KEV67

The story is set about 1715 and Sir Walter Scott wrote it about a century later. One of the characters was talking about how the Act of Union would allow Glasgow to develop, because it could participate in the trade of cotton and tobacco, so basically slave produce.

I will have to read Ivanhoe one day.

Still enjoying it. Scott does not let his main characters say a dull sentence. I don't know how he managed to get so much erudite wit into his books. Presumably he had to get so many words down a day. There is quite a bit of poetry. Characters quote it, and each chapter is prefaced by a verse. In Waverley there was a character who used to quote reams of Latin all the time. I think Walter Scott had a big brain.

He was good, so it is a bit of a surprise he is not as well regarded as he was. He used to be a literary superstar. I think Rob Roy is a little similar in theme to Waverley (so far), but he is different to just about everyone else (OK maybe not entirely different to Robert Louis Stevenson). His style is unique.

I have to say the characters of Sir Walter Scott's novels have great powers of expression. I envy them that.

Another bit of repetition from Waverley is the lovely, young lady whom young Francis Osbaltistone meets on Osbaltistone Hall. She is beautiful, clever, witty, and a Jacobite. She and young Francis have an entertaining chat at dinnertime.

Another similarity between Rob Roy and Waverley is that the narrator is a young Englishman. First he goes north to Northumbria. If it's like Waverley he crosses the border to where the wild men live.

I have started reading this. I have read one other book by Scott, Waverley, which I thought was a great book. I quite like Walter Scott's style. It is rather dense, but it is almost cinematographic. In the first couple of chapters the protagonist is holding an argument with his stern father. The protagonist does not want to be a merchant like his father. It is sort of like accountancy. The protagonist wants to be a poet. At this point there is no indication where the story is going. We just know the young fellow has a romantic and independent streak. I especially liked the bit where the lad's father found a poem his son has wrote and critiques it. It seemed like quite a reasonable poem to me.

I attended a Unitarian meeting online a fortnight ago. They seemed pleased with Adrian's birth. The average age of the Unitarians is about 65 by my reckoning. It might be higher than that. The pastor (I am not sure that is position) was intrigued to see a room full of Kazakh surrogate women.

I have not been to any Orthodox Church services, but I have poked my head in. They don't have stain glass, but they have a lot of religious paintings. They tend to use metal in their religious art. I am not sure whether it is all silver and gold, but it looks like it. They don't have pews neither. Everybody stands. This is one of their cathedrals. I can see it five miles away.

There have been two or three film adaptions of Journey Into Fear. One did have Orson Wells, but he was playing Col Haki.

I thought this was going to turn into something like Death on the Nile or Death on the Orient Express, but it took a different turn. I am afraid my knowledge of 1930's black and white film actors is not extensive. So far I have cast: Mr Graham, engineer protagonist, David Niven Dr Haller, elderly German historian, ? Banat, Romanian hit man, ? Josette, nightclub dance, Marlene Dietrich Jose, her boorish husband, ? Kurtvetli, Turkish businessman, Peter Lorre, M. Mathis, French passenger, ? Mme. Mathis, his wife, ? Signora Baronelli, Italian widow, ? Signor Baronelli, her son, ? Purser, ? Steward, ? Col Haki, Turkish head of secret police, ? Kopeikin, Turkish agent, Orson Wells Maria, nightclub hostess, ? I can cast Orson Wells, but I don't think I can cast American actors such as Humphry Bogart. Marlene Dietrich is almost too glamorous.

This is my second Eric Ambler book. It was written in the late 30s. Like the other one I read, The Mask of Dmitrious, it is about an Englishman who finds himself in deep water in Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe in Ambler's books starts around Paris. I quite like all the clipped English speech, and the courteous language, which somehow sounds threatening, when spoken by a member of the underworld or secret police. Think Peter Lorre, think Orsen Wells, think Marlene Dietrich.

There have been eight Clive Cussler books since he died. The titles are proceeded with "Clive Cussler's" He was 88 when he died. It must have been that dangerously young girlfriend that did for him.

Maybe that explains why it was written by Graham Brown. The copyright page says it was first published in 2022.