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Dear ScaryFangirl |
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I'm sure that
there's stuff that I've forgotten to include on the site...things you were
wondering about Hornblower or the fandom in general. Here's the place
to bring those questions to my attention! I'll try to answer them as
well as I can--or try to point you in the right direction to find the
answers--but obviously I don't know everything there is to know about Our
Hero and the literature/movies associated with him. Feel free to shoot
me an
e-mail with your questions. Every so often, I'll post some of the questions and answers
here--particularly if they are asked with any frequency.
At the moment, the outlook is rather grim. While recent interviews seem to confirm Ioan Gruffudd's eagerness to don the bicorn once more, it's pretty clear A&E has decided against producing future episodes. If you wish to express your disappointment with this decision, the best way is to write a letter (I'm talkin' snail-mail, folks) to A&E and Granada. You can get all the contact information on the HH FANS, TO ME! page. Feel free to share the URL to that page with any Hornblower/HH actor/Age of Sail/Napoleonic Era History fan group or site you know of, including LiveJournal, Yahoo! groups and blogs! The more people who know about this campaign, the more will participate! So...who did push Captain Sawyer? Ah. The question of all questions in the Hornblower fandom. In the Fangirl World, this one ranks up there with such philosophical imponderables as "What is the meaning of life?" and "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" To be disappointingly wishy-washy, I must tell you that I am of the opinion that C.S. Forester did not mean for us to know, the writers of HH2 did not mean for us to know and I am quite convinced that if anyone ever did know, having the answer would be so ridiculously anticlimactic, that we would all be very sorry for knowing. Therefore, I have no intention of ever finding out. However, since the bulk of the fun is gathering evidence so that you might better argue a particular viewpoint on the whole Sawyer push/fall debate, I have attempted to compile a scene-by-scene guide to the incident in question. For simplicity's (*pause for guffaw*) sake, I'm sticking with the movie events only. Click here to get to the Who Pushed Sawyer page! Where can I get the soundtrack for the A&E series? Unfortunately, you can't. A&E never released a CD with the music from Hornblower. You can download snippets of the music procured directly from the videos (complete with the foreground noise accompanying said instrumental interludes), however, thanks to the folks at the Two Evil Monks website. Make sure that you check out the rest of their site, too. It reads like the banter at a Hornblower convention! What is the best way to read the books? In chronological order (as it pertains to Hornblower's career) or in the order in which they were published? My honest opinion? It doesn't matter. Much discussion is made among Hornblower book lovers about the "best" way to read the books. The fact that there is a discussion illuminates the obvious: different methods work better for different readers. If you read them in order of publication, you are less likely to pick up on the various mistakes in chronology that CSF made (and there are many). Also, people generally find Beat to Quarters/The Happy Return to be a more engaging read than Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Reading them in "Hornblower's life order" (I find) is less confusing timeline-wise (despite dating errors by CSF, most of which you probably won't pick up on in your first read-through, anyway) and, as someone who came to the books immediately after seeing the first set of A&E movies, Mr. Midshipman posed no problem for me at all. The bottom line? Read them any way you want, just make sure that you read them. They're a treat not to be missed--in any order. Where can I get the subtitles/book translations in my language? You can download the Spanish (and English) subtitles for the first five movies (many thanks to Justinian for her contribution!) and the Russian (and English) subtitles for the first three movies (thank you to Alexey and Olga for providing those!) from the Downloads page of this website. Unfortunately, since subtitles were not included on the produced movies, I am dependent upon the language (and technical) abilities of fellow fans to provide translations. (Speaking of which, anyone who has made translated subtitles and would like to share them with fellow fans is welcome to submit them to this site for hosting with full credit!) If you are looking for the books in your language, you have a far better chance of finding them than I. I know for a fact that translations exist in French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese. With the popularity of the novels being what it is, I have no doubt they are available in even more languages however I don't have links to booksellers in any particular language. How the heck did Jamie Bamber get the nickname "Crumpet"? The name "Crumpet" came about as a result of an "All About Edrington" fanfiction exercise by SeaSpotRun. When asked to describe Edrington's "Worst feeling in the world", she replied in character, "Knowing I am expected to defeat the entire French Republican Army with only a Beaujolais-swilling, bloodthirsty nutter of a Frog; a horny young Lieutenant; and a panicky bit of Blonde Crumpet to hand..." The name stuck and Archie (and by extension, Bamber) has been "the Crumpet" ever since. Which DVD set would you recommend I purchase? That, of course, depends on a few things foremost of which is where you're located in the world. For US fans, the most complete version available on DVD is Hornblower: The Collector's Edition. For UK fans, Hornblower: The Complete Collection is the best box set. If you live in the US and have a region-free DVD player, I highly recommend trying to get your fannish paws on the region 2 version of Retribution. It contains a number of scenes that were either aired but (for some unknown reason) not included in the region 1 version of the DVDs or were simply never aired at all. If you live in the UK (or Europe) and have a region-free DVD player, you might consider purchasing the US versions of the DVDs for the extras. For a list of features on each of the available collections, visit the DVD Comparison page of this website. Is Hornblower based on an actual naval captain of the time? According to C.S. Forester, Hornblower isn't based on one particular character in history, though there have been several theories from others about who the 'real Hornblower' might be. I tend to believe Forester and remain of the opinion that he didn't borrow directly from any historical figure in particular as his inspiration for Hornblower, but that's just my opinion. There is one common belief among some which I wish to clear up, though: just because the character's name is "Horatio" doesn't mean that Hornblower is based on Nelson. In fact, Forester mentions in the Companion that "'Horatio' came first to mind, and oddly enough not because of Nelson but because of Hamlet; but it met an essential requirement because it was a name with contemporary associations." In other words, one surefire way of getting the Scaryfangirl to roll her eyes at you is to state that Hornblower is a literary copy of Nelson. Pshaw. |
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