Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Regular friends of the decanter may recall that ol’ Robbo has developed a new interest in what one might call Ripping Yarns this year and, to this end, has started in on a series of authors he really should have read more when he was a kid – P.C. Wren, Robert Louis Stevenson and Conan-Doyle to name but three.
Well, pursuant to that design, I thought I would mention a couple of pairs of books here, offering a substantive observation about the first and a purchaser’s caution on the second.
Recently, ol’ Robbo finished both R,L. Stevenson’s Kidnapped, together with its sequel Catriona. The first is simply an outstanding adventure story, as the hero David Balfour and the hugely entertaining Alan Breck, after escaping kidnapping and shipwreck, make their dangerous way across the Scottish Highlands of 1751, chased by rival clans and Redcoats. The second, which RLS wrote many years later and which takes up the story immediately where Kidnapped left off, is not nearly as good, seemingly more plodding and taken up with legal intrigue and David’s mooing over women. I will say, without giving away any spoilers, that when Alan Breck reappears toward the end, the book brightens right back up and comes near to Kidnapped quality.
Having polished off those, I leapt immediately into Arthur Conan-Doyle’s The White Company, in which sturdy English yeomen of the reign of Edward III take their longbows off to the Continent to beat up on various enemies and load themselves down with plunder. I’m in the early stages, in which the nucleus of the company is being formed, but I already enjoy it. People forget that ACD was a writer of tremendous range (I believe he even dabbled in science-fiction) and a very solid story-teller to boot.
Anyhoo, when fooling about at the devil’s website, I found that the book comes in two volumes but that I couldn’t find any complete set put out by the same publisher. So I simply picked two at random. This, my friends, was where ol’ Robbo made something of a mistake. Volume One does not even give a publisher name, simply stating that it was printed at Lexington, KY on August 19, 2014. In other words, right around the date I ordered it. I wouldn’t care about this in itself, but what I mind mightily is the fact that the whole thing is printed in about 8-point font, making it basically a 171 page footnote. My poor old eyes simply can’t take much of it at any one time. Stupid fly-by-night publishers! But what are you going to do when you’re looking for rayther obscure works that the big houses simply don’t bother with?
On the other hand, the second volume that I picked up was put out by an outfit called Accessible Publishing Systems. I didn’t notice, when I ordered it, that the thing is an “EasyRead Large Bold Edition” featuring 16-point font. I don’t know if this was because I was inattentive or because the devil’s website didn’t choose to mention it. I offer this as a cautionary tale.
(Oh, and yes, these are both illustrations by the greatly under-rated N.C. Wyeth.)
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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September 21, 2014 at 6:44 pm
Diane Werle
This is one of the reasons I love reading either on a kindle or at Amazon on the cloud reader: adjustable fonts. No more squinting or, in the case of the occasional large print item, rapid page turning.
The fall read-a-thon is almost upon us (10/18); I’ll keep the RLS in mind for some action to keep me awake.
September 21, 2014 at 9:35 pm
Helen Andrews
When researching Chinua Achebe, I came across a funny reminiscence about “Kidnapped” from one of his former schoolteachers (via this book). In this fellow’s first year of teaching native students back in the Fifties, he included “Kidnapped” in his English literature syllabus, since adventure stories had proved popular with the schoolboys. His only worry was that all the complexities of Highland, Lowland, etc., would be too confusing for them. To his great surprise, his students assured him that they knew all about North/South differences, and by relating each faction to its Nigerian equivalent they were able to manage pretty well.
September 22, 2014 at 1:41 pm
Chas
Bought my youngest a copy of the “White Company” as a Christmas present last year. He’s a fledgling artist / illustrator and I thought he might enjoy the story as well.
In my parent’s house, Wyeth and Parrish were staples – as was Rockwell. We were square that way.
September 22, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Robbo
Diane – I think you and I have had this conversation before. I just don’t ever see myself getting to an e-reader. Too many moving parts and all that worry about power supply. Besides, I simply enjoy the feel of paper in my hands. Also, I don’t think an e-reader would be as efficient a tool with which to whack fighting housecats, sulky teenagers, intrusive insects and the various other harshers of my reading mellow.
Helen – Welcome and thanks for your comment! If I recall correctly, Peej O’Rourke, in a discussion of the hierarchies and in-fighting among the clans of Somalia, joked that if you gave them kilts and golf clubs, you’d call them Scotsmen. I think we romanticize the Heelanders because although they were barbarians, they were our barbarians. Tribalism runs very, very deep in the human psyche.
Chas – I could identify Wyeth’s style at a very, very early age. I seem to recall his illustrations both of the Arthurian legends and of Robin Hood. As for Parrish, he was more of an early adolescence thing for me. Because nymphs in skimpy togas on cliff-tops. Rockwell, I think, is as unfairly dismissed as Wyeth, at least in terms of his artistic skills. On the other hand, as much as I like the art work itself, I do wish he hadn’t included “Freedom from Want” and “Freedom from Fear” among his Four Freedoms set. I know he was quoting FDR, but those two are a load of socialist utopian nonsense.