Loosing Nelson (Norton Paperback Fiction) - Softcover

Unsworth, Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393321177 ISBN 13: 9780393321173

Verlag: Norton, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Losing Nelson is a novel of obsession, the story of Charles Cleasby, a man unable to see himself separately from the hero-Lord Horatio Nelson-he mistakenly idolizes. He is, in fact, a Nelson biographer run amok. He is convinced that Nelson, Britain's greatest admiral, who lost his own life defeating Napoleon in the Battle of Trafalgar, is the perfect hero. However, in his research he has come upon an incident of horrifying brutality in Nelson's military career that simply stumps all attempts at glorification. "Books about the sea and those who sail it are much in vogue. This seems to have been set off by the surprising and much deserved popularity of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, not to mention the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian. . . . [Losing Nelson is] the best book of the lot."-Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World (1999 Critic's Choice). A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1999; A New York Times Notable Book of 1999. Reading group guide available.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barry Unsworth (1930-2012), who won the Booker Prize for Sacred Hunger, was a Booker Prize finalist for Morality Play and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize for The Ruby in Her Navel.

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Excerpt

I had a bad fright that morning. I wouldn't have left the house at all on such aspecial day if the man at Seldon's hadn't phoned to say they had a piece I might beinterested in. It was an oval plate, bone china, frilled at the edges, slightlycurved at the sides, pale cream in colour, with a central medallion enclosing hisprofile in dark blue. There was an inscription of the same colour in slightly worncursive, running round the upper half of the medallion: Hero of the Nile. They hadused the De Vaere profile made for Wedgwood in the summer of 1798. Nothing veryremarkable about it. But of course I agreed to buy it. It bore his image. It wasseldom indeed I could resist that.

I was on my way back home with it, back to Belsize Park. It was a raw day and the skywas darkly overcast. Nevertheless, I decided to walk as far as Knightsbridge for thesake of the exercise. I had time to spare?or so I thought. As I was crossing PontStreet it started to rain, not very heavily. The platform in the Underground wascrowded and became steadily more so while I waited. There was a silence among thepeople there, silence of waiting?they were resigned. I began to feel the firsttwinges of panic. Then an Asian voice on the loudspeaker: a delay on the line due tosecurity checks at Gloucester Road station.

It was thirteen minutes to twelve. Imagine my feelings. This was February thefourteenth; it was the two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent,Horatio's first great disobedience, the day he became an angel. On this day, at 12:50p.m.?just over an hour's time?his ship, the Captain, went into close action. Andhere was I among this mute herd, sweating despite the cold, a good two miles from mytable and my models. The ships were not even set out.

It mattered so much to get the time right, therein lay the whole meaning?how elsecould I keep my life parallel with his? Before my father died?he died last April?Ifought out this battle wherever I could: on my bed, on the floor, one freezing day inthe shed behind the house. We never missed, year after year we broke the line at tenminutes to one. Now I had the basement all to myself. The thought that I might failthe appointment now was unendurable, it made me feel sick.

There was no time to be lost. I struggled back to the surface along with numbers ofothers who had made the same decision. I was feeling distinctly unwell by now; mybreath came with difficulty and there was the usual suffusion of blood at thetemples, obscuring my vision, making me feel hemmed-in. It was still raining andthere were no free taxis anywhere near the tube, nor outside Harrods. I had to walksome way towards Hyde Park Corner before I found one, and even then I was lucky; theprevious fare was alighting as I came up.I gave the address and sat back and concentrated on keeping my face composed and mybreathing inaudible. Closing the eyes has always helped me to cope with anxiety, butnow I waited two minutes by my watch before allowing myself the luxury. Timing is thekey to control, and control is the key to concealment. The driver, if he glanced inhis mirror, would think it strange if his passenger were dozing too soon.

