List About Books I Am Jonathan Scrivener
| Title | : | I Am Jonathan Scrivener |
| Author | : | Claude Houghton |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 280 pages |
| Published | : | April 9th 2013 by Valancourt Books (first published 1930) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Mystery. Literary Fiction. Literature. European Literature. British Literature |
Claude Houghton
Paperback | Pages: 280 pages Rating: 4.06 | 105 Users | 28 Reviews
Description To Books I Am Jonathan Scrivener
James Wrexham is thirty-nine, lonely, and stuck in a dead-end job when he comes upon an advertisement for a position as secretary to Mr. Jonathan Scrivener. Much to his surprise, he is hired at a lavish salary despite never even meeting Scrivener, and he is told to take up residence at once in the flat of his new employer, who has suddenly disappeared. Mystified by Scrivener’s strange conduct and desperate to learn something about him, it seems Wrexham will get the answers he seeks when Scrivener’s friends begin to visit the flat: Pauline Mandeville, an ethereal beauty, Francesca Bellamy, a widow who may be responsible for the death of her husband, Andrew Middleton, a disillusioned alcoholic, and Antony Rivers, a handsome playboy. But as each of them unfolds his story about Scrivener, it seems that none of them are describing the same person, though all are obsessed with finding him. Why has he hired Wrexham, and why does he seem to have thrust this unlikely group of people together? Is Scrivener engaged in an inscrutable experiment, or could he be laying some kind of trap?Popular in his time for his psychological thrillers, Claude Houghton (1889-1961) was admired by writers as diverse as P. G. Wodehouse, Henry Miller, Hugh Walpole, and Graham Greene, but has fallen into neglect in the past half-century. This new edition restores his masterpiece I Am Jonathan Scrivener (1930) to print and includes Walpole’s introduction from the 1935 edition and an essay by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and Washington Post columnist Michael Dirda.
“So remarkable in truth is this novel that I cannot understand why it is not universally known and admired.” - Hugh Walpole
“I Am Jonathan Scrivener remains a tantalizing, highly diverting philosophical novel of rare elegance and wit.” - Michael Dirda
Identify Books As I Am Jonathan Scrivener
| Original Title: | I Am Jonathan Scrivener |
| ISBN: | 1939140080 (ISBN13: 9781939140081) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating About Books I Am Jonathan Scrivener
Ratings: 4.06 From 105 Users | 28 ReviewsAppraise About Books I Am Jonathan Scrivener
An entertaining novel in which the main character does not appear until the last line...Claude Houghton is one of the finest interwar writers of the twentieth century and deserves to be read much more than he is today. He is a master of dialogue and "I am Jonathan Scrivener" is a prime example of Houghton's skill. Though one of his best novels, this is not his best, owing to the somewhat languid pacing and abrupt and underwhelming ending. However, the dialogue and relationships of the characters are worth reading and will sustain you till the end.
A fascinating book, although I confessed I liked the first part better than the second.I hate re-hashing plot, so I'll summarize as briefly as possible. Wrexham, through whom the story is told, responds for a position as secretary to a London gentleman (Scrivner as it turns out), and is hired by that man's lawyer, without meeting the client. Scrivner has decamped, correspondence forwarded via his bankers, leaving Wrexham alone in the flat to catalogue the books, officially. That turns out to
I stumbled across this quite by accident and regard the incident as one of those happy accidents that now and then occur. The protagonist is not the eponymous Scrivener but the man employed to be his secretary, James Wrexham. The book was released in 1930 and its author, Claude Houghton, should now, if justice be served, enjoy a richly deserved renaissance in the minds of the reading public.After living a humdrum existence into his thirties having been left little or no money in his recently
Raise what battle-cry you will, every echo has only one answer and the answer of each echo is Change. For the old order has failed and the new order is in the agony of birthBritish writer Claude Houghton (1889 1961) once uttered the pessimistic statement that all his fiction was based on the belief that modern civilization would collapse "because it no longer believes it has a destiny". Claude Houghton, circa 1948By modern civilization it is more than reasonable to assume he was referring to
A solitary man with little to distinguish himself answers an advertisement to serve as a personal secretary. He is hired, but never meets his employer, who is abroad; his only duty is to organize an extensive library while living in his employer's flat in London. Soon the callers begin arriving, people with influence and colorful lives, whom our narrator befriends through the common bond of mystery: who exactly is Jonathan Scrivener, and what does he want with each of them?I'm not sure how this
An author who creates characters and knows what they do and think is considered to remain outside the story. But what will happen if the author, a transcendental being like a god, exists among the characters? This is what is happening in this novel. The eponymous character is actually an author as his name suggests, and the narrator Wrexham and all the other people are fictional characters created by him. No wonder Scrivener knows what they do and think. No wonder Scrivener can beat anyone at
0 Comments:
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.