Talk:The Rover

message: Hello, user 172.131.101.191. I've removed this from the article. The first sentence failed the google test. The subsequent paragraphs announce themselves as reviews. There is certainly good material here to draw from to write an article, but our copyright policy does not allow it to form the article itself. -- Tarquin 12:15 Sep 14, 2002 (UTC)
Put your text for the new page here.After forty-five years of being a pirate on the eastern seas, Citizen Peyrol returns home to the Port of Toulon a rich man. But his retirement is not destined to be peaceful. As the first salvos of the Napoleonic Wars are fired, he finds himself plunged into a world of paranoia and intrigue, beset on one side by Bonaparte's Imperial troops and on the other by the remnants of the Bourbon loyalists. Fearing for his life--and for the wealth, he has amassed--Peyrol retreats to the safety of a local farm, where he meets the beautiful but disturbed Arlette, her murderous lover, Scelova, and the enigmatic Lieutenant Réal. Peyrol's love for Arlette places him in even greater danger, as he becomes ensnared in Lieutenant Réal's political intrigues. Written in Joseph Conrad's compelling atmospheric and suspenseful style, The Rover is a tale of high adventure and danger. 
Editorial Reviews
"There is no more visible reflection of the massacres at Toulon than appears in the half-demented character of Arlette, in Conrad's novel The Rover. Conrad knew the place, its legends, and living descendants of loyalists and republicans with the nearness of one who began his seafaring in their company. The legends he imbibed were not of a kind out of which fairy-tales arise." --OliverWarner, in A Portrait of Lord Nelson
"It is the subtilized past, through the aroma and the intuitive touches, which comes alive." --The Times Literary Supplement (London)
Reader Reviews 
 The Rover, February 7, 2000 
Reviewer: Richard from Long Island, NY
One of my favorite books of all time. Set in the period following the French revolution and war with Britain, the main character is an old salt "Peyrol" who brings home a prize ship and retires from the sea. There are hints that Peyrol's experiences at sea were more than just as a sailor but that he was a "brother of the barbary coast". The story is about Peyrol's search for place and love, something he had not experienced in his many years of roaming the seas. The book goes to the heart and is not your typical sea story but one once read will be remembered. --. 
 A compelling tale of events in Toulon and nearby areas, February 1, 2000 
Reviewer: Fred Camfield from Vicksburg, Mississippi
I would not have know of this book had I not seen the reference in the Afterward of Dewey Lambdin's book, "H.M.S. Cockerel," which dealt with the British evacuation of Toulon in late 1793. The book was originally published in 1923, and just reissued in 1999. It was the last novel completed by Joseph Conrad. It is the tale of the sailor, Peyrol, but also of poor, mad Arlette, her parents murdered in the massacre in Toulon after the British evacuation, who roams silently about, her shifting eyes forever seeking someone. The story starts in late 1796, after the temporary British evacuation of the Mediterranean, with Peyrol's arrival in Toulon in command of a prize ship. After setting the stage for the story, events jump forward to the 1803-1805 time period when Admiral Lord Nelson was in command of a fleet blockading the port. The story has a tendency to shift from scene to scene, with some flashbacks in time that sometimes make it a little difficult to follow the sequence of events, but overall it is well written and a very good tale. It is a shift from the usual naval adventure, but fills in a part of the events taking place in that time period. --. 
 A Yarn Worth Unraveling, October 31, 2000 
Reviewer: Matthew J. Fisher from Chicago, IL USA
I chanced upon "The Rover" after having finished all of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. It's a hard act to follow, but after reading "The Rover" one might almost think that O'Brian learned a trick or two from Conrad -- for example, how to describe a captain's state of mind and thought processes during a sea chase. 
The course of events in this tale takes some unraveling. Devices employed by Conrad include flashbacks, sudden gaps in the chronologic sequence, and implied dialogue. Consequently, the book reads more like a detective novel than one of O'Brian's straightforward sea adventures. That is to say, it takes a bit of detective work to follow the story. 
My only regret is that I read the introduction to this edition first; unfortunately it gives away the ending. That may be the only reason why I didn't rate this book five stars. --.
My apologies if there is a privateer named "The Rover" out of Liverpool, England, but the one commanded by Alexander Godfrey sailed out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
--144.134.187.116 07:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
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