My father was a master of concealment; he kept it up so well that nobody knew justwhen he died, nobody registered the precise moment.We made it with twelve minutes to spare. I was still gasping a little as I went downto the basement. I did not allow myself to be sidetracked by considerations of whereamong the shelves and cabinets to put my new acquisition; such a decision wouldinvolve extensive rearrangement, it could easily have taken the whole afternoon, inthese last months I had got steadily slower. I simply left the plate, still in itsdamp wrapping, on the floor and went straight through to my operations room and begansetting out the ships, the Spanish first in their two loose groups, 9 in the van, 18in the rear, these last headed by de Córdoba in his great flagship, the SantissimaTrinidad, 4 decks, 136 guns, the most powerful wooden warship ever built. One of thefirst models I made; I was fourteen, home from school for the summer holidays.Odourless now, the ship in my hands, but still seeming to bear the spiritous, headyscents of its making?glue, paint, freshly cut shavings. The shed had a smell too,dust and hot creosote and the rank weeds that grew against the boards outside. Smellsare more intense for solitude and remembered more intensely, as every lonely personknows. Sounds too. But I wasn't lonely, I had him.

Now for the English fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jervis in the Victory, Horatio'sdeath-ship at Trafalgar eight years later?eight years, eight months, and one week.In contrast to the disorderly Spanish, our ships are sailing in impeccable closeorder, fifteen warships in perfect line-ahead formation, approaching from the southat right angles, making for the fatal gap in the enemy fleet, two feet wide on mytable, roughly seven miles in actual fact.

The sight of them now, disposed for battle, gunports open and cannon run out, quiterestored my calm. In full press of sail, with their flags and pennants and paintedhulls, their figureheads picked out in gold and vermillion, they made a fine show.How much care and devotion I lavished on those models, those sloops and frigates andships of the line, what pride I took in them. Before my father died I had to keepthem in cardboard boxes in my bedroom, together with all the other Nelson memorabiliaI had collected over the years. My room was full of boxes, you couldn't get the doormore than half open, you had to edge your way in. Now my ships had for theirmanoeuvres the whole surface of the billiard table that had always been a feature ofthe basement. My brother Monty and I used to play on it sometimes, before he left. Ihad covered it with dark blue baize and had a sheet of glass fitted exactly over it.In the light of the lamp overhead?no daylight ever entered that room?the surfaceglinted like dark water and reflected the colours of the ships.

Eight minutes to go. Since first light these stately, deadly vessels have been slowlydrawing closer together, approaching in a fashion apparently leisurely the thunderand carnage of a close encounter. Incongruous, and to me entirely fascinating, thisdreamlike slowness. Consider the ferocious fire power of those ships, their capacityfor destruction, more devastating than anything known before, on sea or land. Jervisis taking well over a thousand cannon into action with him. Now they are 25 mileswest of the Portuguese headland of St. Vincent, 150 miles northwest of Cadiz, forwhich port the Spanish are running with a fair wind.

They would avoid the engagement if they could, but they cannot be allowed to, theymust be intercepted. A heavy weight of responsibility lies on Jervis's shoulderstoday. The French Revolutionary War has reached a crucial phase. The Dutch fleet hasjoined with the French at Brest. One attempt to invade Ireland has already been made.Admiral Lord Bridport's Channel Fleet has been driven back to England by bad weatherand forced to abandon the blockade of Brest. Only this same bad weather has so farprevented an enemy break-out and an unopposed Irish landing. If the Spanish areallowed to join them, the odds will become impossible. Not only have the English beenforced to quit the Mediterranean?a vital sphere of influence?but the whole ofcontinental Europe is now dominated by the armies of France. Drained by the subsidiesshe has been obliged to pay to keep her allies in the field, her trade routescurtailed, her merchantmen harassed by privateers, England is on the verge ofbankruptcy. Ireland is simmering with rebellion. There are rumours of mutiny in theships of the Royal Navy. It is indeed true, what Admiral Jervis is heard to remark asthe weather brightens: "A victory is very essential to England at this moment."Words that are remembered, recorded, famous words. But this...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Norton
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0393321177
• ISBN 13: 9780393321173
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 354
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland