Quite recently I came across a series of 8 British Films about a Naval Officer, Horatio Hornblower (Ioan Gruffudd), set during the Napoleonic Wars. I actually found the middle episodes, Mutiny and Retribution, first (in the library) and then I went back to the beginning and watched the whole series. Then, of course, I found out this was based on books by C.S. Forester and I had to get my hands on them. Not speculative fiction, perhaps, but historical fiction can sometimes be just as good world-building wise. What follows will refer to both the movies and the books, but it will concentrate mostly on Characterization.
What struck me the most when watching the movies was that although they were made in the late '90s/early2000s and although the special effects weren't spectacular in any way, I found myself hooked to these stories. The predominant reason was characterization. The interactions of the characters who find themselves stuck together both literally and figuratively, because of their position on a crowded wooden ship out at sea and because of the strict iron-clad nature of the stature and position that each man has in the hierarchy of the ship are very interesting. What emerges is a story where the audience feels a soft spot for the intelligent young Hornblower and a keen interest in his fate - as well as an interest in various other supporting characters.
So I was surprised, when I started reading the books in chronological order, that Mr Midshipman Hornblower lacked this strong characterization that made the movies so good. The reader isn't allowed to delve into Hornblower's own thoughts and feelings and the POV(point of view) remains distant and removed. Not only that, but nowhere in the book does he meet anyone, captain, fellow midshipman, sailor, friend or enemy, with which he has more than a shallow interaction. Characters pass in and out of his story as mere names without making much impression. It was such a strange contrast to the movies that it kept me reading (I was also determined to read on until I reached the parts I liked best from the movies).
Many of the events from the books had been altered slightly for the movies and they were moved around to better serve the overarching plotlines (non-existent in the book). One of the biggest examples is that the character of Archie Kennedy was blown up for the movies and he became one of Hornblower's closest companions where in the book he only appears in one scene. For the movies, his character was really a combination of several different book characters. Another example is that in the books the cruel, bullying Midshipman, Simpson, only appears for a chapter or two and then he disappears when Hornblower is reassigned to a different ship, with the quarrel between them hardly resolved... On the other hand the entire first movie revolves around Simpson.
There are many more examples of this, characters and events which were fleshed out for the movies. The book was really just a series of chapters describing events that occurred while Hornblower was a midshipman, with no real connection between them and no overall plot - and no emotion from Hornblower himself towards any of these events or people. But I was glad that I got through and went on to the next book. Lieutenant Hornblower was a drastically different book - a much, much better one.
Lieutenant Hornblower is told entirely from the perspective of another Lieutenant aboard Hornblower's ship, Mr. Bush. We see Hornblower from Bush's eyes, we watch as they are introduced and as Bush attempts to figure out what kind of man, what kind of seaman, Hornblower is. Bush doesn't always or automatically have the best opinion of him, but he is a fair and thoughtful man so even when he suspects a quality he doesn't like in Hornblower he waits to make sure that his impressions are correct. He also has a hard time dealing with Hornblower's ideas and his personality, which adds some amusement to the story. I was very surprised, after having read the first book, to see how different this one was. This story is all about the relationships between all the men on the ship and very few adjustments were made for the movies in this case. There was a clear overarching plot line and everything else fed into it, and Bush had a very clear and engaging voice. I'm not sure what happened to the author between writing Mr Midshipman Hornblower and Lieutenant Hornblower, but whatever it was it improved the readability of his writing dramatically.
I'm aware (from Wikipedia) that he wrote both of these stories later on, after he had already written several novels detailing Hornblower's later adventures, so I'm very interested to read the earlier novels and see how Forester handles the POV there. I've always considered good characterization to be very important, but I've never before come across such a striking example that shows just how important it is. The same main character, same author, same general setting/historical time period, but drastically different stories, and all because he focused on Characterization in one, allowing himself and his readers to really into a character's head, and stayed distant in the other. I'd recommend reading them if only for that comparison to anyone who's interested in writing in general. For enjoyment, however, just skip Mr Midshipman - watch the first four movies - and then move on to Lieutenant Hornblower, which was an excellent book.
World-Building Rating:
I might as well. The movies I would rate at Great. I would (and have watched them again and again) but mostly because of Characterization and plot, not world-building. The world-building was there, it was great and it served the plotline and characterization, but it wasn't the main factor and it doesn't really stand as awesome by itself.
As for the books I would rate them Decent on the world-building scale. Again, it served the plotline, but there were lengthy sections where the characters would be playing cards and he would describe what felt like every single move, without any explanatory commentary to make me care or understand why this would be significant. I had no clue why this was being dwelled upon, couldn't follow it, and quite frankly didn't care. There are also terms relating to seamanship that were just thrown in there and he very rarely bothered to explained the significance of any of them (there were a couple of explanation in Lieutenant Hornblower). This wasn't as annoying as the card games, but it still didn't help.
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