[Ebook recs] Erskine Childers, "The Riddle of the Sands"
Apologies for the hiatus in my promised series of ebook recs. Partly this has been due to the fullness of my schedule, but partly also due to my concern that I have a very well-read group of friends and therefore that I'm choosing books which everyone has heard of already. Do let me know if you think my recs ought to be more obscure. In the mean time, after having recommended Three Men in a Boat, I'm going to forge ahead with the nautical theme. The Riddle of the Sands was published less than fifteen years later but it's very different in both tone and setting.
The narrator of The Riddle of the Sands is Carruthers, a socially distinguished young civil servant in the Foreign Office. As the novel opens, it is September and he's still trapped by work responsibilities in London, while all his friends are off enjoying themselves at country house parties. It's a sign of his desperation that he accepts an out-of-the-blue invitation from a slightly eccentric (and less affluent) Oxford acquaintance to go yachting in the Baltic Sea.
Who goes yachting in the Baltic in October? Almost no one, possibly for good reason. What starts to concern Carruthers even more than the weather and the rustic accommodation, though, is the sense that his friend may have had ulterior motives in inviting him along. What is his real goal, and might there be a mystery to unravel?
The Riddle of the Sands is a great mix of adventure, exploration and mystery, and above all a ripping good yarn. Basically it's Swallows and Amazons for twenty-somethings. I will say that I personally found the denouement less gripping than the premise, but it's the denouement that has earned the novel its historical importance in the context of the lead-up to World War I. To say more than that would be too spoilery, so go and read it for yourself!
The Riddle of the Sands via Project Gutenberg
View poll: #8483
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/470440.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The narrator of The Riddle of the Sands is Carruthers, a socially distinguished young civil servant in the Foreign Office. As the novel opens, it is September and he's still trapped by work responsibilities in London, while all his friends are off enjoying themselves at country house parties. It's a sign of his desperation that he accepts an out-of-the-blue invitation from a slightly eccentric (and less affluent) Oxford acquaintance to go yachting in the Baltic Sea.
Who goes yachting in the Baltic in October? Almost no one, possibly for good reason. What starts to concern Carruthers even more than the weather and the rustic accommodation, though, is the sense that his friend may have had ulterior motives in inviting him along. What is his real goal, and might there be a mystery to unravel?
The Riddle of the Sands is a great mix of adventure, exploration and mystery, and above all a ripping good yarn. Basically it's Swallows and Amazons for twenty-somethings. I will say that I personally found the denouement less gripping than the premise, but it's the denouement that has earned the novel its historical importance in the context of the lead-up to World War I. To say more than that would be too spoilery, so go and read it for yourself!
The Riddle of the Sands via Project Gutenberg
View poll: #8483
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/470440.html. Please comment there using OpenID.