Sunday 11 April 2010

what's on in london (assuming this is 1906)

I re-read George MacDonald Fraser's Mr American on my holiday. Now I really want to re-read The Pyrates, partially to clear the disappointment of The Reavers from my memory. An aging GMF was hurrying that one, and it shows. But the others are humane, mature and have crackerjack stories with Surprises, Tension, Wisdom and cetera. In addition, they are, lightly, crammed with Information and Knowledge.

For instance:
The great theatrical attraction of London in that week, or in that Autumn for that matter, was undoubtedly The Whip, a drama of racing and high society which in addition to a highly sensational plot also offered the astonishing spectacles of a rail crash, a pack of hounds on stage, and a thrilling horse race
Why is this not revived more often? Our protagonist also enjoys the London crowds belting out a big number about the Kaiser's naval ambitions by two young things he's never heard of - an American called Kern and his English lyricist, Wodehouse.

The book I will read before The Pyrates, since you are so interested, is Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood. Sabatini wrote rip-roarers, apparently - GMF certainly indicates this in Mr American - and Captain Blood and Scaramouche are the famous ones, and Captain Blood seems like an ur-text for The Pyrates, which is every pirate story ever rolled into one, along with some Hollywood post-modernism in a tightrope way that somehow avoids being maddeningly arch (which it is, a bit, in The Reavers).

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