Slightly Foxed Issue 22

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The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine.

In this issue: Richard Ingrams delights in fictitious elephants • Christian Tyler dons his corduroys • Frances Donnolly takes a train to Istanbul • John Keay celebrates the Indian novels of R. K. Narayan • Jonty Driver watches things fall apart • Clive Unger-Hamilton runs a rogue male to earth • Rowena Macdonald jumps the fence with Riddley Walker • Charles Elliott unmasks some book crooks, and much more besides . . .

Don’t Give up the Day Job • FRANCES DONNELLY on Graham Greene, Stamboul Train

Another Country • CHRISTIAN TYLER on Adrian Bell, Corduroy

Belief in the Blood • ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH on Antoine François Prévost, Manon Lescaut

Uncle and the Badfort Crowd • RICHARD INGRAMS on the novels of J. P. Martin

Slow Train to Malgudi • JOHN KEAY on the novels of R. K. Narayan

Gone to Earth • CLIVE UNGER-HAMILTON on Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male

A Taker of Heads • C. J. DRIVER on Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

On the Shores of the Mediterranean • JOHN DE FALBE on Barry Unsworth, Land of Marvels

Too Much Clevverness • ROWENA MACDONALD on Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker

Settling the Bill • JAMES FERGUSSON on David Hughes, The Pork Butcher

From Cheltenham to Lochiel • URSULA BUCHAN on the novels of D. K. Broster

Mr Pye’s Dilemma • MICHAEL MARETT-CROSBY on Mervyn Peake, Mr Pye

Written in the Stars • ANNE SEBBA on Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus

Round and Round and Round • LAWRENCE SAIL on Bettina Ehrlich, Cocolo

Sound Nonsense • CHRISTOPHER ROBBINS on James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Book Crooks • CHARLES ELLIOTT on book forgery and theft

About Slightly Foxed

The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine. Read more about Slightly Foxed.

‘It has been a great pleasure . . .’

T. Baylis, Leicester

‘It has been a great pleasure to read your summer edition of Slightly Foxed. To meet so many old friends over my early morning cup of tea has been a lasting stimulus throughout the day. Although...

‘A wonderful review . . .’

P. Shute, Kent

‘I am just leaving to go on holiday and the post has arrived. I am delighted that I can take SF No. 22. It is a wonderful review and I thoroughly enjoy it. Thank you all so much.’

From Cheltenham to Lochiel

Ursula Buchan on the novels of D. K. Broster

Rereading The Flight of the Heron, I recaptured something of the uncomplicated delight and excitement that I had felt first timeround. The story of Ewen Cameron of Ardroy, a minor chieftain of the...

Another Country

Christian Tyler on Adrian Bell, Corduroy

Bell’s first book has the virtues which allow it to transcend its times: acute observation, sincerity and that simplicity of style which does not date. Published in 1930, it portrays a way of life...

Too Much Clevverness

Rowena Macdonald on Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker

Hoban started writing Riddley Walker in 1974 and finished it five years later. It is a masterpiece. Those who know it love it, and whole websites are devoted to it, with chapter-by-chapter...

Don’t Give up the Day Job

Frances Donnelly on Graham Greene, Stamboul Train

I first read Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train when I was 12, and the set-up was instantly recognizable – a disparate group of English people thrown together on a rail journey across a snowy Europe...

Belief in the Blood

Alexander Lucie-Smith on Antoine François Prévost, Manon Lescaut

If it had not been for Puccini’s opera, I would never have heard of Manon Lescaut. As it was, finding a copy of the novel behind the opera wasn’t easy: it was not kept on the open shelves in my...

Uncle and the Badfort Crowd

Richard Ingrams on the novels of J. P. Martin

One of the great advantages of acquiring a stepson in my sixties was the excuse it gave me to reread aloud all those children’s books which I had so much enjoyed the first time around – Beatrix...

Slow Train to Malgudi

John Keay on the novels of R. K. Narayan

I’m not sure whether it was India that introduced me to R. K. Narayan or R. K. Narayan who introduced me to India. Each superimposed itself on the other so that they became indistinguishable....

Gone to Earth

Clive Unger-Hamilton on Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male

There’s a classic type of resourceful, unassuming hero that they just don’t make any more (think Richard Hannay), and the narrator of Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male, a ‘bored and...

A Taker of Heads

C. J. Driver on Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), was an early and spectacular part of the flowering of West African literature after independence from colonial rule. It seemed, perhaps...

Settling the Bill

James Fergusson on David Hughes, The Pork Butcher

Ernst Kestner has smoked 846,756 cigarettes. A butcher from Lübeck in his sixties, he is driving to France, doing the sums in his head. He has been a 40-a-day man since the middle of the Second...

Mr Pye’s Dilemma

Michael Marett-Crosby on Mervyn Peake, Mr Pye

Our boat journey from Jersey to Sark passes through a dangerous past. The rocks between the two islands are called in Jersey slang the Pater Nosters, for it is said that if a ship were to get too...

Slightly Foxed Issue 22: From the Editors

Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood

The Slightly Foxed office hasn’t changed much over the years, apart from the fact that, as we’ve already mentioned, it’s got more crowded, what with the increasing number of back issues and the...