Happy first Sunday in October, which in close competition for my favorite month of the year. It feels like fall really got into full swing here in the past week or so and it is awesome. Well, I haven’t been totally crazy about the rainy aspect, but it’s not exactly killing me either. I can wear sweaters again! (More accurately, I can wear sweaters again in comfort!) And I can enjoy warm-weather-inappropriate consumables, like casseroles and stout. (If you can’t tell, I’m thinking about the grocery trip I’m about to make…mmm, so devoted to food.)
Devoted to reading as well of course. I’ve been continuing my dive into laziness (of a sort) by zipping through the quite chunky All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, which is terrifically charming. A very close call between the book and the show for pastoral deliciousness and relaxation. Makes you want to be a country vet—if that didn’t involve sticking your arms up cows, pigs, horses, and sheep, that is. Or really doing most of the other things. I think I could probably deal with petting a lamb, but that might be my limit.
Now I’m on to The Provost. After reading a few chapters I happened to glance at the back of the book and got a good laugh. According to my 1982 Oxford edition, “The novel has always enjoyed both popular success and critical esteem.” Can so much have changed in 27 years? Whatever, it hardly bears thinking about how much good stuff is so hard to find. I don’t like to be curmudgeonly but I was not a happy camper when I found how much of Tobias Smollett’s work was out of print either, and despite what the folks at Oxford thought back then John Galt is certainly not a household name even if this little novel did “serve to expand the whole scope of English fiction.” (PS—English?? Well, English-language I suppose.)
Oh good, someone will be able to understand, correct, contradict, etc., what I’m writing about during GaltFest 2008, which is still at least two novels away. November, maybe.
The editor of that edition, Ian Gordon, is the Greatest Galt Scholar. He can be a tad overenthusiastic. Perhaps compensating for Galt’s irritiating obscurity. Or perhaps slightly nutty.
The Oxford edition of The Entail, from the exact same time, includes the typical list of other World’s Classics novels available. Among the usual suspects are Alton Locke by Charles Kingsley, Esther Waters by George Moore, two R. S. Surtees novels (including Soapy Sponge’s Sporting Tour), and Peregrine Pickle. So it wasn’t so long ago that some of those 1899 Best of All Time obscurities were actually in print.
So it wasn’t so long ago that some of those 1899 Best of All Time obscurities were actually in print.
Yeah, it really contributes to the weirdness for me and makes it seem like just before I attained consciousness, people had very different reading habits. I seriously doubt that is the case.
I’ve also got The Ayrshire Legatees in the queue so may be having a miniGaltFest of my own coming up.
Oh I do so love fall food and sweaters as well!
Have you seen the mini-series based on the Herriot books? Quite fun.
I watched the TV series on All Creatures Great and Small when it first came out and then watched it again last month-my brother brought the tape when he came on a visit-it is really a lot of fun
verbivore, I’ve become totally addicted to the series via Netflix, which has the entire thing available streaming. It is a wonder. I don’t know how I went this long not knowing about it.