So here he was at last, where he had long feared to be. Harry Chapman is not well, and he doesn't like hospitals. Superficially all is as it normally is in such places, with nurses to chide him and a priest to console. But there are more than the usual quotient of voices - is it because of Dr Pereira's wonder drug that he can hear the voice of his mother, acerbic and disappointed in him as ever? Perhaps her presence would be understandable enough, but what is Pip from Great Expectations doing here? More and more voices add their differing notes and stories to the chorus, squabbling, cajoling, commenting. Friends from childhood, lovers, characters from novels and poetry. His father, fighting in the First World War. Babar and Celeste, who dances with Fred Astaire. Jane Austen's Emma. His aunt Rose, 'a stranger to moodiness'. Christopher Smart's cat Jeoffrey. A man who wants to sell him T. S. Eliot's teeth. Virginia Woolf, the scourge of servants.
'If Fred Astaire had been a novelist he'd have been Paul Bailey. This beautiful, moving novel is a piece of dazzling footwork and reveals Bailey once more as one of the wittiest, most panacheful and most graceful writers we have. I love this beautiful book' Ali Smith 'The warmest, funniest novel of the New Year' Mail on Sunday 'A masterpiece ... With the loss in 2010 of Dame Beryl Bainbridge, the mantle of Greatest Living Novelist now rests firmly on Paul Bailey's shoulders' Sunday Express 'A wonderfully elegant novel' The Times
Title: Chapman's odyssey
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Paul Bailey
ISBN 13: 9781408821664
ISBN 10: 1408821664
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date: 1/04/2012
Place of Publication:
London,
United Kingdom
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
Modern fiction
NBS Classification: General & Literary Fiction
Dewey Classification:
823.914
(DC23)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Height: 198mm
Width: 129mm
Thickness: 14mm