IT is not often in life that one is proved unconquerably and indisputably right in a minority opinion, tenaciously held against either hostility or the most damnable enemy of all, indifference.
But in my defence of Patrick O'Brian as the only writer of English today who is certain to be read in a century's time, I have at last been vindicated in all regards but one: he is acclaimed by very serious critics' indeed, none of whom can be found to say a mediocre, never mind a bad word against him. He is respected as a naval historian and a medical historian, as well as a naturalist and sells in vast quantities around the world, well beyond the small cult circle who alone sustained his book sales for more than two decades but he is not yet selling in vast amounts in a century's time. That he will do so, I do not doubt: but for the time being, my theories about his popularity in 2097 must remain hypothetical. I will come back to this subject then.
And thus in this happy meantime, we must settle for the Patrick O'Brian that we know and, whose works we love. It is 27 years since the first Aubrey Maturin novels, Master and Commander, appeared. In hindsight, I can see now why it took so long for Patrick's novels to become popular, for he was deeply unfashionable. That curious and deformed thing, the intelligentsia, was never likely to warm to him while it danced still to rhythms emerging from Moscow, for his politics were deeply and incorrigibly unacceptable.
Radical opinions
The radical chic opinions of the late 1960s were inclined to view the revolutionary tyrants of the world - Napoleon, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Min - as essentially forces for good who had gone off the rails a little. They were nothing of the kind, of course - they were monsters who imposed their will on their followers and on their enemies, and who cared nothing for human life. Only a grotesque distortion of human values could permit Stalin to be viewed in a different historical and moral light to Hitler but he was, for Stalin was seen as "progressive", and therefore his will imposition, his concentration camps, his torture chambers, his murder squads, were more acceptable.
The founding father of the techniques of the totalitarian state was Bonaparte; yet the chic historical perspective of the bien pensant viewed him and the abominable events - which produced him, namely the French Revolution, as being essentially good things. They were not. It is still a deeply unfashionable thing to say, but it is nonetheless true.
No good to Ireland could have come from a successful French invasion in 1798. Only zealous and uncritical romanticism enables people to conclude that liberty could result from a conquest by France. The opposite was the truth; the vileness of Prussian militarism which we have harvested aplenty this century was first sown by the conduct of the French revolutionary forces during their invasion of Prussia under Bonaparte.
Patrick O'Brian's two main characters, Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey were deeply and desperately unfashionable at the time they made their appearance in 1970, both being sworn enemies of Bonaparte - Maturin especially, for his was a deadlier enmity than Aubrey's, being thoroughly informed and purely idealistic. The theme of anti Bonapartism, unrepentant and unremitting, continued as the years rolled by and the books about the naval wars against revolutionary France emerged from Patrick's pen (quite literally: they are handwritten).
Literary criticism
The liberal left orthodoxy which dominated the agenda of the intelligentsia ensured that Patrick O'Brian remained on the margins of literary criticism. We did not know the term then, but we do now: he was not politically correct, and he was therefore shunned. His books were never reviewed. If they were aware of him at all, literary editors dismissed O'Brian novels as reactionary, imperialist, Boys Own Paper stuff.
Two events shattered the smug liberal consensus about the nature of "progress". One was the bicentenary of the French Revolution which inspired many fresh analyses of that period and all of them, virtually without exception, showed that that revolution was a catastrophe for France and for Europe. Little or no good, other than a metric system which might, I think, have been more cheaply and peacefully obtained, resulted. And towering over the entire period, in all his homicidal and megalomaniacal grandeur, was the figure of Bonaparte himself.
At the same time communism began to collapse in Eastern Europe. The political and economic system which virtually the entire intelligentsia, from Shaw to Russell to Chomsky, had maintained, with various degrees of warmth over the decades, had numerous good points, was shown to be without any virtue whatsoever. None none at all. The French revolution had been a catastrophe for those it touched; and those who attempted to emulate it in turn emulated that catastrophe, without benefit to anyone save the hangman and his noose.
Ahead of his time
Intellectually, in the 1990s, revolutionism was found to be bankrupt. Few defenders of Bonaparte or Lenin could be found. Patrick O'Brian, far from being reactionary in creating characters so steadfastly opposed to revolutionary violence, was ahead of his time. And now, thank God, his time has come, and quite contrary to what I had expected over the years I have been reading him, it has come in his own lifetime.
But what I had expected him to go to his grave unsung, the paeans to his genius to be purely posthumous; and I was wrong.
But what I had not expected - nor indeed had any of his small and devoted band of long term readers - was that he would continue to write first class novels into his 80s, with no sign of an abatement of intellectual energy or literary creativity. This is an astounding achievement, unique, I believe, in literary history. To put it in perspective - Joseph Conrad, normally regarded as a writer who achieved success late in life, was 20 years younger than Patrick is now when his last novel was published.
Patrick O'Brian's latest novel, The Yellow Admiral (Harper Collins), exhibits, yet again, the mastery of the master over character, narrative and complex but elegant plot. I will not discuss it with you now; those of you who are acquainted with Patrick will buy the book anyway, those of you who are not, should not yet. Start at the beginning with Master and Commander and proceed in sequence.
You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens; the lives of those who read him.