Patrick O'Brian

by Nikolai Tolstoy

  Subsequent Russ family correspondence and memories indicate that Patrick felt obliged to explain to Joan (as he did likewise to their brother Bun) his inability to conduct too frequent exchanges, citing Nabokov’s dictum that it is hard for an author to sustain any sort of regular private correspondence. The hypersensitive Joan took grievous offence at what she mistook for a snub, to which she made no reply.

  It seems that Patrick remained ignorant of his sister’s resentment, since he wrote to her again. Later, on learning of her husband’s death in 1987, Patrick wrote to convey his condolences. Joan has been described to me by close relatives as intensely moody and liable to take offence where none was intended – characteristics doubtless springing from the harsh conditions of her largely loveless upbringing. Thus it can be seen that it was Joan who, acting on an irrational pique, decided to break off relations with Patrick, and not the other way round.

  Patrick’s unintended rebuff no doubt in part reflected the fact that 1980 and 1981 had proved on the whole troublesome years for his writing. Despite advancing years and a more and more satisfactory income, he also continued strenuous manual tasks about the house and vineyard. In January 1981, despite a painful attack of tennis elbow, he ‘finished [painting] the bathroom ceiling … extreme agony between shoulder-blades – bath infinitely welcome. The thought of the sitting-room, which needs doing even more, indeed v much more, makes me blench.’ A few days later he was subjected to a painful operation on his leg in the hospital in Perpignan. Four days after his return home he promptly began translating Simone de Beauvoir’s first novel Quand prime le spirituel. Following Collins’s abandonment of the project, a fresh contract had now been signed with Weidenfeld, working in collaboration with André Deutsch.

  This translation proved generally uninspiring work. It was completed on 30 March 1981, after which he and my mother visited Paris, spending over a week largely viewing paintings in some of the principal galleries. The primary aim of the trip, however, was to consult with the author over tricky passages of the translation. ‘Then I went to see Beauvoir, found her quite easily this time, smaller, older, but cheerful & v friendly – said really kind things about the Picasso book. Corrections all satisfactory …’

  Sad news greeted them on their return home. Their beloved tortoise Caroline, a faithful companion for the past quarter of a century, had quietly died. Their relationship had always been close, with Patrick proudly recording in 1967 ‘Caroline 14" round waist’.

  It took another fortnight to incorporate corrections and clarifications arising from his discussion with the author in Paris: ‘I finished Beauvoir: a great relief – sadly squalid in parts … For its size the Beauvoir book has taken me far longer than any other: we have both spent more pains: & I suspect that it may be the most stilted of all my translations.’

  Nevertheless, it was well received (under the title When Things of the Spirit Come First) both in Britain and in the USA, where it and its successor were published by Pantheon.[fn6] Despite his general dislike of Beauvoir’s book, he completed its translation at the end of March 1981, and next day returned gratefully to his own fiction: in this case, Treason’s Harbour:

  A v good night for once in the morning, not only made a Right-handed round [of darts] in 65 but began to arrange my thoughts for the next naval tales, particularly with regard to the villain Wray, a French agent (this prompted by the present wave of KGB agents discovered in MI5 etc).

  By 10 February 1981: ‘I had a pleasant idea for a piece of another JA book – SM overboard by night into the Pacific, JA after him – They are picked up by Polynesian Amazons. It was lively in my mind …’

  Such was the sudden genesis of The Far Side of the World, which Patrick had initially accorded the unpromising title The Pursuit of Happiness. At first the project moved little further, Patrick lamenting ten days later that: ‘My long S Seas tale will not do at present: it must take up a year / or thereabouts, & I have no year to spare.’

  At home the world was changing, even in Collioure. On learning of a violent robbery suffered by a cloth merchant in the avenue de la Gare, my mother made enquiries of a Perpignan gunsmith for purchase of a pistol. When it became clear that there was likely to be difficulty in obtaining a licence, Patrick continued to rely for defence on my mother’s old .410 shotgun, which he kept close to hand beside their bedroom. The next day Patrick ‘read Othello in short burst: perhaps tragedy is for the young – the old feel it too much’. Even the hardships of earlier days evoked feelings of nostalgia: ‘I dreamt of our familiar old extreme poverty & the triumph of getting through a day – mere living its own full justification.’

