[books 2008] some actual content
Nov. 30th, 2008 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro63. The Vampyre by Tom Holland
This is the same Tom Holland who wrote the non-fiction bestsellers Persian Fire (which I recommend) and Rubicon (which I haven't read, but have heard good things about).
The premise of this novel is that Lord Byron got turned into a vampire on his first trip to Albania. Supported with suitable (real) quotes from his work and from people who knew him.
I had no idea a novel could at once be well researched and accurate yet delightfully trashy. Oh yes.
I particularly loved the characterisation of John Cam Hobhouse, Byron's travelling companion, and was left thinking that part of the Byron mythos that grew up in his own lifetime and eventually forced him to leave England for good is based on Hobhouse's account of Byron's behaviour on the travels, and that if Byron had taken a travelling companion who was as debauched as himself, we wouldn't have the scandalised version of events. A good 10 years after having such a thought would get me published, or any sort of credit. Bah!
I was not at all sure whether I'd like this, so was pleasantly surprised.
64. Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters - an outrageous Englishwoman and her lost kingdom by Philip Eade
I have to admit to having been pulled in by the title alone, a move that has stung me on more than one occasion in the past. This time, I had better luck.
I have to admit to never having heard of the White Rajahs of Sarawak (or Sarawak) before. Short version: 19th century English adventurer has gunboat, puts down an uprising for Sultan of Brunei and is given a state 5 times the size of Brunei itself over which to be absolute monarch in return.
Sylvia Brett was the daughter of a minor Victorian title who had a more than usually horrific upper class upbringing, who married Vyner Brooke, the third and final White Rajah. A good third of the novel focuses on her upbringing and is fascinating and repelling in equal parts. Sylvia and Vyner travelled back and forth between Sarawak and England most years and she and her daughters got themselves a reputation for living very scandallous lives, which actually weren't that immoral, but rather had to do with breaking class rules.
There's precious little about the headhunters of the title, and more about the family's exploits in England and, later, America than there is about their lives in Sarawak.
Really interesting, but not in the same way as the title suggests.
65. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
This month's Bibliogoths selection, and quite simply the most Irish thing I have ever read.
Due to the headache that will not go away, I found this book really hard going, but the ending made persevering with it all worth while.
This is the same Tom Holland who wrote the non-fiction bestsellers Persian Fire (which I recommend) and Rubicon (which I haven't read, but have heard good things about).
The premise of this novel is that Lord Byron got turned into a vampire on his first trip to Albania. Supported with suitable (real) quotes from his work and from people who knew him.
I had no idea a novel could at once be well researched and accurate yet delightfully trashy. Oh yes.
I particularly loved the characterisation of John Cam Hobhouse, Byron's travelling companion, and was left thinking that part of the Byron mythos that grew up in his own lifetime and eventually forced him to leave England for good is based on Hobhouse's account of Byron's behaviour on the travels, and that if Byron had taken a travelling companion who was as debauched as himself, we wouldn't have the scandalised version of events. A good 10 years after having such a thought would get me published, or any sort of credit. Bah!
I was not at all sure whether I'd like this, so was pleasantly surprised.
64. Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters - an outrageous Englishwoman and her lost kingdom by Philip Eade
I have to admit to having been pulled in by the title alone, a move that has stung me on more than one occasion in the past. This time, I had better luck.
I have to admit to never having heard of the White Rajahs of Sarawak (or Sarawak) before. Short version: 19th century English adventurer has gunboat, puts down an uprising for Sultan of Brunei and is given a state 5 times the size of Brunei itself over which to be absolute monarch in return.
Sylvia Brett was the daughter of a minor Victorian title who had a more than usually horrific upper class upbringing, who married Vyner Brooke, the third and final White Rajah. A good third of the novel focuses on her upbringing and is fascinating and repelling in equal parts. Sylvia and Vyner travelled back and forth between Sarawak and England most years and she and her daughters got themselves a reputation for living very scandallous lives, which actually weren't that immoral, but rather had to do with breaking class rules.
There's precious little about the headhunters of the title, and more about the family's exploits in England and, later, America than there is about their lives in Sarawak.
Really interesting, but not in the same way as the title suggests.
65. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
This month's Bibliogoths selection, and quite simply the most Irish thing I have ever read.
Due to the headache that will not go away, I found this book really hard going, but the ending made persevering with it all worth while.
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Date: 2008-12-01 08:51 am (UTC)Supping With Panthers, the follow up to the Byron book, was, imo, rubbish. It had potential, but just spent too long being opium-hallucination nonsense.