Admiral Hornblower (w/ spoiler)

Forester, C.S. Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies. Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1958.

I guess I read this series out of order because Admiral Horatio Hornblower retires at the end of this one. Woops. Anyway – rewind: it’s peacetime, right after the Napoleonic Wars. Admiral Hornblower is riding the high seas, battling pirates, confronting revolutionaries, and roughing the winds of a hurricane. This book is the reason why I’m doing this booklust challenge. This is a book I never would have picked up otherwise. At times I thought, “this is perfect for a teenage boy.” It’s easy reading…definitely easy, but exciting. Hornblower has challenge after challenge in every chapter. I loved his bluff about Napoleon being dead and then finding out “Boney” really did die. My favorite aspect of the book however, is more psychological. I loved the necessary “game face” Hornblower has to put on in different situations. There was a certain decorum, a definite mind-game to everything he did. He couldn’t look vulnerable to anyone, including his own wife.

Booklust Twist: Pearl calls C.S. Forester “the greatest storyteller of life on the high seas.” (Book Lust p 217). Confession – I should have read this one later in the series.