  On their return from Paris, Patrick sent Richard Scott Simon his ‘Thoughts for further naval tales’. These were the preliminary schemes for his next novels, Treason’s Harbour, The Far Side of the World, and The Reverse of the Medal. Simon responded enthusiastically: ‘What a wonderful letter to receive on Easter Saturday … I had expected one mouthwatering outline, but not three. Poor old Aubrey in the stocks! If it were not a cruel hope I would like you to write all three non-stop.’

  The prospect of a single contract for the three proposed novels was briefly raised, with Patrick hesitant: ‘For it there is the idea of 3 or 4 years security: against it the fear of block (it affects me rather badly at present) & the fact that it postpones my Gothic novel to a time when perhaps I shall no longer be able to write it.’

  The ‘Gothic novel’ was a project which ran intermittently in Patrick’s mind over the years, but in the event never attained fruition. It owed nothing to Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, as might perhaps be expected, but was rather, as he had described it earlier, ‘a v small-scale provincial Proust, observed by the narrator’. As the sole major literary project conceived by Patrick that never saw the light, it is intriguing to read the fullest outline of which I am aware. On 23 December 1976, he wrote to Richard Ollard:

  Very roughly it would be a privileged narrator’s report on a thumping great château & its inhabitants, a numerous family of 3 generations with a large number of friends & cousins in the neighbourhood, a sub-Pyrenean region sprinkled with remaining Protestants: the main story would turn on the relationship between the youngish middle-aged woman of the house and her undergraduate son’s somewhat older Protestant friend, & upon her husband’s view of this; but perhaps more important would be the view of this tight, Catholic, archaic rather timeless landowning class that I know well – it is much the same in Ireland, Austria & France, & it forms a remarkably lively element in the pattern of country life, altho it is now so little seen or spoken about.

  In his reply, Ollard recalled the putative tale’s ‘inspiration I remember your telling me of after your visit to Austria’, when he stayed at Princess Auersperg’s splendid Schloss Goldegg. For the present, however, Ollard recommended sticking to the next naval tale.

  The idea of a three-volume contract was scotched by Patrick’s insistence on provision for inflation to be included for the subsequent advances. This was rejected by Collins, ‘so we will carry on book by book. Just as well.’ On 27 June:

  RS sent a contract for The Dey of Mascara (a name that I had given, rather at haphazard, with the 1st tale of the 3 I proposed) ‘in case it seems acceptable’ – an advance of £5000 … & a 12½% royalty would have stunned me with joy even 10 years ago, let alone when we were up at Fron [after the War in North Wales]. Not that I am displeased: far from it indeed, & the contrary – a refusal – would have plunged me into despair.

  On 11 June work began on building the long-deferred cloister on the southern side of the house. The project aroused not only great excitement in my parents, but eager curiosity on the part of their neighbours. ‘People peer & even come most shamelessly into our court.’ As the work progressed excitement became general, with my mother reporting that: ‘At Joffre’s a female neighbour told her that the cloister was “historique,” and when lit “féerique”.’ This dramatic conception was little exaggerated, and
the structure thereafter afforded the O’Brians undiluted pleasure. Even before it was complete: ‘We ate then in the evening sitting out (how I love the cloister & the cloistered peace).’ Not only did it provide a perfect setting for eating under the sky, entertainment, and relaxation, but for Patrick in particular it provided a secluded refuge from the outside world: ‘the 1st aim is privacy’.

