Review: Hornblower and the Hotspur by C. S. Forester

Trade paperback, 394 pages
Published 1998 (originally 1962)
Acquired 2006(?)
Previously read May 2007
Reread March 2019

Hornblower and the Hotspur by C. S. Forester

1803-05
This is the last completed Hornblower novel by publication order. Something I didn't realize before doing this readthrough is that Forester jumps around within his flashback stories; I thought that having gone backward, Forester works his way forward again. But he doesn't. Hornblower and the Atropos pretty much leads straight into Beat to Quarters, so to get another prequel adventure in, Forester jumps backward yet again, filling a not-quite-extant gap between Lieutenant and Atropos. He disregards his own continuity to do so, as having Bush as Hornblower's first lieutenant prior to Beat to Quarters really pushes the bounds of plausibility. It's also kind of odd to have Hornblower deal with an inconsequential act of insubordination immediately after a similar incident in Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, and the solution he chooses here doesn't entirely mesh with the one there. Also also Hornblower knows French in this book, but in the original trilogy he knew Spanish but not French, which he only learned in Flying Colours.

But who cares when the result is as good as this? Unlike Atropos, this installment is highly focused, chronicling two years on the Channel blockade, two years where Hornblower distinguishes himself in action, but never manages to win any prize money. His financial and romantic and career fortunes are the threads that tie the novel together as we follow him from escapade to escapade. The incident with the treasure fleet is a particular highlight, and I will always remember where I was the first time I read the chapter where Hornblower is served a delectable feast by an admiral (on a transatlantic flight, eating much less delectable food), lavishly described by Forester. This isn't the best Hornblower book, but it's a solid outing of naval adventure, for the final time.

I've read the incomplete Hornblower during the Crisis before, and it's a curio, worth reading once but not worth rereading, so this will be my last Hornblower book. It's nice that Hornblower's last outing is a good one, and that it takes place in the middle of his career, and that it includes Bush. We don't end with and old man and/or a dead one, but two of the greatest sailors of fiction, in action. One can imagine Hornblower and Bush out there sailing, forever.