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== Against The Wind == Geoffrey Household, 1959, Little Brown and Company. PSU Library PR6015.07884 Z54 1959 ----- Autobiography of Household (1900-1988), 2/3 of the way though his life, 1/3 of the way though his writing career, which took off with Rogue Male and restarted after the 1939-1944 war. Three sections, Traveller (sales), Soldier (army intelligence), Craftsman (writing). The first section is interesting, but has way too many diversions into the droll phrase rather than the descriptive one - distracting. I'm amused that before the war, Household helped sell more printing ink than was ever used to print his books after; Household may have been a competent salesman, but not a curious one. He writes of many quick befriendings of foreigners. Writing being a lonely profession (and he illustrates that), this seems contradictory - perhaps he chose to disappear behind the safety of a typewriter. Hard to say - I would like to read a biography by an observer rather than the subject, and compare notes. |
Rogue Male
Geoffrey Household, 1939, New York Review Books, with a 2007 introduction by Victoria Nelson.
An unnamed British hunter lines up his rifle on an unnamed dictator (Hitler) and is captured, tortured, and left for dead. The novel describes his escape, evading the dictator's extensive spy network with woodcraft and cunning. In the same genre as John Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps and four other novels about Richard Hanney. Household's book is less jingoistic and more psychological - a better story IMHO. I've ordered the sequel, Rogue Justice.
Against The Wind
Geoffrey Household, 1959, Little Brown and Company. PSU Library PR6015.07884 Z54 1959
Autobiography of Household (1900-1988), 2/3 of the way though his life, 1/3 of the way though his writing career, which took off with Rogue Male and restarted after the 1939-1944 war. Three sections, Traveller (sales), Soldier (army intelligence), Craftsman (writing). The first section is interesting, but has way too many diversions into the droll phrase rather than the descriptive one - distracting. I'm amused that before the war, Household helped sell more printing ink than was ever used to print his books after; Household may have been a competent salesman, but not a curious one. He writes of many quick befriendings of foreigners. Writing being a lonely profession (and he illustrates that), this seems contradictory - perhaps he chose to disappear behind the safety of a typewriter. Hard to say - I would like to read a biography by an observer rather than the subject, and compare notes.