It is true talent that can write the same story over and over again, retaining the essentials, and yet making it all seem completely different. Every time I open a Hornblower book, I know Horatio is going to triumph, I know he is going to distinguish himself, and I know he is going to make it home, and yet the novel is still captivating from start to finish.
Commodore Hornblower followed this wildly successful formula as Horatio traveled to Russia and dined with the Czar, successfully held off French advances in the Baltic, and caught typhus and survived. An extraordinary story, but fun nonetheless.
I think it is Forester's amazing grasp of, if I can say this without sounding pretentious, the human condition, that makes the books so enjoyable. The illustrious adventure is secondary. If the stories consisted merely of Horatio going about his daily life in England, they would be just as enthralling.
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