The Nutmeg of Consolation was the book I couldn’t find when I was reading the series for the first time, and I consequently read it last except for the ones that hadn’t been written yet. It’s the fourteenth book in the series, and I really appreciate owning it. It’s off on my favourite voyage ever, the voyage out of time as it runs in Europe, and it continues directly from the end of the previous volume, The Thirteen Gun Salute. It is in many ways typical of what is most excellent in the series, so perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad place to start. It would certainly be a very random place to start.
The volume begins with the survivors of the Diane building a schooner to sail to Batavia, and with one of the best shipwreck survival bits of the series. They are attacked by Dyaks and then escape in a junk which has visited their island for bird’s nests. In Batavia they meet the fascinating Raffles—the nineteenth century seems to be overpopulated by real people who one wouldn’t find plausible in fiction. Raffles lends them a ship, which Jack whimsically names The Nutmeg of Consolation, one of the titles of the Sultan in the previous book. Being short of midshipmen (Jack does go through them rather fast) he asks Raffles for some, and takes on two who had been left behind, Oakes and Miller, before the mast. The Nutmeg rushes off to make the rendezvous with the Surprise. They meet up with the French ship the Cornelie. In a very exciting passage they are chased by her, and rescued at the last minute by the arrival of the Surprise, along with some other privateers with whom Surprise has been cruising. Jack and Stephen transfer to Surprise, and take off not for Chile, yet, but for Australia.
On the way they call at Sweeting’s island for provisions and in a chilling scene find the entire population but two girls dead of disease. The two girls, taken aboard out of humanitarian kindness, become some of my favourite characters. Sarah and Emily Sweeting are Melanesian, and therefore very black, and they are girls. They voyage with Surprise for several books, and become ship’s boys. They become Stephen’s problem, and he’s very unsure what to do with them. It’s always interesting to see historical novels actually examining this kind of problem, and O’Brian can’t find an easy answer any more than Stephen can. (In my daydreams after the end of the series you might be glad to know that Sarah becomes a famous physician, while Emily becomes the first black female Admiral at Queen Victoria’s court.)
O’Brian skipped Botany Bay the last time we were here, in Desolation Island, and there’s a note at the beginning thanking Robert Hughes’s The Fatal Shore for information. New South Wales is shown as absolutely horrible, with conditions for prisoners vile and if brutal and boorish for everyone else. Stephen can’t bear to put the girls into an orphanage here, and when he finds how Padeen has been treated he tries to rescue him. Padeen was transported for theft of opium, and Stephen feels guilty for his initial addiction.
Both the colony and the countryside are unattractive, except to Stephen for naturalizing, but very vividly painted. Jack and Stephen get into an argument about rescuing Padeen, which might have ended very badly except for Stephen being poisoned by a platypus and brought aboard, with Padeen, in very bad condition at the end of the book.
I love the chase and Surprise showing up in the nick of time, and Pullings doing so well. I love Sarah and Emily, though they develop more in later books. I find the vivid description of their island and of the colony at Botany Bay quite chilling, but I wouldn’t be without them. There’s also some wonderful and very characteristic Killick.
This is very much a middle book, with events but without a clear shape. The first part of it could have been joined to The Thirteen Gun Salute and the second part to Clarissa Oakes. These days I can’t even think of doing anything but reading straight through all three by the time I am at this point.
Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published two poetry collections and eight novels, most recently Lifelode. She has a ninth novel coming out on January 18th, Among Others, and if you liked this post you will like it. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.
Yes. I love this book. There’s a short conversation between Jack and Stephen at the beginning of chapter 2 that makes me laugh every time I read it.
This book also contains the one paragraph of the series that I cannot bring myself to reread. It’s in chapter 7 and is merely an anecdote told during a dinner, but it is so emotionally affecting that my copy of the book has post-it notes covering it so that I will not read it again.
Yes, Sarah and Emily! I love that Stephen and Martin’s original thought (as naturalists) is that the girls were some sort of unknown primate. I’m not sure if Martin’s reaction is a foreshadowing of later issues- “Clearly we cannot leave them to starve,” said Martin. But Lord, Maturin, if only they had been our nondescript apes, how we should have amazed London, Paris, Petersburg…..”
Terjamer: I can bear it when I know it’s coming.
Pam: Yes, disappointed that they are “only” humans. I think it is a foreshadowing, and also very characteristic of him.
Of course that same dinner gives us a view of how others took being thrown off the captain’s list. (Of course, Goffin is such a jerk that no one would lift a hand to return him to his former place)
OK, I’m clearly late to the party. Your “re-reading” is much faster than my “reading.” I did want to say that your blog is the reason I started on the Aubrey/Maturin series and now, over 14 books in, I can’t imagine life without them. It will be at least a year of my reading life dedicated to the series and I find myself wishing there were 21 more books. I’ll continue to read your postings, delayed by some months, of course. Thank you for the introduction.
One of my favorite things about the Aubrey/Maturin series is that it isn’t just the people who are vividly painted characters, but the animals (Stephen’s poor debauched sloth!) — and even the ships!
I grew up sailing from a very small child, and the Nutmeg always remains one of my favorite and most affectionately remembered of the Aubrey vessels (although our dear Surprise is of course always my favorite). I love that it really was tight and sweet as a nutmeg, and that this forever after made Aubrey and Maturin pay attention to making future ships sweeter-smelling and more habitable. And she certainly compared favorably with the awful Polychrest or (as Stephen awesomely always put it) “the horrible old Leopard.”
I started reading this series of books 19 years ago and for some unfathomable reason I got to this book and stopped. I have begun a reread this year and have just completed this novel.
When Stephen left Bonden to visit Padeen he said he may not return. Did he plan the Platypus bite in advance?
I am very much enjoying your reviews and the comments from all the contributors.