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Come Looking For Me by Cheryl Cooper - Q1
Q1 - Nautical Fiction
How does Come Looking For Me compare to other naval fiction you've read? Have you only read the club books, like Harry Homewood, or have you read others like O'brien, Forester, Kent, or Woodman?
Comments
I devoured pretty much everything CS Forester wrote back in my teens and have revisited some of his books a few times since then - they no longer have quite the same compelling power as they did all those years ago but are still an enjoyable read for me. Quite a lot of Douglas Reeman (for his more modern novels) and under his penname Alexander Kent (for his Napoleonic era ones) - good reads but especially those set in the modern era tend to get a bit samey after a while. O'Brien a few but I have never tried to tackle his entire collection - I felt that as novels these are better written than the previous two. Homewood of course with the club a little while ago. I didn't know of Woodman at all, but after looking him up on Wiki I probably should read some of his stuff!
Back to this one. At first I wasn't sure about the story as initially it felt a bit aimless and passive, but it steadily grew on me. The passivity I explained to myself as being related to the choice of point-of-view character. But also the descriptions of the various crew members gave a rather different dimension to the story than some of the other-mentioned authors. I wasn't altogether convinced by the bad guy being (apparently) so one-dimensionally bad - his only redeeming feature was that for unknown reasons he wanted to wait and go through a sham marriage rather than just have his wicked way with Emily. I wasn't altogether convinced by the back-story turning him into his current state. But that aside, the focus on the diverse crew members of all the ships, and the corresponding lack of detailed focus on cannonballs smashing through decks and all, was refreshing and worked for me.
I've read pretty much all the Hornblower books, inspired by the UK TV series. I've read a couple of other naval adventure books outside the club, but not much.
The main difference is that most of those other books focus on the commanders of the ships (or submarines), those who get to make decisions about what happens next. In this book, Em was very much the victim of circumstance and it's about how she deals with those circumstances.
It wasn't that successful for me.
I felt it was a Romance-Napoleonic Naval mashup that worked better than it should have. O'Brien did this brilliantly in the Aubrey-Maturin books, but O'Brien was a stunningly gifted writer. The different perspective - that of a Jane Austen heroine essentially - helps. The villain is a bit glaring and cartoonish for me, but the other characters were sympathetic and well drawn.
Added - For background I have read and re-read many Napoleonic Naval books by Forester, O'Brien, Pope, Kent, Woodman, Marryat (who was a Napoleonic War veteran), Lewis and others; and also wrote a Napoleonic Naval RPG.
What’s more, thinking about this further, I think the novel was also hurt by lack of perspective on Emily. We really didn’t learn much about her because her background was a secret. But if she it hadn’t been, we could have had flashback scenes of her childhood, conversations with sisters and friends and mentors who could widen the perspective on this important character. Having the one other woman in the story be so socially different, and an antagonist to boot, didn’t give Emily any other female company to riff off. Magpie had to fill that role, but could only do so much.
That's certainly true - despite having to jump out of one ship being shot at, and participating in several battles between ships (albeit unwillingly) I never got the sense that she felt herself in real personal peril
I don't much mind that the naval combats weren't described: after all, Emily was kept out of them. But I agree that much more could have been made of Emily, her status, and why she was a prize worth fighting over. It might have made the villain a bit more believable, too.