John Gilpin by William Cowper

When I was a child, I had a book that referred to famous works of fiction.  One of the illustrations (which showed a frightened man clinging to a runaway horse) was entitled "John Gilpin by William Cowper", but the text of the book made no mention of the genre or content of the story.  Decades later one thing led to another and something reminded me of that illustration, and so I finally looked into the matter of John Gilpin.

The Diverting History of John Gilpin is a poem written by Cowper and was published in 1782.  Supposedly based on a real event, the poem tells the tale of an Englishman who is travelling to a neighbouring town to join his family in a celebration when his horse bolts and takes him miles past his intended destination.  If that isn't bad enough, the horse bolts a  second time.

Well, I'll never die wondering.  Cowper's poem is diverting and can still entertain after 230 years or so.  Perhaps a copy of it came to Australia with the First Fleet in 1788.  Who knows?  Read it by all means - it will take you only a few minutes - but remember, those were simpler times.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

In their delightful spoof on history, 1066 and All That, Sellar and Yeatman state: "History is not what you thought.  It is what you can remember."  Perhaps we can say of Julian Barnes' latest book that personal history is not what you thought but is what you can remember.

Tony Webster is in his late sixties and is retired.  He spends his time recommending books to people in hospital who are sick or dying.  His life has been fairly sedate, having been married once and divorcing amicably.  Sedate, that is, until one day when he receives a letter from a solicitor; then his mental life is thrown into turmoil as something from his past rears its ugly head.  Tony has to confront his past, what he remembers of it and how others remember him.

The Sense of an Ending is divided into two parts.  In the first, Tony recounts a sliver of his life when he was a senior schoolboy and later a university student.  A good deal of it takes place in his history class where the teacher forces the boys to examine the nature of history.  In the second part, Tony narrates the course of his life after he receives the letter from the solicitor.  The tale is told in the first person by Tony, and we spend a lot of time looking at the world through his eyes as he remembers and evaluates his past, and as he tries to solve the mystery raised by the letter.

Barnes has given us a powerful novella about memory, the tales we tell ourselves to make life bearable and about males dealing with their feelings - in this case, a straight-laced Englishman.  In the short space of 150 pages, Barnes manages to create the inner-life of Tony Webster in the most convincing way.  The supporting characters are less well-drawn, and necessarily so, as they are catalysts, mirrors or sounding-boards for Tony's thoughts and emotions.  Old certainties are torn down only to be replaced, first, by bewilderment and then by a creeping sense of ... well, you'll have to read the book to find out what's creeping. 

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

This is the tale of two men on a collision course.  Dwayne Hoover, a successful business man living in Midland City (somewhere in the American mid-west), is going quietly insane.  Kilgore Trout, a down-on-his-luck sci-fi writer living on the East Coast, is invited to speak at the opening of Midland City's new arts centre.  We follow Trout as he travels first to New York then to Midland City.  As he gets closer to his destination, we see the incremental disintegration of Hoover's mental state.  What will happen when the two men finally meet?

Breakfast of Champions is a strange, funny and disturbing novel.  Vonnegut uses many post-modern techniques to tell his tale.  He collapses the distinction between genres by peppering what is, on face value, a realistic story with snippets from Trout's sci-fi writings.  In addition, his narrator enters the story as a character, and one is not sure if the narrator is Vonnegut himself or just another fictional construct.

Vonnegut explores many themes.  Mental illness and suicide are front and centre in the tale.  The marginalisation of minorities also figures heavily.  On this theme, Vonnegut displays his wonderful talent for metaphor and summarising:

...Skid Row.  It was a place where people who didn't have any friends or relatives or property or usefulness or ambition were supposed to go. People like that would be treated with disgust in other neighbourhoods, and policemen would keep them moving.  They were as easy to move, usually, as toy balloons. And they would drift hither and yon, like balloons filled with some gas slightly heavier than air, until they came to rest in Skid Row.

Vonnegut also covers urban violence, and the legitimisation of art.  One notable feature of Breakfast of Champions is the many drawings by the author that are littered through the pages, and they serve to amplify his themes.

A Vonnegut book would not be complete without irony.  The author uses the "N"-word repeatedly throughout the novel although never disparagingly.  The delivery is off-the-cuff but the irony intended is evident.

Yes, Breakfast of Champions is a strange and disturbing book, but is worth the time and effort.  Vonnegut himself considered it one of his lesser works, preferring Mother Night and Slaughterhouse Five.  Good, better, best.  Despite Vonnegut's estimations, Breakfast of Champions remains a good book, even almost four decades after its initial publication.

Midland City is the setting of another Vonnegut novel, Deadeye Dick

The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton

"Every man is dangerous," said the old man without moving, "who cares only for one thing.  I was once dangerous myself."

London: eighty years in the future.  Nothing has changed much, and people have grown so apathetic about their government that democracy has been replaced with an absolute monarchy; however, in this new regime the monarch is chosen by popular election.  

It works fine, and the land is governed in a suitably grey fashion until the people elect a practical joker as their new king, Auberon Quin.  Quin is intent on stirring things up.  He appoints a provost to each suburb in London, orders them to dress in brightly coloured medieval garb and that each of them is to be preceded wherever they go by five trumpet-wielding heralds.  Needless to say, the very single-minded and vain provosts hate their new king.

But then the king makes a miscalculation.  He appoints as Provost of Notting Hill a young man who believes the king's farcical system is actually virtuous and chivalric, and he takes every step he can to uphold each and every lunatic law.  

He had that rational and deliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one.

So it is.  Tensions mount and a series of civil wars ensue.  There are deaths

Well, this is one of the kookiest stories I have read, but I enjoyed it immensely.  Chesterton is a thinker, and there is a lot of philosophical and moral meat on the bones of this tale.  What are the consequences of political apathy in a democracy?  What happens when the ability to compromise is lost?  What happens when we under-estimate those to whom we are opposed?

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a short novel.  The style is beautiful although a bit wordy by today's standards.  Its themes are worthy and serious, but Chesterton is able to offset the seriousness with liberal doses of humour.  Well worth reading if you have a spare afternoon and evening.

N.B.  Chesterton published this book in 1904, so that means the action in it takes place in 1984.

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

It is 1914.  Europe is on the brink of war.  Richard Hannay, an engineer who has just returned to London from Rhodesia, meets a  mysterious stranger who says he has information vital to continued peace in Europe; however, within a few days Hannay is on the run, suspected of murdering the stranger.  He is pursued across Scotland by both the police and a shadowy organisation called the Black Stone.  Can Hannay avoid capture or death before he can deliver the stranger's evidence to the British Foreign Office?

I enjoyed this book.  Buchan has no problems setting the scene and then getting the action going.  And it goes and it goes.  Buchan has a wonderful talent for narration and description - and his ability to describe landscapes briefly but evocatively is second to none.  Plotting, ahem!  The plot has holes large enough to drive a steam train through.  Still, the whole point of this kind of book is to thrill, and it helps to have a healthy ability to suspend your disbelief.  If you want logic, read Bertrand Russell.

The Thirty-Nine Steps was written in 1915.  Some of the language is less than politically correct and a bit shocking to post-holocaust sensibilities; other than this, Buchan is able to use language with a great facility to turn his tale into a riveting page-turner.

I have seen several of the film versions of The Thirty-Nine Steps.  My favourite is the 1935 version starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  Although its plot diverges in many ways from that of the book, I can thoroughly recommend it as a piece of suspenseful entertainment.

Masterman Ready by Captain Marryat

Masterman Ready is a tale of Christian redemption and salvation: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

The Seagrave family embark on the good ship Pacific in London, bound for Sydney.  Five days out from Cape Town, the ship is overtaken by a storm of stupendous force that leaves it dis-masted and sinking.  The crew embark in the only life boat, taking the unconscious Captain Osborne with them.  Only the old tar Masterman Ready elects to stay behind with the Seagraves, trusting their salvation to God.  The Pacific runs aground on a desert island.  Ready and the Seagraves are able to salvage a goodly supply of tools and stores before the ship founders, and they start a new life as castaways.  Will they life long enough to be rescued?

Masterman Ready is an overtly Christian tale.  The text is liberally sprinkled with quotes and paraphrases from the Bible, most of it used for the moral edification of William, the eldest child of the Seagraves.  In addition to this, Ready and Mr Seagrave supply William with some moral truisms:

Employment is a source of happiness, especially when you are usefully employed. An industrious person is always a happy person, provided he is not obliged to work too hard; and even where you have cause for unhappiness, nothing makes you forget it so soon as occupation. (Chapter XXXV)

Bear this in mind, William, and never let the fear of ridicule induce you to do what is wrong; or if you have done wrong, prevent you from returning to what is your duty. (Chapter XXXVI)

Ready proves himself to be not only a great survivalist, using the knowledge gleaned from a long and pragmatic life to provide food and shelter for his companions, but also a great moral fortifier who exhorts his charges to choose hope over despair.

I think we can read symbolism into the tale.  Being wrecked on a desert island is an analogue of life.  We can face the situation with hope or despair.  In a way, Ready can be seen a type of Christ analogue, an instiller of hope who makes the ultimate sacrifice for his friends.  However, Ready has a flawed past, one for which he reprimands himself, but he finds forgiveness in the eyes of his new friends and redemption in his own actions in the final few months of his life.

The language in Masterman Ready is refreshingly straightforward and avoids the verbosity evident in many 19th Century novels. This story, which was written in 1841, has elements that do offend modern sensibilities.  Disparaging and un-Christian remarks are made about Australian Aboriginal people and Pacific Islanders that may have been received wisdom 150 years but do not wash today.  Perhaps we can forgive Captain Marryat for being a product of his times and enjoy his tale for what it is: moral guidance for the young wrapped up in a tale of adventure.

Publishing details: First published in 1841.  I read an e-book version that contained no publishing details.

Eldorado by Baroness Orczy

Here's a swashbuckling novel without the swash or the buckle.

Eldorado is the fourth book in the Scarlet Pimpernel series.  Set in France during the Reign of Terror, it tells the tale of the attempt to kidnap and set free the imprisoned Dauphin, the heir to the throne.  We meet Armand St Just, brother-in-law of the "demmed" elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.  He falls in love with the beautiful actress Jeanne L'ange.  A series of denunciations leads to the capture of Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, by the Republican villains Heron and de Chavelin.  How can The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel rescue both Blakeney and the Dauphin before they reach the guillotine?

For an adventure novel, Eldorado has very little action.  The narrative is driven by mostly by dialogue that takes place in confined spaces such as rooms, prison cells and stage coaches.  Plot development is advanced either by the dialogue or by the narrator's paraphrasing of the various characters' internal monologues.  There is a lot of description, too, mainly of interiors and streetscapes.  (In a way, I was reminded of Isaac Asimov's style of writing.)  Orczy most definitely conveyed a sense of the times and of the politics of the Reign of Terror without ever straying too far away from her brief of writing literature.

Baroness Orczy's (1864-1947) series of Scarlet Pimpernel novels were very popular in their day.  Since then they have spawned several movies, television series and even a musical.  It is almost a hundred years since Eldorado was first published.  I suspect that modern readers would be looking for something with a pace that is a little less glacial than that of this novel.  Even so, I did enjoy Eldorado for its own historic virtues and weaknesses.

Publishing details:  Eldorado was first published in 1913.  The e-book version I read contained no publishing details and was incorrectly entitled "The Scarlet Pimpernel".  The supplier has since removed it from their collection.  A sign of the times?

The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells

Experiments in Intercourse.  You've got to tip your hat to a book with a chapter entitled "Experiments in Intercourse."  They don't write 'em like that anymore.  Nowadays we say "attempts to communicate."

The First Men in the Moon is about two men, Cavor and Bedford.  Bedford is a down-on-his-luck businessman who has a chance meeting with Cavor, a brilliant but eccentric scientist and inventor.  By luck Bedford arrives just as Cavor invents Cavorite, a substance that blocks the effects of gravity.  Bedford sees dollar signs, Cavor sees a new form of propulsion and builds an anti-grav spaceship.  He takes Bedford with him to the Moon and there they have some adventures together.

Here's another one from my bucket list.  It has been over a quarter of a century since I last read H.G. Wells.  That time it was the humorous short story "The Truth about Pyecraft".  The First Men in the Moon starts off in a light-hearted tone; but by the time Bedford and Cavor reach the Moon, any hints of joviality are long gone and the story descends into a disturbing amount of violence.  I think Wells wanted to portray humans in the worst light, and Bedford and Cavor duly oblige him.  The last three or four chapters act as a kind of surrogate appendix to the main tale.

Wells know how to tell a tale.  His style is less than florid and the action proceeds at a nice clip.  It's a pity that the dystopian violence in the middle of the story overwhelms the narrative.  Until then there had been a harmonious balance between the narrative and the necessary exposition in the story.  And the appendix-like nature of the final few chapters really lets down what had started off as a bright and interesting tale.  I guess it would be best to remember that Wells was a pioneer of Science Fiction genre.

Publishing details: The Collected Novels of H.G. Wells published by Halcyon Classics (Kindle Edition).  No other details given.  The First Men in the Moon was originally published in 1901.

The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens

"John and Dot" by Clarkson Stanfield
(scanned by Phillip V Allingham
www.victorianweb.org)

The Cricket on the Hearth is one of Dickens's five Christmas stories, the most famous being A Christmas Carol.

The story centres around the family of John and Dot Peerybingle.  Through them we meet Tilly Slowboy, their maid; Caleb and Bertha Plummer, a toymaker and his blind daughter; Mrs Fielding and her daughter May; and Mr Tackleton, Caleb's insensitive employer.

Mr Tackleton announces his intention to marry the much younger May Fielding.  As the set date coincides with John and Dot's first wedding anniversary, Tackleton sees it as an excuse to make their social acquaintance in the most intrusive manner; however, the arrival of a mysterious stranger complicates matters.  There are misunderstandings and misdirections but, this being a Dickens Christmas story, there is redemption and a happy ending.

I like Dickens, even when he is laying the syrup on with a trowel, and there is a lot of syrup to be laid on in this novella. The good and decent folk are good and decent, and their shortcomings don't amount to a hill of beans; the bad guy is bad, even when he is being decent.  Lots of opportunity to boo and hiss.  That's the fun of it; and the idea of a happy home is, of course, a warming thought.

According to Dickens, having a cricket living in your hearth is a good omen.  The cricket that shares the Peerybingle's hearth acts as a kind of intermediary between this world and the world of the benign powers.  There are fairies, and Dickens does spend a lot of time anthropomorphising the non-human elements in the Peerybingle household.  19th century magic realism?  Would you expect any less of a Dickens Christmas story?  I like this kind of stuff; others may find it a bit much.

Publishing details: Cricket on the Hearth was written and published in 1845.  I read an e-book version without publishing details.