HORNBLOWER AGAIN

Evening Star, Issue 25701, 26 January 1946, Page 10

HORNBLOWER AGAIN

.C.- S. FORESTER'S NEW NOVEL. A new Captain Hornblower story is a rich adventure for the enthusiastic follower of the career of that magnificent nineteenth century British naval officer of fiction so vividly portrayed by C. S. Forester. The latest of the series —the previous ones were ' The Happy Return,' 'A Ship of the Line,' and ' Flying Colours ' —is set principally in the Baltic, where Hornblower, npW Sir Horatio and in command of a squadron, is engaged on a semi-diplomatic mis-; sion to encourage the intervention against the tyrant Bonaparte of Russia and Sweden. . . [n ' The Commodore,' Captain Hornblower again "brings off those brilliant strokes of strategy which in the previous books had made him a popular hero. But Forester's genius lies in his ability to make his principal character a very human person, conscious all the time of his frailties and weaknesses which he so successfully conceals'from his officers and men. With him, of course,, is the stolid Captain Bush, in his first command, with his senior painfully anxious to avoid the pitfalls of seeming to command Bush's ship. ■ Apart from the fine writing arid the meticulous precision for facts of naval procedure and etiquette for which Forester can always be trusted;- the new novel is of fascinating, interest for the extraordinary parallels which those campaigns against Napoleon provide with the recent war. Britain, having escaped by a hair's breadth the folly''of aiding Finland against Russia, seeks to encourage the Tsar to break with the Cbrsican tyrant. The book deals with Bonaparte's advance on Moscow and the inglorious, retreat. In these' stirring events the H° rn blower of fiction, of course, plays a major ipart.? 'The Commodore ' is published by Angus and Robertson Limited,. Sydney, at 8s 6d.