  ‘Huguette & dear Bennie (quite grown up) & a friend came after dinner & we all sat in the little cloister, which really does look v well’ (Patrick’s diary, 29 July 1981)

  Altogether, 1981 had proved a generally unsatisfactory year. Patrick constantly doubted his ability to sustain the high standard of the preceding Jack Aubrey tales, and appears to have been generally plagued by misgivings with regard to his literary talent. In November he and my mother came to stay at our home in Berkshire. On the evening of their departure, I noted:

  Mummy and Patrick left. Children very good, & visit I think a success. But I was surprised how Patrick had dwindled as a personality: even his moments of humour & interest seemed much slighter than I recalled, & I felt altogether he needed permanent humouring. Altogether all he did was predictable & v. restricted … We are mystified by Mummy & Patrick’s unprecedented weekend visit.[fn7]

  However, whatever the source of his disquiet, Patrick’s achievements that year would have satisfied most writers. In the first half he had translated Simone de Beauvoir’s novel, the most troublesome of all his translations, and in the second he had completed half of Treason’s Harbour (ninth in the series). What left him dissatisfied was worrying concern over the quality of his work. In October he lamented ‘A v poor day’s work – declining powers?’, and in mid-December he recorded: ‘I am tired of this book. The tale runs quite well in my head – scenes, conversation – but when it comes to putting it down the happiness vanishes.’ As in previous years, he compared his state of mind with that of his literary hero at the same age: ‘Johnson at 66: an active man, though not a v happy one.’

  In January 1982 he received a letter from me congratulating him on the brilliance of The Surgeon’s Mate, in which I incidentally unburdened myself of a comparable attack of writer’s block. I had no idea that he was passing through a similar period of distress – indeed, I do not recall that it ever occurred to me that he was subject to such setbacks.

  As evidence of Patrick’s generosity and kindness, I feel impelled to quote passages from his response’s admirable vade mecum – which indeed might provide an invaluable guide for any writer temporarily stranded in the doldrums:

  You wrote them [my words of praise for his novel] however at a time of sadness – of a particular sadness common (I imagine) to all writers, when their work does not advance, when they cannot bring their mind to a fine focus, and when poverty and loss of reputation seem only a week away. It is an eminently understandable sadness, for ours is a lonely, dangerous trade: a man writes a book wholly by himself; no one can help him essentially; & once he is committed to writing he has a long and perillous career in front of him, not unlike that of a tight-rope walker with no safety-net.

  In your letter you spoke of the desperate measure of moving house again [we had only arrived in the previous year!], and the tag about voyages changing skies not minds at once occurred to me. It has probably occurred to you well before this, but writer’s depression, like housemaid’s knee, can be very severe & long-lasting, & in case it should still be upon you, blinding you to the obvious, allow me to observe that moving consumes as much spiritual energy as the writing of a book, that no London flat allows one to get very far away from one’s children (a necessary condition for parental love in a writer), and that for their physical, mental & spiritual development London cannot compete with the country.

  May I make a suggestion? It is that you should divide your day in two, giving the first part to your book & the second to perfecting your Russian, so that you could translate. Here industry is everything, and without the least original inspiration one can sit down and slog away: much the same applies to reviewing, and I think you would find the two of them a great help. Of course they would never make you rich, but they would tide you over bad times, they would keep you busy when your own writing will not come, thus preventing you from feeding on yourself (think of Burton[fn8] on that point), & they would perpetually exercise you in your medium.

  Although in the event I did not pursue Patrick’s advice regarding translations and reviews, his broader perspective was persuasive: no move to town occurred, and my book was eventually completed.

  On 23 February Patrick experienced yet another of those disturbing dreams which so regularly troubled him:

  The saddest dream I have ever had: in it, not believing what had happened, I went up to Manay[fn9] in the rain – something to do with the water-butt – & there I realized (among other less selfish things) that no one would ever care again whether I was wet or dry & I bowed in a perfect agony, still ludicrously holding my umbrella & said ‘Christ have mercy upon me, Jesus have mercy upon me’ and I think that in my dream I said it to an empty sky.

  In April ‘The next book, perhaps called The Pursuit of Happiness, begins to take more detailed shape’, and by June ‘I wrote notes for Ch I of The Pursuit of Happiness (will that do, or is it too arch?). It might do with it being a code-name used by Blaine.’ Happily, the more euphonious title of The Far Side of the World was suggested by Richard Scott Simon, and incorporated into the contract signed that month. The writing moved relatively smoothly for the rest of the year, punctuated only by occasional moments of self-doubt.

