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

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...

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