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Julian Rathbone (1935–2008)

Auteur de The Last English King

39+ oeuvres 1,559 utilisateurs 38 critiques 2 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

Writer Julian Rathbone was born in London, England on February 10, 1935. He graduated from Magdaline College, Cambridge, England, in 1958. He taught from 1959 until 1973, first in Turkey, then in England. He has written thrillers, historical novels, screenplays, short stories and poetry. King afficher plus Fisher Lives (1976) and Joseph: The Life of Joseph Bosham, Self-Styled Third Viscount of Bosham, Covering the Years from 1970 to 1813 (1979) were both nominated for the Booker Prize. He has also received the Crime Writers of America Silver Dagger for Best Short Story for 'Some Sunny Day" (1993). He died on February 28, 2008. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Crédit image: Courtesy of Serpent's Tail Press

Séries

Œuvres de Julian Rathbone

The Last English King (1997) 437 exemplaires
Kings of Albion (2000) 297 exemplaires
A Very English Agent (2002) 150 exemplaires
Joseph (1656) 107 exemplaires
The Mutiny (2007) 61 exemplaires
A Spy of the Old School (1982) 60 exemplaires
Birth of a Nation: A Novel (2004) 44 exemplaires
Wellington's War: His Peninsular Dispatches (1984) — Directeur de publication — 39 exemplaires
Lying in State (1985) 24 exemplaires
King Fisher Lives (1976) 24 exemplaires
The Euro-Killers (1979) 21 exemplaires
The Crystal Contract (1988) 20 exemplaires
Trajectories (1998) 19 exemplaires
Intimacy (1995) 18 exemplaires
Watching the Detectives (1984) 17 exemplaires
The Indispensable Julian Rathbone (2003) 17 exemplaires
Nasty, Very (1984) 16 exemplaires
A Raving Monarchist (1977) 16 exemplaires
Greenfinger (1987) 15 exemplaires
Blame Hitler (1997) 13 exemplaires
As Bad As It Gets (2003) 13 exemplaires
Zdt (1986) 12 exemplaires
Homage (2001) 12 exemplaires
Accidents Will Happen (1995) 11 exemplaires
The Brandenburg Concerto (1998) 11 exemplaires
Sand Blind (1993) 11 exemplaires
With My Knives I Know I'm Good (1969) 11 exemplaires
Dangerous Games (1991) 9 exemplaires
Base Case (1981) 8 exemplaires
Bloody Marvellous (1975) 7 exemplaires
Trip Trap (1972) 7 exemplaires
The Pandora Option (1990) 6 exemplaires
Kill Cure (1975) 6 exemplaires
Diamonds Bid (1967) 5 exemplaires
!Carnival! (1976) 5 exemplaires
Argand, den hæderlige kommissær (1985) 4 exemplaires
Hand Out (1968) 3 exemplaires
A Last Resort. (1980) 2 exemplaires
Crimewave 1 (1999) 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

The Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica (1998) — Contributeur — 115 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of International Erotica (1996) — Contributeur — 113 exemplaires
Past Poisons (2005) — Contributeur — 110 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of New Erotica (1998) — Contributeur — 77 exemplaires
The Mammoth Book of Comic Crime (2002) — Contributeur — 47 exemplaires
Dark Terrors 3 (1997) — Contributeur — 34 exemplaires

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Joseph Bosham, self-styled third Viscount of Bosham, with a half-English Catholic priest for a father and an Italian brothel-keeper for a mother, educated in mathematics, music and philosophy but with a natural gift for languages and depravity, is born in the 1790s and settled in a turbulent Spain just as the great armies of Wellington and Napoleon vie for supremacy during the Peninsular Wars. Seduced by the glamour of battle little Jose reluctantly serves as courier, linguist, pimp and mascot to survive.

Now some years ago I read and enjoyed the author's 'The Last English King' so I approached this with high hopes but whilst I can't say I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, it is a rather long and there some fairly dull philosophical rants therein, I generally found myself engrossed in it. This was largely due to the unreliable and amusing voice of the narrator, the eponymous Joseph, who was not unlike the wonderful Flashman without all the womanising, but also the evocation of a period of history which previously I knew very little about but felt that Rathbone captured without getting too bogged down in details.

On the whole this novel with some fine characters and adventures but also one that doesn't take itself too seriously. A book that can be enjoyed as an old-fashioned good boys' own story, but also one that encourage further research into the historical background behind it.
… (plus d'informations)
½
 
Signalé
PilgrimJess | Oct 14, 2022 |
I seem always to have struggled with Julian Rathbone’s books. He manages to come up with some great plots, but there is something about his writing that always manages to alienate me. I am certainly conscious that, as I have aged, my tolerance for books that I am not enjoying has eroded. More than thirty years ago I read Rathbone’s A Spy of the Old School, which offered a slightly different twist on the concept of a mole infiltrating the higher echelons of the establishment while working all the time for a foreign intelligence agency.

To be honest, I am not sure that I exactly enjoyed that book, but I did find the plot well-constructed, which prompted me to buy his historical novel, A Very English Agent, as a faux de mieux option when finding myself unexpectedly at Manchester Piccadilly without a book but facing a long journey, and with only a very meagre selection on offer at the station newsagent. I found that hard to get into, but having persevered through dint of necessity, I eventually found it fairly amusing, offering a humorous insight into various incidents throughout nineteenth century history.

