Eric Ambler

Nothing to do with Melville, but I just finished what is probably Amler's most famous book "A Coffin for Dimitrios".  Ambler's like Graham Greene but without the crushing guilt (or the Catholicism). Loved by both Greene and Alfred Hitchcock, Ambler merits comparisons to both.  Again, nothing to do with Melville, but read this dude!

Comments

  1. Kevin16 January 2019 at 01:35

    Great, never heard of the guy, but will now check him out!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DFY16 January 2019 at 08:34

      Most of the classics are pre-WW2 and write with that gathering storm in mind, but he, of course, doesn't know the full extent of what's coming.

      Delete
  2. Kevin17 January 2019 at 12:38

    Do you recommend that as the best first book to read of his? I’m off to the woods for the weekend, wish I had a copy, but will take MD with me.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapters 23 - 27: Last Sentences

Chapter 23.  Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington!  Bear thee grimly, demigod!  Up from the spray of the ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! Chapter 24.  And, as for me, if by any possibility, there by any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of;  if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death , my executors, or more properly, my creditors, find any precious MSS in my desk, then here I prespectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. Chapter 25.  Think of that, ye loyal Britons! We whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff! Chapter 26.  Thy selected champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, oh God! Chapter 27.  On the grim Pequod’s...
Read more

What Thinks You?

From first paragraph, Chapter One:  “If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean with me.”  Question?  Does everyone agree with this statement?
Read more

He was Nothing but a Humbug, trying to be a Bugbear

This is from goodly Bob in Texas, one of the stellar members of this band of literary ruffians: I like the comment re: Elijah, “Elijah! Thought I , and we walked away, both commenting, after each other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor, and agreed  that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear.”   The start of Chapter 23: “Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.”
Read more