Very helpful in figuring out what the nautical terms mean in Mutany On the Bounty & other seafaring books ( )

I've read the first four of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, and have enjoyed them for the characters and for their sense of humor. But I do have one major problem with them: my complete ignorance of anything to do with ships or sailing means that there are times when I can read entire chapters and have absolutely no idea what just happened. Oddly enough, this was never much of an issue for me with the Horatio Hornblower books. C. S. Forester was, I suppose, good at at least giving me the illusion of following his naval action, but O'Brian is not nearly as kind to us landlubbers. So, I thought this book might help.

It starts off with a couple of articles. One is on medicine during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. I found that quite interesting, and mildly horrifying. Once again, I am deeply grateful to live in the 21st century, where medicine is mostly not based on made-up craziness. The other article is about the British Navy of the time: its structure and functioning and the role it played in the war. This was pretty dry, but did contain some useful information.

Most of the book, though, is taken up by a dictionary. Entries include various nautical terms, of course, but also medical terms, contemporary vocabulary and slang, medical terms, historical terms, and names of various birds and other animals. There are also entries, some of them rather long, on specific ships, historical figures, and events. It seems fairly comprehensive, and was reasonably interesting to browse through -- enough so that I kept it around for months to occasionally pick it up and read or skim through it a few pages at a time. Whether I've actually retained anything useful from it in my memory, though, remains an open question. I suspect it hasn't actually done all that much for my understanding, but I'm hoping that keeping it handy when I finally get back to the series and using it to look up specific terms as I encounter them may be helpful. ( )

Working with a Kindle dictionary or online dictionaries will not produce results as useful as this book. I know, I tried several terms both ways.
Many of the words here are not to be found in online dictionaries (or at least, not with the naval definition) or else you spend ages looking though Google and often as not drawing a blank.

This book doesn't have everything, but it does surprisingly well. Latin phrases, terms for all kinds of shipboard items including sails, pulleys, food, etc.

I keep this book beside me while reading and it adds a lot to my enjoyment of the novels and is also good to browse at random. ( )

Dean King's A Sea of Words is a must-read for any landlubber fan of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. The introductory essays by John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes provide excellent context about the Royal Navy and shipboard medicine during the War of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. These essays are followed by maps and diagrams of naval battles, types of ships, and the rigging used in various ships.
King's extensive lexicon naturally fills the vast majority of the book and serves as both a dictionary and an encyclopedia for O'Brian's novels. Though a reader could keep this book at hand while reading the Aubrey-Maturin series, constantly turning to it would interrupt a reader's enjoyment of O'Brian's work. It is better to follow King's own advice from his introduction and page through this at one's leisure, moving around between associated terms and so teaching oneself about sailing in the early nineteenth century.
Though it is possible to read the Aubrey-Maturin series and guess at definitions from context, A Sea of Words will answer any and all questions that should occur to the curious reader. A must-have for any fan of Patrick O'Brian. ( )

Jag har under läsningen av Patrick O'Brians böcker då och då konsulterat A sea of words, en ordbok skriven just för ändamålet: det finns alltså såväl nautiska termer som franska och latinska fraser, medicinsk jargong som information om dåtidens politiska läge i England, biografiska notiser som biologi: allt för att täcka de kretsar Jack Aubrey och Stephen Maturin rör sig i.

Tyvärr har jag vid ett flertal tillfällen dock funnit att den är inkomplett; det finns t.ex. en del fraser som man lämnas utan hjälp med. Samtidigt kan man hitta en del saker som kanske är lite onödiga (är det nödvändigt att förklara vad en dromedar är?) När något förklaras är det dock oftast klart.

Förutom ordboken finns även två essäer: en om flottan och dess roll under de krig mot Frankrike som serien skildrar, samt en om läkarprofessionen under tiden. Här får man en översikt över de olika typerna av skepp och officerare, hur stor flottan var och hur den styrdes från London, respektive en lista över vad en skeppsläkare hade till sitt förfogande av kunskap och medicin, hur verksamma dessa var (vanligen inte alls), och hur kroppsskador kunde behandlas (stoppa blödning, försök hindra infektioner).

Jag vill inte säga att boken är nödvändig, speciellt inte idag när Internet troligen kan ge svar på många av frågorna den besvarar, men den är behändig. ( )