Rescued a copy of Arundel by Kenneth Roberts from my father's house awhile back, a 1956 reprint with superb map endpapers. Inside the title page is this recommendation from Margaret Deland:
When I think of the thin, tinny novels which tumble from the press today, to be forgotten within a few months, I feel that Arundel is a permanent contribution to the literature of this country. I go around telling people to read it; but I despair - until they have read it - of making them realize its quality. It seems to me like a perfectly splendid plum pudding! No, I think it is more than that; I think it is brown bread, and roast beef, and beer! It is the real stuff, and while I congratulate the author upon having written it, I congratulate all of us novel-reading folk even more heartily. How anybody can lap up whipped cream when he can get Arundel, I don't understand!
They don't write blurbs like that anymore. All those exclamation points! And such regard for brown bread!
Posted by Bobby Farouk at December 5, 2004 09:12 AMIf it's the book I'm thinking of, it had a generous regard for buttered rum, too.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at December 5, 2004 01:55 PMI've never read it (better to get moldy at my house rather than my father's) but the buttered rum is a possibility. Has to do with Arnold's invasion of Canada.
Did you read the Deland bio?
In 1888 she published her first novel, John Ward, Preacher. The book was a sensation for its portrayal of the irreconcilable and destructive conflict between a Calvinist minister and his wife, who cannot accept the doctrine of eternal damnation.
Now there's an idea for a novel that wouldn't have occurred to many of us.
She's also credited with "A pint cannot hold a quart." a line I first thought silly but now see possibilities for at work.
Posted by: Bobby Farouk at December 5, 2004 02:14 PMNo, didn't read the biography, only Arundel. Someone told my mother that Kenneth Roberts was good historical fiction -- luckily without mentioning its frequently rude content. The parts I remember are about the soldiers' terrible job of portaging the boats for the invasion up an increasingly unnavigable watercourse, and the opening description of the narrator's family tavern in Arundel, Maine where hot buttered rum is the featured winter drink. The theory there being that what puts people under the table is the butter, not the rum. Funny how bits of illogic are sometimes what stick in one's head.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at December 5, 2004 03:12 PM