Posted on 08/23/2009 11:11:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Just finished a headlong dash through the 11 novels of C.S. Forester's legendary Horatio Hornblower series, and even as the addled mud of my mind swirls with cannon fire and sea mist and the epic clash of British ships against the brooding tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte (that cruel diminutive first draft of Hitler), I pause to contemplate the pleasures of reading series of books, the parades of linked stories that ultimately compose vast novels of thousands of pages. Are there not many subtle pleasures in series prose? The realization, at the end of Book One, that you have stumbled on a gripping tale, beautifully told, and there are many alluring islands ahead to be visited; the happy workmanlike feeling of being in the middle of the series, and having a firm grasp of the cast of characters, and knowing there are books enough waiting for you that the summer will whiz past like a nighthawk; the dichotomous sense of hungrily wanting to know what's going to happen while mourning quietly that there are only a few pages left in the whole saga; the sigh of satisfaction at the very end, not only that you have actually read 12 consecutive novels and savored every moment of the journey, but that you now have, let's say, Captain Hornblower, or Legolas, or Lyra Belacqua, or V.I. Warshawski, or (God help us all) Sir Harry Flashman as a shadowy friend the rest of your life, as yet another example of the mysterious awkward grace of the human animal, because the best fictional characters are utterly true, isn't that so? Braces of books like John Steinbeck's undeservedly uncelebrated masterpieces "Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday"; trilogies like Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials," quartets like Paul Scott's haunting account of the end of the British Raj in India or J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece "The Lord of the Rings" (in which "The Hobbit" is really the opening book, yes?), sprints of seven like C.S. Lewis' Narnia novels or the tale of Mr. H. Potter of 4 Privet Drive, sprawling piles like the late George MacDonald Fraser's 12 hilarious Flashman novels, or incredible mountains like the more than 50 Inspector Maigret novels by Georges Simenon -- it's a fascinating subgenre of fiction, the series. And while many series are carried along by a single (and singular) character, others have immense circles of casts, layers of voices, hints and intimations of endless more tales to be told; and maybe this too is a secret of great literature, that the best novels are those that give a reader the sense of seeing and hearing only part of the world created within those covers; in a really fine book, especially an enormous novel like Fraser's collected Flashmania, you get a powerful sense of the tumultuous thrum of people beyond the margins of the page, characters walking away to live their lives unaccounted by the present author, a thousand stories beneath the one on the page ... .
Another virtue of the series, it seems to me, is that very often this is where young readers enter the seething and delightful universe of books, in a way that sets them up for life as readers; the many wonderful books you read as a small child are not read with quite the same intent fervor with which my teenage daughter, for example, has consumed a book a day when she is on a tear through one of the many series of teenage romance novels she appears to be reading -- I am never quite sure of their titles and authors, as they vanish so fast that all I see clearly is their shocking pink and yellow covers. All teenage romance novels have covers in nuclear colors, why is that?
Anyway, I sing the pleasures of seriesousness, from modest twins (even if slightly forced into companionship, like Truman Capote's terrific Thanksgiving and Christmas memories) all the way to the inexhaustible ocean of, say, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller Christie, who sold more books than everyone in history except the anonymous geniuses who wrote the Bible and the retired actor from Warwickshire. To dive into a series, and find yourself absorbed, and flip back to the frontispiece, where you discover there are eight more novels like this -- that is yet another of the quiet but delicious delights of the world of books, a world that at its very best reveals the deepest bones and sweetest songs of this world, don't you think?
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Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland.
Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough
Orson Scott Card’s ‘Ender’ series.
So I've done the Tolkiens, both of C.S.Lewis's series; Narnia, and the Sci Fi trilogy, and the Harry Potter books. Gotta read "Deathly Hallows" again, though, cause I just finished "Half Blood Prince", in preparation for seeing the movie. ;o)
The ‘Outlander’ series by Diana Gabaldon. I am addicted to these books.
The Justin DeQuincy series by Sharon Kay Penman.
Thomas and Charolotte Pitt series by Anne Perry.
The Emerson and Amelia series by Elizabeth Peters.
And, of course Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Dennis McKiernan (Mithgar), Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Homes), Louis L’Amour, Leon Uris and Jules Verne are all on my bookshelves.
I liked the first Ender and the Ender’s Shadow series
Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series.
I’m frightened because I’m facing the completion of the late Patrick O’Brian’s series on Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Steven Maturin of the Royal Navy, ca. 1810 (more or less). This is a wonderful series, like Jane Austen for guys.
BUMP
Master and Commander...I can’t recall the author’s name at the moment.
I have read the entire series of Hornblower except for “The Lieutenants”, and that one I havent been able to find.
I kept all my Louis L’Amour books and read them over. Web Griffin is fun to read but half of his book seems to be in catching up with the previous ones. Plus his books seem to al have the same hook of a rich man doing the job of a regular American , but having tons of money.
I buy mostly from the used book store since it is so much cheaper.
The Aubry/Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian.
Start with “Master and Commander”
CS Forester isn’t even on the same ocean as Patrick O’Brian.
The Harry Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser.
No that’s one of the few I haven’t read ‘The Walking Drum’. I usually stay away from his non-westerns, but then I shy away from most non-L’Amour westerns. I did read his ‘Last of the Breed’ and I might have to read that again, because Iat the rete we are going I might need to pointers from it to escape, but unlike the hero in that book I’ll be goning the other way to escape American socialism and to a free economy Russia (sarc)! The only western writer I have found that can match L’Amour was James Warner Bellah. I wonder how many freepers have ever heard of him?
WEB Griffin for sure. I also liked all of the books by James Clavell (Shogun, King Rat, Taipan, Noble House). Really good stuff.
Me too (Outlander):o)
Can’t wait til “An Echo in the Bone” comes out next month!!!
I’m surprised at the number of FReepers who are Outlander fans.
Oooh, cannot wait until September and ‘Echo’!
2 - Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries - Lindsey Davis
3 - The Sharpe Series - Bernard Cornwell
4 - The Garrett Series - Glen Cook
You mean, the first time? If so, you're just getting started! Make sure you read "21," the unfinished 21st novel. Then start back with Master and Commander and read the whole series again.
Rereading O'Brian is more fun than reading just about anyone else for the first time.
I continue reading the series in the hope that at some point, in one of the books, Captain Jack ditches the insipid and sex-hating Sophie and discovers ME. So far no luck with that.
Harsh, but perhaps Sophie deserves it. As Diana told Stephen in "The Yellow Admiral,"
Clarissa spoke, and spoke very much more delicately than I did, quoting some Latin author about the way men like their partners to behave and poor Sophie looked absolutely blank, muttering she thought you just lay there and let it happen.Sophie shares neither Jack's love of sex nor his love of music, yet the marriage somehow works. They treasure each other's innocence, much as Diana and Stephen treasure each other's courage.
As for your plan to cut Jack out from Sophie, I think the odds are against you. Still, bad odds never deterred Lucky Jack Aubrey. If you lose not a minute travelling to Mahon, you should find Jack and Stephen at Joselito's, reminiscing as they await a dispatch from Lord Keith.
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