"Patrcik O'Brien - mastery of period language" Topic

Re-reading 'Master and Commander' has inspired me yet again to go back and start reading more of his books – as one of the reviews said – they are addictive (fortunately I think I only read about 4 before, so got plenty of others to peruse). What most strikes me though (aside from his nautical knowledge and good story telling) is his mastery of 19th century language that creates an utterly believable atmosphere (all the "Joy to you, sir" on a promotion etc) I'm always disappointed in picking up other books on other historical periods to find the characters speaking like 21st individuals "hey Lancelot how ya doing?"
Are there other writers that anyone can recommend who write dialogue that sounds right?

Sadly not demonstrating on my part a mastery of spelling!

George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' novels have period dialogue and attitudes.

Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle showcases his mastery of language. The narrative style overall is modern but there are appropriate conversational sequences that feel authentic. One prose trick he excels at is using a colloquial phrase in a conversational context that reveals the etymology of that particular phrase.

Example: In a scene where two characters fight with swords, one's actions reveal he has studied "defencing", i.e., fencing.

I should note that The Baroque Cycle is science fiction, as in, it's about the history of science, and fictional. Consequently some of his revealed etymologies may be fictional as well, though they feel authentic in usage.

Indeed GNREP8, including masterful use of the nautical term 'cuntsplice'!

yes – not one I had heard of!
Actually one thing I have further noticed is that he also keeps the narrative passages very much in the same style too (albeit that many are done as the thoughts, in effect, of the main protagonists)
Of course I suppose some might say that the vernacular of the day was exactly that (in the way that 'thee' and 'thou' sounds arcane to us now but wouldn't at the time) and how do we know anyway that that is how people spoke as opposed to wrote. It's easier I suppose that his work is from an era where the original material would work in English (I'd love to read them in Spanish or similar and see how they came over in that language) – if one was to try and do the same thing in say a Roman context I wonder if it would work, since you'd be starting off by (effectively) translating it into English. I've looked at some of the Imperial Roman era 'military' novels and felt like I was reading about 21st century characters who'd gone back in time (and hence not bought the books). I suppose O'Briens's skill is that he makes it sound sufficiently authentic whilst making it still readable – I find for instance that reading say ECW era speeches and other material is extremely hard going and they do need to almost be paraphrased into modern language to actually make them more digestible.

Naomi Novik does this well in her historical fantasy Temeraire series. Though not as jargonistic as O'Brien, she certainly captures the feel of the times (Napoleonic era), and her dialogue is spot on.

Actually the minutes of the Gambier court martial posted by Armand very much just go to demonstrate how much the Aubrey novels strike a true note in terms of speech patterns (albeit they are in the formal context of a court martial)
TMP link

One of the reasons the TV show Spartacus appeals so much to me (apart from the gratuitous violence and nudity) are the speech patterns. 'Gratitude' instead of 'thank you' etc. No idea if it's accurate but it feels right.

Allan Mallinson
link
Patrick Mercer
link

I have a suspicion that O'Brien had a time machine, it's the only way he could know so much about a period.

I try to fit "I am with child to know etc…" into conversations when I can.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

"Though not as jargonistic as O'Brien"…oh dear… surely you mean "not so as replete with the seamans' cant"

no time machine ..he read a lot of Austen

"not so as replete with the seaman's cant"

Aye, that.

(But of course, the naval action in Novik is far more limited, and the hero, though initially a naval captain, is swiftly thrust into a very different setting, so the lowered prominence of seaman's cant is only to be expected.)

For the 18th Century, The Benjamin Weaver books "Conspiracy of Paper" & etc. written by David Liss (set in London ca. 1730) ring true.

I would second the recommendation for Allan Mallinson's books.

The English translations of Arturo Perez-Reverte's Alatriste novels are also very evocative.

Curious how words can be corrupted. A c**t is the part of a block through which a rope passes. A c**t can also be the open part of a shackle, which is usually closed by the pin. A bunch of c**nts is where an anchor cable, if a chain, has fallen onto and over itself, tangling it up. A splice is where two ends of rope are spliced into another leaving a stretch of double rope, the gap between the two is also a c**t.
Forgive the asterisks.

Chouan, I bow to your knowledge of the subject ;-)

I love the conversasions between Jack and Stephen, it's so alien to how men speak to eachother today, how the call each other dear, how then one offendes the other they say that does me pain ect.

Men today would say, hey tard go your mother.
Then the other would say, no YOU your mother.

They might be 19c centuary people but the way the talk make them sound like Nobel Lauriats.

Dorothy L. Sayers was quite good at written accents, speech impediments, and audible habits, often to the same point of being unintelligible as the spoken equivalents. One book had a local Constable's speech being punctuated by frequent multi-consonant blocks of m's and ph's that took me a bit to identify as the man constantly clearing his throat.

Of course a c**t is also an irritating Year Nine child, as referred to by another Year Nine child….