Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > O'Brian, Patrick - Christopher Clausen (review date 16 December 1996)

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Christopher Clausen (review date 16 December 1996)

SOURCE: “Up and Down with Stephen and Jack,” in New Leader, Vol. 79, No. 9, December 16, 1996, pp. 22–23.

[In the following negative review, Clausen complains that The Yellow Admiral is repetitive and that O'Brian should have stopped the Aubrey/Maturin series after the seventh novel.]

It's been a long voyage, but Captain John Aubrey, RN, and Dr. Stephen Maturin seem to be heading, if at a leisurely pace, for their final port. Aubrey and Maturin, as millions of readers know, are the co-protagonist of Patrick O'Brian's 18 novels about life on the high seas during the Napoleonic Wars. By the end of The Yellow Admiral, Napoleon has at last been exiled to Elba and peace has returned to Europe—though only for the moment.

It seems an age since Stephen and Jack met at a concert (both characters are accomplished amateur musicians) on the Mediterranean island of Minorca...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. John Bayley (essay date 7 November 1991)
   2. Frank Stewart (review date 4 April 1993)
   3. Byron Rogers (review date 10 July 1993)
   4. Michael Dirda (review date August 1993)
   5. Patrick T. Reardon (review date 19 December 1993)
   6. Frederick Pratter (review date 31 December 1993)
   7. John Balzar (review date 2 January 1994)
   8. Thomas McGonigle (review date 2 January 1994)
   9. Elliott Abrams (review date 24 January 1994)
   10. James Hamilton-Paterson (review date 26 December 1994)
   11. Frederick Pratter (review date 2 May 1995)
   12. Katherine A. Powers (review date July 1995)
   13. Sam Pickering (review date Spring 1996)
   14. Thomas R. Edwards (essay date Summer 1996)
   15. John Balzar (review date 20 October 1996)
   16. Edward T. Wheeler (review date 8 November 1996)
   17. Christopher Clausen (review date 16 December 1996)
   18. James Teacher (review date 4 January 1997)
   19. John Mullan (review date 10 January 1997)
   20. Books Magazine (review date October 1997)
   21. Molly Finn (essay date 19 June 1998)
   22. Alan Judd (review date 22 August 1998)
   23. Barbara Everett (review date 4 September 1998)
   24. Martin Jacques (review date 6 September 1998)
   25. Christopher Hitchens (essay date 9 March 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright