I know exactly what I want to read this summer — if only I could find it

7 August 2010

James Delingpole says You Know It Makes Sense

Not sure I’d bother with the other book I plucked from the shelves, though: Rider Haggard’s She. So many books written before about 1980 suffer, to a degree, from the ‘too much information’ problem. (Nowadays we prefer our books to read more like film scripts.) But with Haggard, it’s more like too, too, too much information. You keep having to skip whole pages as he treats you in lavish, lovingly crafted detail to the history of the lost African civilisation among which dwells the beauteous She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. Not only does he offer you a facsimile of the shard of pottery with ancient Greek inscriptions describing the lost world, but also a Greek transliteration thereof, a cod medieval version of it, then a modern translation. None of which I bothered reading, obviously, because I was skimming ahead to reach the action scenes like the one where the natives plot to kill the goodies using an ingeniously ghastly method where they heat a huge cooking pot till it’s white hot and then thrust it on top of their heads. But the chaps are having none of it and shoot and stab and punch their way out of the pickle, as native bodies pile up all around them. This is why Haggard makes such good film material: stuff happens.

But he can’t write for toffee. Originally I thought this was merely a consequence of the period but, after reading the introduc- tory essay to my edition of She, I think it might be more fundamental than that. Haggard, it turns out, was a bit of a thicko. That’s why his father, despairing of finding a career for him (he failed his army entrance and was almost certain to fail his Foreign Office exams), secured for him an unpaid post on the staff of Sir Henry Bulwer, who was going to South Africa as governor general of Natal. This, of course, ended up giving Haggard the most fabulous material for his books. But it did nothing to cure his hang-up about being such a dunce. Which is why, presumably, he strove to compensate with all the overwriting and excessive cod-intellectual flummery.

Now if only I’d spent £9.99 on that Anna Karenina.

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Lubumbashi

August 5th, 2010 10:29am Report this comment

How about all nine volumes of the Forsyte Saga? Or the dozen Poldark novels? My holiday reads for this season are the novels of Dick Francis, in chronological order. Not exactly classics,I acknowledge, but they record social and technological advances from 1962 onwards, and are quite entertaining.
Since I got my Kindle, I too have been going through all the books that I ought to have read. Actual books, especially in English, are in short supply here in the Congo. Perhaps I read a poor translation, but I found Madame Bovary wholly unmoving.
And Wuthering Heights fell short of appealing to this female reader.

Sir Graphus

August 12th, 2010 9:44am Report this comment

The best Balzac's I've read, & heartily recommend, are "Cousin Pons" and "Eugenie Grandet".

Amanda Craig

August 12th, 2010 12:33pm Report this comment

Try JG Farrell's The Seige of Krishnapur, one of the very few readable (and rew-readable) Booker winners, also John Masters's The Deceivers and The Night Runners of Bengal. Also Vanity Fair, which has battle scenes., love and enough waspish humour even to spike your guns.

John Richardson

August 12th, 2010 12:42pm Report this comment

Suggestions ?

You haven't mentioned Joyce.
'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' is certainly worth reading.
How about Thomas Pynchon's 'The Crying of Lot 49' ? This novel suggests brilliance & madness. Pynchon's intelligence is
obvious.
Now here's the point THEY ARE BOTH VERY SHORT. Oh yes, slight, undemanding, brief.
You will not be worrying about dropping these little puppies on your toe.
No chance.
Think about it. You can tell people that you're reading 'Joyce & Pynchon', not lie, and still have time for your life.
Failing that read 'Alien Dawn' by Colin Wilson. You will not be bored.

Michel Murray

August 13th, 2010 3:11pm Report this comment

Easiest question ever. Start with Patrick o'brian's Master and Commander, and if you like it - and you will - there are 19 more volumes in the series.
Cyclops

steve ulin

August 13th, 2010 3:33pm Report this comment

We went to a used book store, bought six Frederick Forsyth novels at 90 cents each and did even better than that on value by reading Day of the Jackal twice. It's that good.
I fear I've shortchanged the author in all this and were he to invoice me the difference between second-hand and new I wouldn't say no to making up the shortfall. Well, I did enjoy myself immensely, didn't I ?

D. Phillips

August 15th, 2010 10:13pm Report this comment

James! If only you'd get an eReader your dilemma would be solved! I'm currently reading Anna Karenina, which came free with ninety-nine other public domain books on my Kobo. Amazon and Barnes and Noble both have similar machines, and there are free apps on iPhone, iPod, and Android which allow you to download books for free. Of course, I'm writing from North America, I don't know what the eReader situation is in Britain.

D Short

August 20th, 2010 12:05am Report this comment

Wilbur Smith

Peter Walsh

August 20th, 2010 12:13pm Report this comment

James, If you are looking for something easy and perhaps with humour in it, break your "Denial" status on Wodehouse and get yourself a copy of "The Clicking of Cuthbert" which is a collection of short stories. Head straight for the story, "The Coming of Gowf". It won't take long to read it and you just might see the fun in it. Good luck, let me know know you get on with it.

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