The Unknown Shore

Suffering, suffering and more suffering on an unknown shore; cast onto the rocks just Northwest of the Horn these two friends, little more than children, must endure the terrible hardships of mariners unlucky enough to run aground half a world away from home. Jack and Toby are the best of friends in a time in human history when death was preferable to dishonor. Patrick O'Brian is the kind of writer that makes us care about these young men and their shipmates enough to read through an incredible ordeal. Yes we can see the blue print for the Aubrey and Maturin characters of later O'Brian books, but that is not what makes this a great work. O'Brian's writing depicting a cold and far off land filled with a unremitting savagery and a loneliness that would break the hardest heart is what kept me turning the pages of this wonderful book. If you enjoyed the Aubrey and Maturin books, you will love The Unknown Shore. If you have not read any Patrick O'Brian before, please start with this one. You will not be disappointed

I heartily agree with the other reviewer's praise of this wonderful book. I wish only to add that the final part is strikingly similar to - In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. That account of an epic adventure suffered from what I'd call `reportage'. I recall as I read that exciting book I found myself longing for the enthralling descriptive power of Patrick O'Brian marvelous prose. So imagine my joy in discovering this book! O'Brian's masterful capacity to evoke the verisimilitude of these sailors plight wonderfully enhanced my memory the Essex book. I was so pleased!

Here are Patrick O'Brian's prototypes for Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Younger, less well developed, and not quite the same, but this pair, this Jack and Toby, are recognisably the forerunners of the more famous friend whose adventures span twenty books.As a long-time fan of the Aubreyad, i can guarantee that any reader familiar with the later books will enjoy this one just as much. We see many of the same scenes, the same phrases, the same habits, the same minor characters as we see later, and it is a pleasure to realise that these are the first times that Patrick O'Brian used the same evocative words that he would re-use time and again in later books.It is like meeting old friends afresh, and when I read these two books after putting down the twentieth and last in the Aubrey/Maturin series, it was as if I'd found another, a twenty-first.The book opens with a homage to Jane Austen, as many of O'Brian's books do, and there is a considerable setting-up of the relationship on land before they join Commodore Anson's squadron. Tobias gets himself into a right pickle and Jack gets him out of it in the nick of time in a scene which is at once dramatic and comical.At sea Tobias learns the ropes and makes the most of his opportunities for natural history, as Stephen Maturin does later. Jack is the young sea-dog, every bit the young Jack Aubrey, except he does not share Aubrey's grosser appetites.After Cape Horn, well I'd be giving away too much of the plot if I mentioned what went on, but suffice to say that this is some of Patrick O'Brian's most powerful writing, and at one stage I felt tired and worn out just reading it. I almost had to check my hands to see if they were not rubbed raw from the oars.But our heroes return home at last, and the story concludes with words which are pure O'Brian.There is no doubt in my mind, no doubt at all. If you liked the Aubrey/Maturin series, you will like The Unknown Shore. And while you're at it, try the earlier Golden Ocean as well - they make a fine pair of prequels to the series.

Jack and Toby: Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in ye merrie olde England. Great! When you've finished this, go on to the follow-up Aubrey/Maturin series, without a doubt the best written seafaring tales in all of literature. Mr. O'Brian died in January at age 85, leaving behind a legacy unmatched by few contemporary writers in the English language.

In O'Brian's first novel of the sea, The Golden Ocean, which is factual in its essential details, Commodore Anson set out in 1740 to circumnavigate the globe. Of his small fleet, only Anson's flagship survives to return to England loaded with gold and silver taken from a Spanish galleon. (Spain has every right to take great pride in its role of financing the Royal Navy for the good part of a century.)One of the ships that began that fateful but historic voyage, the Wager, is driven by a fierce storm onto the rocky coast of Chile and wrecked. The Unknown Shore is the story of the travails of those who survived the disaster only to experience new tragedies, some of their own making, ashore. Only a few of those who made it ashore survive. Guided and otherwise given aid by natives, those few reach safety in Valparaiso, Chile.As in all of O'Brian's remarkably well-written stories, his narrative of The Unknown Shore is rich, delightful, flawless. His attention to detai! ! l is splendid, and splendidly set down. The central characters in this book are a midshipman named Jack Byron and a surgeon's mate named Tobias Barrow. Barrow is totally inept with any of the demands of survival in the rough, but Byron provides him with the inspiration to persevere.A fine story of depravation and wild adventure, told with O'Brian's top-notch craftsmanship. Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow are credible stand-ins for Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, yet to come in O'Brian's much more famous Aubrey/Maturin sagas, fans of which will be delighted with this precursor to that 18-book series.