next novel, or in future novels in the series, take no account of the facts of his life. I'd love another dozen books in this series, which has given me some of the best company I've enjoyed in the past few years. But I'd be immensely grateful to have just one more. To Patrick O'Brian--amazed gratitude and deepest respect!

One of the best of the series, but challenging

Scanning through the other customer reviews of "The Hundred Days", I am struck by the chasm between those who condemn the book (sometimes in startlingly harsh terms) and those who applaud it. I count myself firmly among the latter, but acknowledge that this volume differs significantly from earlier entries in the series. What some readers apparently view as an absence of skill and spirit on O'Brian's part, I find instead to be the product of a subtle and masterful command of the literary art. Death is a central theme, Death is a chief character of "The Hundred Days", and I find it not surprising at all that O'Brian has elected to use a style in keeping with that particular focus. I have seen numerous comments from dissatisfied readers decrying O'Brian's "failure" to deal with the deaths of major characters at length. With all due respect, I think that view misses the whole point of what and how O'Brian has written. The cheapest, most false piece of writing produced by any hack would have lavished sorrow upon these deaths; shedding shallow tears would have been the easy thing to do. The abruptness of these deaths, even the absence of healing mourning, heightens the pain and the sense of loss we feel. O'Brian has not written a book to make us "feel good". Instead he has painted for us a portrait of emotional constraint, the hues of the world washed over with the grey of an unexpressed grief. Only at rare moments are we pernitted to see the black gulf beneath Stephen's determined insistence to continue on after Diana's death. He is a man who is hiding even -- or, especially -- from himself the depth of his loss, while we see that grief has dulled his usual acuity. O'Brian has not tried to "entertain" us here, and those seeking light diversion would do better to look elsewhere. No, "The Hundred Days" is not an easy book, but it evidences an undiminished literary skill. I believe this novel to be O'Brian's finest writing in several years. Long after finishing it, "The Hundred Days" haunts me.