  It was, as I recall, that summer that I found my neighbour at an al fresco luncheon in our neighbourhood to be a publisher from Collins. When I mentioned Patrick, he told me that the firm valued the quality of his work highly. At the same time, they felt that, while his books enjoyed a ‘cult’ following that the firm could rely upon for respectable sales, it had long been understood that they would never become bestsellers. Patrick probably shared this estimate at the time, but never permitted any adverse circumstance to deter his labours for long.

  Some work. How different dialogue is from plain narrative: much harder unless you are in form, when it fairly flies along.

  My eyes quite give up in the evenings; they have been getting steadily worse & I shall have to have spectacles.

  I think I must turn from translation to my own work: we are both growing sadly jaded.

  After dinner I tend to grow malignant, though well fed, warm, well-lit, & full of wine.

  All in all, however, the year ended on a promising note.

  M also did the quite encouraging (though at the same time terrifying) accounts, from which it appears that we end the year £3000 richer than we began it, that of the £7000 we need (or at least use) for ordinary living we have 3 in unearned income, but that writing (which implies health & a reasonably fertile invention) must provide the rest.

  With the New Year of 1983 Patrick alternated work on the novel with pursuing his aim of completing a difficult translation by March. This was another work by Simone de Beauvoir, La cérémonie des adieux, which appeared in Britain and the USA under the title Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre. Social occasions interrupted progress, as well as a less congenial familiar disturbance: ‘Cats howl & walk about in sex-mad bands.’ Alas, there was no longer fearless Buddug to disperse their nocturnal ranging.[fn10] A persistently symbolic dream recurred: ‘Early bed: not much of a night for either of us – too tired – but having missed still another train in my dream I caught it when all seemed lost – it pulled out, of course, but then stopped 50 yards along the platform.’

  In the event, Patrick missed his train with the translation, but as in the dream not by much. In March he found ‘Sartre is being v difficult (& I think v foolish or at least airy) on the subject of freedom’; in April ‘We are growing heartily tired of Beauvoir’ which is ‘in places quite incomprehensible’; and on the 14th ‘I finished Beauvoir: hard labour & the end as unpleasant as anything I have don
e.’

  Pretentious French intellectuals being not altogether Patrick’s cup of tea, it took him a little while to get back into the flow of his novel. Nevertheless, it was duly finished on 14 September: ‘There: I did finish the book, with real pleasure in the doing of it, in a burst of 7 or 8 pp.’

  It has given real pleasure to its readers, too. On perusing it anew, I am pleased to note that Jack and Stephen’s Amazonian captors are possessed of clubs ‘topped with mother-of-pearl eyes on either side of an obsidian beak’. Such a formidable weapon, presented by the King of Fiji to my great-grandfather Francis Wicksteed during his voyaging in the South Seas, hung beside the front door of our home at Appledore. In my childish perception it would have provided the perfect instrument for greeting a burglar, and my mother will also have remembered it well.

  There were disappointments to be borne at what should have been a propitious time. As Patrick reported to his editor Richard Ollard:

  The vendanges, by the way, will be but a dismal ceremony: and the flowering vines having been blasted by a furious long-continued tramontane a few days after I last wrote to you – the carignan held up moderately well, but the grenache have barely a fertilized grape between them.

  Worse still, his literary agent Richard Scott Simon gloomily reported: ‘Stein & Day finally decided against taking any more of your books. We have now bombarded other American publishers with copies and will let you know as soon as there is good news.’

  Although Stein and Day were proving thoroughly unsatisfactory publishers, the news was not cheering.[fn11] Ollard proposed a biography of the eighteenth-century naturalist and explorer Sir Joseph Banks, but Patrick felt daunted by the vast amount of research this would require. Nor did a translation of Sartre’s La Nausée appeal, for reasons that may be surmised.