It was the recollection of that serendipitous discovery that led me to choose this book when I found myself in similar circumstances, facing an unplanned journey without my usual emergency reading supply to hand. It had been left in the ‘book exchange’ pile at Arundel Station.

The book opens in Madrid in the 1970s, in the immediate aftermath of the death of General Franco. The ‘generalissimo’ is lying in state for a grieving public prior to his state funeral. This was a period of uncertainty for Spain: not only was it unclear whether the monarchy would be restored, but if so, would the returning monarch be Juan Carlos, or his father, Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona.

Impoverished radical bookseller, Roberto Fairrie, born and raised in Argentina, whence he fled from the agents of Juan Peron, is relieved that Franco has died, but has no confidence that the restoration of the monarchy will represent a significant improvement. He is approached by a flamboyant British journalist who has a lead on some recordings purportedly made by Peron shortly before his death. These touch on a range of subjects, including insights into Peron’s relationship with Evita (his late wife, who had been virtually canonised in their native Argentina following her early death). Even more significantly, the tapes include discussions about Martin Bormann, senior figure in Hitler’s regime, suggesting that he was alive and well in secret exile in Argentina. (I certainly remember from my boyhood that rumours of Bormann’s survival and exile in South America used to circulate widely during the 1970s.)

The journalist recognises Faiirie as one of the leading independent experts on the life of Peron, and asks him to authenticate the tapes. Fairrie is reluctant to do so, but even so finds himself suddenly at the recieiving end of unwelcome attention from members of the Spanish authorities, as well as neo-Nazis eager to ensure that secrets surrounding the fate of Bormann and his like remain secret.

This all sounds promising, and I was expecting to enjoy a high-paced thriller steeped in intrigue, with perhaps some passing references to the Hitler Diaries, and similar high-profile historical scams. Unfortunately, the book never quite developed that way. I suspect that Rathbone saw himself a ‘literary’ writer, and one who was, perhaps rather disdainful of the page-turning thriller. Unfortunately, while he was clearly capable of writing with a certain elan, he seems to have concentrated rather more on demonstrating his literary credentials, at the expense of the story itself.

Right from the start, Rathbone leaps backwards and forwards in time. There are some magnificently written passages, but unfortunately these impede, rather than assist, the flow of the story.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
Eyejaybee | Jan 18, 2021 |
Review: Julian Rathbone The Last English King (1997)

Probably the most memorable historical fiction I’ve ever read. ‘The last English King’ is Harold Godwinson, of course, but Rathbone tells the story of the Norman Conquest of England (in 1066AD, for our foreign readers) from the point of view of Walt, a simple member of King Harold’s personal bodyguard. Traumatised – as much by his failure to die protecting his king as by the loss of the battle and half an arm – Walt nevertheless manages to escape to Europe. There he falls in with a motley crew of outcasts and vagrants, and embarks upon a confused and unconsummated journey, more odyssey than pilgrimage, towards the Holy Land.

Walt’s story is brutal, tender, oddly erotic, often funny, slightly surreal and, ultimately, very angry. The brutality begins before the Norman invasion with the Godwinsons’ bored, pointless ‘harrowing’ of disobedient villagers, and continues with the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. This violence is interleaved with Walt’s tender recollections of the wooing of his wife and now, on his journey, with the strange erotic healing of the damaged stump of his arm (p.193). But the brutality resurfaces when Walt returns to England, to his home village, to discover the charred bodies of his wife and son in his burnt-out hut. Rathbone is very angry that William the Bastard and a bunch of mercenary psychopaths should have been dignified by history as ‘William the Conqueror’ and ‘the Norman Invasion’.

Nonetheless, the story remains warm and wry and witty overall. One of the particular delights (for me, anyhow) is Rathbone’s deployment of the occasional ‘proleptic’ anachronism. That is to say, as he admits in a prefatory note on ‘Anachronisms and Historical Accuracy’, ‘Occasionally characters, and even the narrator, let slip quotations or near quotations of later writers or make oblique references to later times . . .. For reasons I find difficult to explain, it amuses me, and may amuse others . . .. But it also serves a more serious purpose . . . to remind readers, especially English readers, that it was out of all this that we came’ (p.viii).
In my favourite example, two of his companions discuss poor Walt (p.190):
‘He’s a mess. Traumatised –’
‘Eh?’
‘Word I made up. From the Germanic word for “wound” – applied here to wounds in the mind. Even before the battle . . . I doubt he was up to much. He fears the female orgasm . . .. Anglo-Saxon, you see. Attitudes. Attitudes to the female sex. See the conquering hero comes.’

Bliss. Actually, Julian, it’s from the Greek or late Latin . In German ‘Traum’ means ‘dream’. Are you teasing us? Even so, bliss.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
markworthy | 13 autres critiques | Nov 10, 2018 |
This is a heavily annotated collection and selection of the Duke's correspondence from Spain. It rather irritatingly stops with the 1814 invasion of France. No index. Otherwise a good atmospheric read. The maps are ugly and awkward. There are a number of colourful anecdotes and the flow of the commentary smooths out the awkward bits. there are sketches of the countryside, more or less period thatt serve as well as photographs. Not a bad trot through the campaigns of the duke, who is somewhat flattered.… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
DinadansFriend | 1 autre critique | Aug 2, 2017 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
39
Aussi par
8
Membres
1,559
Popularité
#16,537
Évaluation
½ 3.4
Critiques
38
ISBN
148
Langues
9
Favoris
2

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