Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > O'Brian, Patrick - John Mullan (review date 10 January 1997)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page

John Mullan (review date 10 January 1997)

SOURCE: “Nicely Culled,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4893, January 10, 1997, p. 20.

[In the following review, Mullan offers a negative assessment of The Yellow Admiral, criticizing the novel's weak plot and sparse characterization.]

Auscultation, calidarium, fulvous, grego, grigs, horchata, leet, mumping, sillery, wariangle, xebec: just a small sample from the diction of Patrick O'Brian's The Yellow Admiral, the latest in his series of novels of nautical derring-do, set during the Napoleonic wars, which began with Master and Commander in 1969. Help is at hand for curious readers, who will soon be able to reach for the Patrick O'Brian Companion, recently commissioned by his American publisher, if they do not already own the rival, A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales. It is to be hoped that the compilers of both...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

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