I regret that due to illness and family demands (it never rains but it pours) I have to cancel FORAY for the foreseeable future. Many thanks to all who have been a part of our meeting and sharing. I really enjoyed hosting. I'm just sorry I can't continue!
I preordered 7 Stones as an audiobook and am enjoying. Halfway through zombies, my favorite so far is Space Between, because I'm finding the young wold-be novice a very compelling character. I hope we'll see more of her and I suspect we might, the way things were left.
Excellent! I'll have to speed up my own read. I was going to try to skim it quickly but I keep slowing down, reading thoroughly so as not to miss a single snide snark!
That's fantastic. It looks like fun for a random ramble, but I hope they will improve navigation so that we can select an era for focus.
Next meeting, Sunday the 2nd of July...
For discussion at our July meeting: the first 1/3 of Vanity Fair, by William Thackeray. We'll have read through Chapter XXII: A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon.
I like the challenge of the technicalities. Over the course of decades I've been reading and re-reading the Aubrey-Maturin series, some of it has sunk in. But to me, the story is in the relationship dynamics, not only in the drawing room but on board ship; not only between couples ashore but between shipmates.
My first time through the series, I was always a little impatient to get back to land and the presence of women in the stories, but O'Brian is such a good writer of human nature, I now enjoy every nuance of Jack and Stephen's friendship and their interactions with the other naval officers and seamen, politicians, merchants, and all...almost as much as life ashore.
It's a short story for our next meeting. You'll find it HERE! Just go to that Gutenberg link, click on "The Highland Widow" and read that one short story from the collection, and you're ready!
Then hop on the mail coach this coming Sunday, at 10am SLT, and come talk about the story, at Foray!
It might be easier to get into Post Captain, since it's more drawing room than quarterdeck. And it's in Post Captain that we meet some important female characters. And in Master and Commander there's a larger percentage of rigging and spars and maneuvers which I always found slow: I've never been one for battle scenes and the specific technical seafaring jargon can be an overload.
But it would be a shame to miss those first two encounters between Jack and Stephen. I agree with Tia; they're a delight. And if you can read lightly through the nautical and martial technicalities --- almost skimming -- and get the gist of the action, that too becomes thrilling, plus you get the premiere episode of an addictive 21-volume unfolding of characters and relationships, fascinating as a period study and more: timeless as a study of human nature. That, any Austen fan will treasure.
Tia, we'll await upon Serendipity's schedule. My online presence too is erratic, as I live an on-call life of 25/8 response to ever-increasingly-frequent crises. But the time will come to rejoin Jack and Stephen on the high seas. I've read the whole series multiple times, too, and will love to discuss it with a fellow devotee. Best of luck on the employment scene!
