Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > O'Brian, Patrick - Frederick Pratter (review date 31 December 1993)

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Frederick Pratter (review date 31 December 1993)

SOURCE: “Vivid Adventures of Two Friends,” in Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 86, December 31, 1993, p. 11.

[In the following review, Pratter offers a positive assessment of The Wine-Dark Sea, calling the novel a good introduction into the world of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin.]

The Wine-Dark Sea is a perfect sampler of O'Brian's distinctive style. It begins with a chase across the South Seas from New South Wales to Peru, a chase interrupted by a submarine volcanic eruption—the portent of which is the lurid orange of the sky and the deep purplish tinge of the swell. The novel ends as vividly among the blue ice mountains of the Antarctic seas south of Cape Horn. In between, there are sea-fights, a South American revolution, dead calms, and hurricane gales.

But the focus of this volume, as in the preceding ones of this notable series, is the friendship of Captain...

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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