Tory porn

I am happy, but not surprised, to be able to tell you that the bottle nata mecum consule Lemasso (see below, 'Butter before guns') was indeed superb. And with a couple of glasses of port in the belly, whose thoughts would not turn as of course to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels?

It would be as well to deal with the film first and get it out of the way. I am late in making these observations, of course; I'm sure even Jackie Harvey wrote about Master and Commander weeks ago. Still. Everybody seemed to love it, but I wonder how many of them know the books. For my part, I thought the film quite good on its own merits, but inevitably disappointing. There were the obvious howlers - the sheer inappropriateness of the title, since the film adapts the tenth book though Aubrey held the title rank only the first and part of the second - the casting of Russell Crowe's invisible Princeton room-mate as Maturin, when any fool knows that only Stephen Rea could do justice to the role - the powerful, long-armed coxswain Barrett Bonden played by a hobbit - etc. I could draw up a very long list, but the details are neither here nor there. By its nature, no film could truly capture the novels. I'd have enjoyed the film far more if it hadn't shown Aubrey and Maturin at all. Peter Weir might more usefully have made a film showing the adventures of some minor O'Brian character, thus giving us the pleasure of sea-going valour without the inevitable let-down of a celluloid Jack and Stephen. Heneage Dundas and the Phantom French Frigate, perhaps.

But enough of Hollywood. The books are far more interesting and important. At present I am midway through a third reading of the cycle, and have come to a pretty firm understanding, I think, of their appeal. And that appeal makes the books, for me at least, rather a guilty pleasure. For the Aubrey/Maturin novels are, at bottom, pornography for tories.

Perhaps I'd better explain myself. I don't refer to the floggings at the grate, nor to the bare bottoms of 'young gentlemen' getting six of the best from the burly captain. (Though there's certainly enough of that; O'Brian was, after all, an Englishman.)

No, the books are not sexual but social pornography. They allow the reader to indulge a shameful fantasy of social stratification, where people have their place, know it, and look happy about it. O'Brian's navy does have a small, a very small avenue of meritocratic advancement for the truly exceptional; but for all that, position is overwhelmingly a matter of having the right connections. For those from the right families and with sufficient means, promotion is as of right. Those less fortunate, unless they should distinguish themselves in battle (and chances to do so seem to have been surprisingly rare), are doomed to end their days as unpromoted lieutenants. And that is just abaft the mast. The lower deck are invariably lovable, stalwart, stout-hearted fellows, but their God-appointed role is to heave on ropes, run out the guns, holystone the decks and wait on the officers at table. And best of all, that's the way they like it. (Bonden, for example, cheerfully refuses Jack's offer to make him a notional bourgeois by rating him midshipman.)

Politics at home is largely a struggle to see which set of corrupt grandees will have access to the cream. Parliamentary boroughs are cheerfully rotten (hence Jack's own seat), the electorate tolerably small. And this is, you see, a good thing. Foreign policy is simplicity itself: one goes out and thumps Frenchmen (and gets rich into the bargain). True, come 1812 our brave tars had to start thumping Yanks as well, and everybody regretted that (perhaps O'Brian had an eye to transatlantic sales). But the important thing is that one had somebody to thump. Peace is hell to our sailors: it means boredom and unemployment. And why shouldn't peace be hell, with war such a jolly time altogether. Boom boom boom go the great guns; then it's over the side to board, discharging pistols and waving cutlasses. Most of the time the French will strike and then you may have their captain's expert cook. On the rare occasions when one is taken prisoner, the enemy captain is courtesy incarnate, and probably has cousins in Bath and knows many of the same people one knows oneself.

What tory could not love the world O'Brian made? How could anybody else love it? And yet, I must confess, I do love this world, for all that its very structure is an abomination to every principle that I hold dear. Perhaps the charm lies in O'Brian's vast erudition, so lightly worn; his excellent turn of phrase; his undeniable ability to spin a yarn. And, perhaps, there's something in all of us that would love to wave a cutlass.