Posted by Peter Ceresole on December 11, 2007 at 17:00:29 from 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Biggles (was Swinging the lead (was posted by Pam Adams on December 11, 2007 at 01:01:29:
I was a little worried with 'Biggles Fails to Return.'
Gosh, weren't we all? But for me it was 'I failed to continue'. And with AR, too; I simply changed books, fairly sharply, when I was about 14. Don't we all- although I acknowledge I was probably rather late. It all started (your honour) when on the shelves of my father's journalist friend I saw John Dos Passos's 'USA'. I don't know why, but I read three pages and I was just hooked. Then it had to be 'Manhattan Transfer' and even (gahd help me) 'Grand Design'. And, descending into reality, 'The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes'. FDR as God. Then I borrowed the 'Evergreen Review' number on the San Francisco Scene and carried it in the pocket of my duffel coat for a year. Read Kerouac. Sheer romance! 'On the Road' was my 'Grand Meaulnes'. I was gone; although they were always on my shelves, I didn't touch an AR book for 20 years. I went into (TV) journalism. For light relief I read Tintin books; don't laugh- it's all quality stuff, not to say iconic. In my luxury moments I read Anthony Powell's 'Dance to the Music of Time', and still do, often.
Anyway, after years and years of bashing at Current Affairs (shaking hands with Saddam Hussein; he explained very calmly why he tortured and killed people, all that stuff) I began again to see the sheer pleasure and the deep human values in AR's books, and started on them again. I suppose the hard stuff is Beckfoot plumbing...
Anyway, all those books and people and events have been vitally important. That's a long way round to explain that there's more to life and reading than AR, but that in my life he did come first and last. Unless you count Peter Rabbit of course.
And which is why I'm rabbiting here.