
Desolation Island
Aubrey-Maturin Series, Book 5
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ric Jerrom
-
By:
-
Patrick O'Brian
About this listen
Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy - and a dangerous disease which decimates the crew.
©1978 The Estate of the late Patrick O'Brian CBE (P)2014 Audible, Inc.The Unlucky Ship
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
No German flutes in the Ward Room, if you please.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Too good!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Stephen is in bad condition because Diana Villiers has yet again jilted him by going to America with another man and because his laudanum regimen has begun to debilitate him, but Jack's mission might get him out of his funk. Because an American friend of Diana's, Mrs. Louisa Wogan, has just been arrested for spying on England and will be transported to Botany Bay aboard the Leopard, Stephen will join the voyage in both his official role as ship's surgeon and his covert role as intelligence agent, and the prospect of encountering interesting flora and fauna in the southern hemisphere appeals to him. And of course Jack and Stephen enjoy each other's company aboard ship, whether making good music with their violin and cello or good conversation when duty permits.
Over their voyage of thousands of miles, Jack and Stephen have to deal with challenging matters relating to their respective duties, Jack captaining a ship full of 340 men, a score of transportation prisoners (including, much to Jack's discomfort, a few women), and an untrustworthy officer, all the while being on the look out for enemy ships (England still being at war with Bonaparte's France and the Dutch) and, after a certain point, "ice islands," while Stephen has to keep the people on the ship in good health while withdrawing from laudanum and plumbing Mrs. Wogan and befriending her lover to see how deep her espionage runs. Though the book has fewer exciting violent action scenes than earlier novels in the series, there are two wonderfully suspenseful, extended passages that offer unique challenges to Jack and his men (O'Brien is skilled at finding ever new types of opponents, battles, and disasters for his characters without repeating pattern or outcome).
This novel has at least as much psychological exploration and action as the others in the series so far, about drug addiction ("habituation"), superstition, love, leadership, and espionage in situations of close proximity to other men (as on a ship for over a year) or intense activity (as in battles or wrecks). Stephen's diary is full of insights on himself and the people around him. He worries that his manipulation of people for his intelligence work could corrupt his character. And he is able to tell Mrs. Wogan (from first-hand experience) that love involves "the abdication of the critical sense."
O'Brien varies his narration by adding the ship's log, Jack's letters to Sophie, and Stephen's diary entries to his basic third person narration limited to Jack or Stephen's points of view. There is little here from the female point of view, apart from one letter by Mrs. Wogan to Diana (that we take the liberty of reading when Stephen does), and although the American woman's laughter is large and her lover says of her that "the word possession is so very foolish when it is applied to a woman as entire as Louisa," the novel is, like the others so far, male-centered.
In addition to developing the ever-worsening relations between the USA and the UK, implying that war will break out in future books in the series, Desolation Island offers plenty of fascinating depictions of flora and especially fauna, as of myriad penguins flying under the water as they chase fish chasing shrimp while they themselves are being chased by seals being chased by killer whales, or as of, 12' wing-span albatrosses gracefully at home in ocean gales, and a sublime 100' blue whale. And of course the novel features O'Brien's wonderfully precise, beautiful and bracing prose of "the splendid, empty sea":
"The long, even, fairly heavy swell lifted him and set him down at a measured pace, so that sometimes his horizon was no more than three miles away, and sometimes he saw an enormous disc of ocean, a cold uneasy sea, endless miles of desolation, a comfortless element, in which he was at home."
Reader Ric Jerrom continues to be O'Brien, Jack, and Stephen for me; I'll continue listening to any books in the series read by him. And I'll continue enjoying and recommending the series (starting with the first novel about Jack and Stephen, Master and Commander) to readers who like psychological historical nautical fiction. Each book so far has been of a different shape and texture and mood and pattern, all so far being unified by the complex and appealing characters of Jack and Stephen and by their rich friendship.
Psychological Age of Sail Adventure
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Who was your favorite character and why?
The main protagonists Jack and Steven are my favourites, often I thought: " That's Jack for you, he would say that" or when Steven says something particularly droll... I laugh out loud!Believable characters.
Have you listened to any of Ric Jerrom’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Having listened to the previous 9 books and looking forward to a whole lot more, The combination of Patric O'Brian's work and Ric Jerrom's voicing makes this an great series to listen to.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
The thrilling chase by the dutch 74 gun ship, murderously on the tail of Capt. Aubrey's relatively smaller and slower ship, and the most heart racing outcome of that scene. I still see it clearly in my mind.Thrilling and masterfully narrated.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
excellent series
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
great naval action
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.