On this week’s Shelf Life, the genial John Simpson confesses which classics he’s never finished, and gives a very thorough account of which literary characters he would most like to bed.
1) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
Nothing dodgy, I’m afraid. I remember being caught reading The Coral Island under the sheets at the age of eight by my father, and watching the expression of sheer relief crossing his face when he saw the title.
2) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?
I find myself becoming increasingly emotional, especially on topics involving sacrifice, forgiveness and honourable behaviour. Most recently I wept as I read Six Weeks by John Lewis-Stempel, which is about the life of the British subaltern in the First World War. Guess what usually happened after six weeks.
3) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?
I always take long (and if possible boring) novels on trips to dodgy places, for just such an eventuality. They tend to be things like The Golden Bowl by Henry James, because I’ll never get round to reading it otherwise, and Pamela by Samuel Richardson (ditto). In this case I’d throw in Finnegan’s Wake, since I’ve never yet got further than halfway down page 1. If I thought I’d get released early (possibly by the SAS) I’d replace Finnegan’s Wake with Ford Madox Ford’s wonderful tetralogy about the 1914-18 War, Parade’s End, so I’d have something readable to turn to.
4) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with?
Becky Sharpe for liveliness, Molly Bloom for experience, but Sophie Western for sheer beauty. And forgiveness.
5) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it?
I’ve written some crap in my time, but I hope never to sink as low as that. If I did, I’d call it ‘This Book Is Rubbish – Don’t Read It’. It’d probably be a best-seller.
6) Michael Gove has asked you to rewrite the GCSE English Literature syllabus. Which book, which play, and which poem would you make compulsory reading?
They would have to be pretty universally acceptable, accessible and therefore uncontroversial. How about Bleak House, The Tempest and Eliot’s Four Quartets as a basis for discussion?
7) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?
The Christmas feast from ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ sounds a lot of fun. But I suspect I would most enjoy sitting with Jack Aubrey and his officers on board Patrick O’Brian’s H.M.S. Surprise, drinking his claret and eating his victuals. Weevils and all.
8) What would you title your memoirs?
I’m afraid I already have: I called it Strange Places, Questionable People; and for a second volume I nicked the name of a Middleton play, A Mad World, My Masters. It sold rather well; presumably people thought they were buying Jacobean drama.
9) Which literary character do you dream of playing?
For ease of performance, some shabby, guilt-ridden character out of Graham Greene – Maurice Castle from The Human Factor, perhaps. But Charles Swann from Du Côté de Chez Swann would be greater fun, if only I had the acting ability.
10) Which book would you give to a lover?
I would give her (indeed, I have given her) Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, because it’s sexy, highly readable and very funny. Not Swann in Love; that’d be bad karma.
11) Spying Mein Kampf or Dan Brown on someone’s bookshelf can spell havoc for a friendship. What’s your literary deal breaker?
Any book that smelled of obsession or fundamentalism — political, religious or climatological — and I wouldn’t be keen on something that questioned whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Anything by L. Ron Hubbard, though, and I’d be out of there without saying goodbye.
Fleur Macdonald is editor of the Omnivore.
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