Nutmeg of Consolation

I finished reading Patrick O'Brian's The Nutmeg of Consolation in which Captain Jack Aubrey, his friend Stephen Maturin and company travel to Sydney in about 1813.

It was about three times better than the previous one called The Thirteen Gun Salute which I didn't enjoy that much because it felt a bit formulaic. There was an unpleasantly egotistical envoy who treated his underlings badly. His behaviour saddened Jack who is always an exemplary leader of men. Now O'Brian has been there before in previous books where characters take credit for others' (usually Jack's) good deeds or turn out to be timorous in battle or delusional. Jack always treats his men well and inspires them to follow him. It's almost as if O'Brian was deliberately trying to write leadership manuals for boys (or students of MBAs). He probably was for all I know. And this annoying character is conveniently disposed of in a way I found a bit glib.

The Nutmeg on the other hand is charming because of the period detail that seems consistent with the television miniseries of my childhood (eg Against the Wind). The Rum Corps are shown as a pack of scoundrels. Old Sydney town is a dissolute and depressing place. Samuel Marsden and John Macarthur pop up.

Stephen also does lots of naturalistic investigations which seems very well observed. I think there are kangaroos in about Darling Harbour.

I thought I'd trapped O'Brian in a bit of internal inconsistency because at one point Stephen was lamenting how the last time he'd visited New Holland he'd only had time to collect a rather ordinary green parrot when I distinctly recalled a wombat being mentioned in a highly unconvincing manner. Later on however Jack said that there had been a wombat that ate his hat. No further details were used so I'm still not sure Patrick O'Brian knew what they were. And on page 296 of this edition, arguably he's mixed up between koalas and echidnas:

and we saw the emu, various kinds of kangaroo, the echidna - good Lord, the echdna! - the small fat grey anumal that sleeps high up in gum-trees and that very absurdly claims to be a bear, and a great many pf the parrot tribe....

But then he goes on at length with realistic description of stalking platypuses that made me forgive him completely.

I'm a bit worried about Jack actually. He's not in the best of health at the end of this book so I hope he picks up again in book number 15.