1.2.1-Needsmoreresearch

Ninety-Three 1.2.1 - Angleterre et France Mêlées
And now for something completely different…an Age of Sail novel! Sweet! Complete with naval jargon!

See, Patrick O’Brian has the kindness to give us a main character who never ever learns a single damned thing about ships, so that the reader has an excuse to do the same. Sorry, Victor Hugo, I’m going to continue to skim over your maritime terminology just the same, while nodding and telling myself that I kind of remember carronades and their various pros and cons. (Which actually he explains fairly nicely here, okay, fair enough.) (e. I remember commiserating with montagnarde1793 over translation woes here: again, at least O’Brian has the kindness to wave a big flag at it and have Maturin grumble with people that there isn’t even a comprehensible name for all these ship parts in English, so how can he talk about them in French or Spanish?)

Anyway, yep, naval disguises and trickery and spying, all good. But the pathetic distraction of the fall of the Girondins? Well, those Girondins better not come looking all pathetic at me for sympathy. They should have thought about things before their guy Isnard threatened to obliterate Paris from the banks of the Seine.

Commentary
Montagnarde1793 It’s really a pity I don’t have time to properly participate in this. The naval jargon was pretty terrible to have to translate though. I’m sure I made something of a muddle of it. I’ll have to go back and do a lot of fixing if I ever want to try to get my translation published.

Also, re: Hugo’s portrayal of the Girondins - or just of the revolutionary political landscape in general - it’s worth noting that Lamartine was one of his major sources…