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Hi guys, sorry I’ve been so MIA lately, life has been kind of sucky and I’ve been reading but very apathetic about replying or posting any of my essays. I’ll try and keep things more together.

My second essay for the mem is going to be on Dr. Stephen Maturin. Who was created by Patrick O’Brian and who is one of two main characters (along with Captain “lucky” Jack Aubrey) in a series of books dealing with the Napoleonic wars and life in the British navy during them. I wanted to read at least one before the movie Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World came out. So I picked up the first one, and it was like eating macadamia nuts, before two months were out I’d finished the twenty book series. The books are a showcase of the friendship between the men and how it reacts to the infinite number of stresses that time, the sea and war can put on it.

But Silent_Snark picked Stephen, not Jack or the books in general. I love Stephen, very much but he’s a complex character. A small thin “pale eyed” Irish-Spanish physician who was educated in France, and spends most of his life as “surgeon” for the British navy (which is something of a comedown for a physician), he’s also a renowned naturalist, having discovered several species during his travels around the globe with Jack. He’s intelligent, multi-lingual, plays the cello and is addicted throughout the course of the books to both Laudanum and Cocaine (in its natural leaf form) quick tempered and prone to personal violence (as opposed to the general violence of war which he abhors) he fights at least three duels during the novels and at the end of one has to perform surgery on himself. He nearly duels Jack twice, once when they first meet over an insult and once over the love of Stephens life, Diana Villers whom Jack is fucking (not “quite” aware that Stephen is also sleeping with her, hence the duel when it all comes out) and a highly regarded and highly talented spy for the admiralty. He also has the distinction of being one of the most lucidly written characters I’ve ever come across, his journal entries and observations in the books are some of the best writing I’ve ever read.

For an example I urge you all to pick up a copy of Master and Commander and just read the first two pages or so of chapter ten.

He is not, Gregory House. I know he sounds like him on the surface, he really does. But he isn’t. I love House (and Hugh Laurie’s portrayal of same) but Stephen isn’t him. Trust me, or if you don’t read the books (which are a lovely education all on their own, I had no idea the platypus was poisonous for example) and you’ll see what I mean.

On another note, did anyone else have the emotional arc of their big bang story torpedoed last night? (I could kill Wilson, he can’t get healthy yet!)