There's an interesting comparison to be made, I think, between the scene where Bush comes drunkenly staggering in to give news of the trasure fleet and The Last Encounter. They're both Hornblower at home, in front of the fire, with the family, fairly content. They're also both "weird person comes in and says craaaazy things." And man.
They're so different in both tone and style and, like. Everything. In the scene from Hotspur, Hornblower is reading the Chronicle with the fire and being his usual muttery cranky self and getting it awn with his wife while the baby sleeps and the mother-in-law is away, and then his delightfully drunk friend shows up and HH gets to grin about that. And then, he finds out there will be babies! And true to HH form, he feels all weird about that. It's warm and cozy and full of the crazy.
Even if you account for the fact that CSF had to take a bit of a different tone because he wants to give us an overview of where HH is in his life now/doesn't have 1834234 chapters to work with as scene-setting -- man, that Last Encounter setting feels so stiff and formal and cold. The big image that we get of Barbara in that story through HH isn't of the smiling, sweet wife in his arms, her face quite transfigured with happiness -- but, you know. Of her whipping her reading glasses off so that she won't be embarrassed in front of visitors (which is kinda cute, but suggests distance, watching, and is so different from what he has with Maria) and, also, the fact that the President/Prince of France has sent her sapphires to match her eyes.
Totally different worlds. Totally. And I guess it says a lot about me that I'd rather have the first, with all of the crazy and the less-than-perfect-happiness than the second, even though it is, literally, the one with the fairy tal ending.
Re: i need a t-shirt that says barbara wellesley is a ho.
They're so different in both tone and style and, like. Everything. In the scene from Hotspur, Hornblower is reading the Chronicle with the fire and being his usual muttery cranky self and getting it awn with his wife while the baby sleeps and the mother-in-law is away, and then his delightfully drunk friend shows up and HH gets to grin about that. And then, he finds out there will be babies! And true to HH form, he feels all weird about that. It's warm and cozy and full of the crazy.
Even if you account for the fact that CSF had to take a bit of a different tone because he wants to give us an overview of where HH is in his life now/doesn't have 1834234 chapters to work with as scene-setting -- man, that Last Encounter setting feels so stiff and formal and cold. The big image that we get of Barbara in that story through HH isn't of the smiling, sweet wife in his arms, her face quite transfigured with happiness -- but, you know. Of her whipping her reading glasses off so that she won't be embarrassed in front of visitors (which is kinda cute, but suggests distance, watching, and is so different from what he has with Maria) and, also, the fact that the President/Prince of France has sent her sapphires to match her eyes.
Totally different worlds. Totally. And I guess it says a lot about me that I'd rather have the first, with all of the crazy and the less-than-perfect-happiness than the second, even though it is, literally, the one with the fairy tal ending.