Commemorating Trafalgar...
Horatio Hornblower, the control freak of the Royal Navy (RN) in Napoleonic times, was my hero. Long, long before Valmont occupying that spot.
When, two decades ago, I made a data-base of my books, I gave the number 00001 to Kipling's "Kim" alright, but the first candidates to book-binding were - had to be - the Horatio Hornblower ones. Nice green leather, golden anchors in the cover and the smell of lost youth in the yellowed, dog-eared pages.
Hornblower books were genuine adolescent entertainment, the playstation-like quality time of my generation. There was adventure (implying more skill than force), there was history (hard not to become an anti-napoleonist after the third novel of the series) and there was romance too. The first time Hornblower and Lady Barbara Wellesley are by themselves on a West Indies sunset my heart was thumping like mad. I shamelessly identified myself with the courageous and self-doubting commander and was ready to conquer both Fame and the Beautiful Lady.
Hornblower books were genuine adolescent entertainment, the playstation-like quality time of my generation. There was adventure (implying more skill than force), there was history (hard not to become an anti-napoleonist after the third novel of the series) and there was romance too. The first time Hornblower and Lady Barbara Wellesley are by themselves on a West Indies sunset my heart was thumping like mad. I shamelessly identified myself with the courageous and self-doubting commander and was ready to conquer both Fame and the Beautiful Lady.
Is this a proper way to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar? - the Honourable Reader might rightly ask. All I can say is that those of us who read Forester's saga will always see Nelson with special spectacles on.. lens rose-tinted, perhaps.. giving a warm glow to the various Her Majesty's Ships.. the viewpoint of a boy with endless Time and Glory in front of him.. just before the crash of adulthood.
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