R. S. Surtees (1803–1865)

Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities is a volume of occasionally-connected shorter stories about John Jorrocks, the cockney grocer smitten with country sports. Jorrocks' picaresque misadventures through town and field are comparable with those of his great contemporary, Mr Pickwick. The stories were first published in the New Sporting Magaine, which makes for a slightly haphazard volume. This collection is most successful in its longer pieces, particularly Mr Jorrocks' trip to Paris by way of the coaching inns of England.… (plus d'informations)

It's about a man of limited means who acquires three rented horses, puts on airs and basically invites himself to the homes of various folk in the countryside so he can attend fox hunts (which he also invites himself to). He banks on the fact that nobody knows him, to be able to get away with things- people pretend they know of him to avoid looking ignorant, and he lets them make assumptions about his social position etc, takes advantage of free room and board until he seriously wears out his welcome, and they make efforts to throw him out. Then he moves on, finding someone else who had extended (in mere politeness) an invitation, which he takes them up on suddenly. Eventually enough people in the district hear of him that he finds himself staying with people who aren't so well-to-do, and he is thoroughly dissatisfied. He tries to get himself invited back to one of the other households, and starts to wonder at his predicament- no money, no income, and apparently no more invitations forthcoming.

All this time he is involved in some kind of horse-dealing scams- showing off his horses (hiding their faults of course) and selling them, but then making the buyer so discomfited they pay him to take the horse back (once pressured by empty threat of a lawsuit). So he makes money off these horses that aren't even his. He doesn't seem too skilled at foxhunting although more into it than some of the other characters- lots of them apparently participate just to make a show of themselves- and has a curious obsession with studying a book of 'bus schedules and fares that he carries around. A lot of the book isn't about Mr. Sponge at all (most of the names pointedly emphasize something about each character) there are entire chapters just describing the people who will be his next set of hosts. Lots of curious folk with different quirks and habits...

I was interested in reading the descriptions of the hunts, the various ways in which they were conducted and the parts about the horses. Most of this seems to be character studies and obviously intended as humor, although I sometimes missed the point. I did like it just for the fact that it described a way of life long gone by, so very different in many ways. . . . and the ink illustrations are very clever- depicting the various characters with a lot of humor.

from the Dogear Diary… (plus d'informations)

When I was growing up in Passaic, New Jersey, my mother got me borrowing privileges in the adult department of the Julius Forstmann Library when I was in 4th grade, because I had pretty much read my way through the children's room by then, and had been reading adult classics (starting with Jules Verne) from 2nd grade on. Two "adult" volumes at the library that I immediately took a shine to were Edward Wagenknecht's Cavalcade of the English Novel (1943, revised 1954) and Cavalcade of the American Novel (1952). In a very real sense, these delightful books have guided my reading for a lifetime.

Wagenknecht (1900-2004) was old-fashioned (although perceptive enough to realize early on that film was a coming medium), and is not really trustworthy on 20th Century literature. He is excessively bothered by "coarseness," whereas we are unperturbed by it, maybe even attracted to it because of its honesty. But he had a generous spirit, and made literature sound like something you wouldn't want to miss. He is the sort of critic it is very good to encounter when you are young.

There are authors mentioned in the Cavalcades that it took me a very long time to catch up to, and one of those is Robert Smith Surtees. who shares the chapter "From Scott to Dickens" in Cavalcade of the English Novel with Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Lever, William Carleton, Frederick Marryat, and Thomas Peacock (quite the diverse crew!).

Surtees has been pigeon-holed as a fox-hunting novelist, and perhaps partly because of that, has never "boomed," as Wagenknecht points out. But Wagenkecht also astutely notes that it is easy to enjoy Surtees even if one thoroughly disapproves of hunting, because he excels at comic characterizations.

Surtees' slangy language is very dense for us and takes some getting used to; some references will be missed by non-specialists. But he is a joyously high-spirited writer, which is immediately noticeable and sustained me through the early going while I was getting used to the style. By the 100-page mark, I was reveling in the entire performance.

The book I chose for my initiation was Surtees' first, Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities, not a novel but a collection of fictional sketches that first started appearing in the New Sporting Magazine (which Surtees co-founded) in 1831, and that were gathered between hard covers in 1838. (The Pickwick Papers, very obviously influenced by Jorrocks' adventures, had made Charles Dickens' reputation in the meantime.)

John Jorrocks is a rumbustious Cockney grocer whose character develops over a number of Surtees' fictions, but at the beginning he is pretty much a flat-out idiot, though not lacking in a certain crude charm. At his social level, he is clubbable; his friends enjoy him, for his inanities as much as anything else. And every now and then amidst much foolish chatter he comes out with a bit of down-home wisdom: " - so come without any ceremony - us fox-hunters hate ceremony - where there's ceremony there's no friendship."

Only the first few of the 13 sketches in JJ & J are really hunting pieces; after that, Surtees starts to vary the game, so that we get Jorrocks at the seaside, Jorrocks on excursion in France, Jorrocks throwing a dinner party, and so on. Abundance of ingestion is a running theme; the man eats like one of his horses. He also dandies himself up as much as possible, doing his best to be a "man of mode" despite having (to put it mildly) no gentlemanly or intellectual qualifications.

But elan vital, now that he's got. And if Surtees can't help satirizing Jorrocks, he also admires him for the sheer life-force he represents; appetite for hunting, for food, for nice togs translates easily into appetite for life in general. Fast-forward Jorrocks a hundred years, tone him down somewhat, and you're not far off Leopold Bloom.

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."

"Grant your Jorrocks but one request, and that is the contents of a single sentence. 'I want a roasted or boiled leg of mutton, beef, hung beef, a quarter of mutton, mutton chops, veal cutlets, stuffed tongue, dried tongue, hog's pudding, white sausage, meat sausage, chicken with rice, a nice fat roast fowl, roast chicken with cressy, roast or boiled pigeon, a fricassee of chicken, sweet-bread, goose, lamb, calf's cheek, calf's head, fresh pork, salt pork, cold meat, hash.' "

Like many a vigorous fellow, Jorrocks feels himself hobbled by his wife, which lends a good deal of marital comedy to the book's later passages: " - wish to God I'd never see'd her - took her for better and worser, it's werry true; but she's a d----d deal worser than I took her for."

In short, if you have any winking fondness for vulgarity at all, Jorrocks is your man, and you ought to make his acquaintance. And there's really no excuse not to, because JJ & J is readily available as a free download at Project Gutenberg.… (plus d'informations)

There are 13 stories in this collection. They were first published in The New Sporting Magazine in the 1830s. They all have John Jorrocks as the central character. Jorrocks is a London grocer who is a member of the Surrey Hunt. He is a buffoon who invariably manages to make a fool of himself in these linked stories. "The Swell and the Surrey" is the first story and introduces Jorrocks and other characters associated with fox hunting. Other stories include Jorrocks being hauled to court for his toe committing a trespass, a visit to the horse races at Newmarket, and trips to Margate and Paris. Disasters of one variety or another always seem to accompany him and he always seems to be preyed upon by crooks and conmen (and women).

The stories are lighthearted and dated. The audience would seem to be the landed gentry of a bygone era. I'm sure they could be adopted into a nice period BBC TV series!… (plus d'informations)