How To Tell If You Are Captain Jack Aubrey In a Patrick O'Brian Novel

Full disclosure: I am only on Book Seven of the Aubrey-Maturin series, and a mere loblolly boy in O’Brianiana. More will be revealed as I increase in knowledge and understanding.

Previously in this series:

How to tell if you are in a Mary Renault novel (“Your mother hurls accusations at you while you try to eat a plum”).

How to tell if you are in a late eighteenth-century novel (“You are reconceptualizing the relationship of the individual to the collective through a series of letters to your dear friend Clare, who lives simply in the mountains”).

• You are running up the masthead like a boy

• You are mounting the masthead like a boy

• Oops! You have squandered a fortune

• You are as excited as a boy at the ship’s pace

• You are laughing like a boy, in which case you are either Captain Jack Aubrey or Diana Villiers, and your laugh/neck/smile/face are incredibly lithe and boyish, or light and boyish, or easy and boyish. You are as boyish as it is possible to be, while remaining a full-grown man or woman.

• You have fallen asleep on a horse

• Oops! You have been struck from the Navy List

• You have ordered the men to run out the guns, and their timing is creditable

• You occasionally commit adultery, but in such a warm and generally life-affirming way, it somehow makes most people like you even more

• Your best friend is keeping track of your weight for you

• Good news! You have been reinstated to the Navy List. Keep up the good work!

• Your best friend tells you that you’re looking fat at work, in front of dozens of your employees. This does not bother you in the least; later that day you eat sixteen birds in front of him

• You have captured a prize in a thundering sweep of guns and bravado. England is proud of you!

• Your best friend keeps a journal of how much you eat at every meal, which is actually kind of sweet of him

• You have fallen asleep standing up

• Like Tracy Jordan, yours is a tactile, kinesthetic learning style

• Oops! You have squandered a fortune

• Your pilot is old and irascible but very good at his job

• You are eating your ninth chop, and you would like another chop

• You have ordered the men to run out the guns, and their timing is tolerable

• Your second-in-command both hates and respects you so much he can scarcely walk upright. You become dimly aware that he might have an opinion of you after about 150 pages

• You are pretending to play the violin worse than usual so your best friend won’t feel self-conscious about not being as good at the cello as you are at the violin. He notices, and pities you for it

• You have fallen asleep sitting in a chaise

• You have committed adultery again, but only a little bit, and you really didn’t mean it

• Your best friend is pretending to play chess badly to preserve your feelings. You have no idea

• Bad news! You have been struck from the Navy List again, and also court-martialed, for being too lucky, and brave, and having such beautiful blonde hair that everyone in the Navy calls you Goldilocks

• In almost every possible way you resemble Taylor Swift: possessed of inescapable leggy blondeness, simultaneously culturally dominant and a perpetual underdog, opinions split on whether your frequent wordplay is laborious or charming

• You have ordered the men to run out the guns, and their timing is not to be believed. Barely two broadsides in five minutes, and their accuracy shocking

• Oops! You have squandered a fortune

• Your hair is so beautiful and no one will ever cut it!!! You are so sleepy and so blonde and so handsome and everybody loves you, except for your enemies, who are numerous and sitting on multiple Admiralty boards