Home » Catalans
Product Image

Catalans

Patrick O’Brian
€21.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=Patrick O'Brian
A01=Patrick O’Brian
Author_Patrick O'Brian
Author_Patrick O’Brian
Bronte
Category=FBA
Category=FBC
Category=FQ
Category=FR
Category=FS
Category=FW
Category=FXD
eq_bestseller
eq_classics
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_philosophy-religion
eq_romance
Family
Love
Marriage
Modern
Of
Romance
The

Product details

  • ISBN 9780008696566
  • Weight: 350g
  • Dimensions: 135 x 204mm
  • Publication Date: 05 Dec 2024
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns
Description

Set amongst the rolling vineyards and gentle courtyards of a small seaside village in Catalonia, Patrick O'Brian's second novel is a poignant story of tumultuous love, complex faith and one man's desperate bid to reclaim his humanity.

Summoned from his medical practice in China by a bevy of anxious aunts, Alain Roig returns to his Catalan hometown to discover he has been nominated by family members with vested interests in the ancestral property to prevent an impending marriage between his cold, ascetic cousin Xavier and Madeleine, a quiet, introspective village girl of unusual beauty. As Alain seeks to understand his cousin's complex motivations for wooing the unhappy girl, he is slowly drawn into Xavier's dark crisis of faith, the well-worn pattern of the sleepy Catalan days and the tight circle of village gossip that surrounds Madeleine.

Throughout, Patrick O'Brian's slow, seductive narrative lures the reader into the landscapes, rhythms and passions of Catalonia, while his subtle, insightful characterisation paints a psychological portrait of a unique way of life and two very different men – one generous and impulsive, the other desperate to revive in his soul the dying flames of affection which he senses could be his salvation.

With themes and characters that in many ways prefigure his enormously successful Aubrey/Maturin series, THE CATALANS demonstrates all the insight, lyricism and psychological drama that made O'Brian one of the best storytellers of his generation.
About Patrick O'Brian | Patrick O’Brian
Patrick O’Brian was born in 1914 and published his first book, Caesar, when he was only fifteen. In the 1960s he began work on the idea that, over the next four decades, evolved into the twenty-novel long Aubrey–Maturin series (with an extra unfinished volume published posthumously). In 1995 he was awarded the CBE, and in 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85. Nikolai Tolstoy is an English-Russian author and Patrick O’Brian’s step-son, their relationship spanned forty-five years during O’Brian’s marriage to Mary Tolstoy, NIkolai’s mother. He has written a number of books, including Patrick O’Brian – The Making of a Novelist, The Coming of the King and Victims of Yalta. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1979.

More from this author