10 Novellas

One of my sons famously thought novella was a posh word for a novel. It just refers to a short novel - about 150 pages or less. Here is a list of ten. These are ones I have actually read.

1. Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853
2. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1885
3. Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899
4. Ethan Frome Edith Wharton 1911
5. Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937
6. Animal Farm George Orwell 1945
7. The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952
8. Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote 1958
9. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1962
10. A Month in the Country J L Carr 1960

Novelists 34 Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894) was one of those names my mother expected you to know when I was a kid. A Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer his most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Others include The Black Arrow, The Master of Ballantrae, Catriona and The weir of Hermiston. A celebrity during his own lifetime, Stevenson ranks among the 26 most translated authors in the world. His works have been admired by many other writers. G K Chesterton said of him that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins." Iain Murray rightly warns against him in The Undervcover Revolution.

Book Buys July

Rather quiet on the book buying front this month in some ways. Almost no Christian books bought but two events piled up my supply of secular books.

First, The Times were giving away Penguin paperbacks free in certain places. By this means I picked up the following

1. Green (Adventure)
The 39 Steps by John Buchan
Treasure Island by R L Stevenson
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
(I missed Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne)
I've read the first two but not the second two. It would be nice to get round to them.

2. Pink (Romance)
The Lady with the Little Dog and other stories by Chekov
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence
(I missed Madame Bovary by Faubert)
I don't think I've read any of these.

Then, second, I was on Oxford Street and they had a closing down sale in Borders (no surprise there, they never seemed to know quite what they were doing). For £1 each I got

Julia Pastrana: The Tragic Story of the Victorian Ape Woman/Gylseth and Toverud

Hans Christian Andersen/Jack Zipes
Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakepseare/Stephen Greenblatt
Text and Experience: Toward a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible/Ed Smith-Christopher

I also got in July for £1 each biographies of George Elliot and Chrisopher Wren in the very interesting people series from OUP (I have one on Ruskin already). The other buy was the very interesting

Why not Catch-21 by Gary Dexter

The undercover revolution

This cleverly titled little paperback from Iain Murray is an informative and apologetic piece in the Schaeffer mould in two parts.

The first and main part is fascinating. It looks, after a brief introduction, at Robert Louis Stevenson, then Thomas Hardy and then, more briefly, at more obvious and well known examples of anti-Christian writing in Shaw, Wells and Bertrand Russell. The second brief section is called 'Is Christianity fiction?' and is a more pedestrian attempt to promote the gospel. When a Christian writes about such figures one comes away with quite a different impression to that engendered by a humanist. A number of neglected or downplayed matters are highlighted and certain contradictions are exposed here.

The book is ony 95 pages and can easily be read in one or two sittings. Christians will find it interesting and it may be appropriate for certain unbelievers.