10 books by Eric Linklater
Requirements: EPUB/MOBI Reader, 20.2 MB
Overview: Eric Robert Russell Linklater was a Welsh-born Scottish writer of novels and short stories, military history, and travel books. For The Wind on the Moon, a children’s fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year’s best children’s book by a British subject.
Genre: General
Ripeness is All: When the celibate Major Gander, C.B., T.D. sold out the family toffee business to American Candy Inc., he was able to retire in comfort. And when he dies from heart failure (it was after a strenuous shoot at the Brackens Rife Meeting) his gathered relatives found that the thought of his will moderated their grief considerably. For they all felt well placed for at least a few thousand to help them cultivate their favourite virtues and vices! But it was not to be so simple. The Major, they soon discovered, had made his choice of legatee dependent on the most preposterous condition?
The Dark of Summer: In the early years of World War II, an army officer is sent to the Faroe Islands to investigate rumours of collaboration with the Nazi regime in Norway. What he finds changes lives, not least his own, and the characters become haunted by a sense of guilt and betrayal.
The Defence of Calais: It is a tale of defeat, but when defeat is characterised by valour of a certain pitch and quality, its memory may outlast a tale of victory. And like the Burghers who came with ropes about their necks, to offer their lives that a whole people might be spared, the men who fought at Calais, and helped to save a British army, will surely be remembered.
In the introduction to The Defence of Calais, Eric Linklater called it an ‘interim report’, a ‘half-told tale’. This report, first published in 1942 as part of The Army at War Series, is comprised of the information Linklater gathered from the surviving officers and soldiers who took part in the battle.
The Siege of Calais (1940) and its aftermath was for many years a subject of a heated debate over its importance in saving the British Expeditionary Force from capture; Linklater’s account of the actual military decisions and actions that followed, written freshly after the events, gives an insightful perspective to that discussion.
The Highland Division: The Highland Territorials were made up of the 51st Division, who had fought bravely in the Great War, and entered WWII with a fearsome and loyal reputation. Here Erik Linklater draws from letters and War diaries alongside the official table of movements to construct a vivid picture of the battles, triumphs, and ultimately defeat, of the Highland Division in France. Not only do we see the tactical movements, but we get a closer look from the individual’s point of view: Men so tired that the shells became a bothersome back-ground noise, and a ditch the perfect place to sleep; what it was like to hide in trees and pick off your enemy, or to be at the mercy of an invisible sniper.
From communicating in Gaelic to scupper the German spies, to holding the line beyond the realms of endurance, we see that although the division was finally lost, it fought valiantly to the very end.
First published in 1942 as part of The Army at War Series, The Highland Division is a record of ingenuity, fortitude, and brotherhood.
The Impregnable Women: The Next Great War begins, and soon all Europe is involved. The war lasts a year – and then the women, robbed of husbands and sweethearts and sons, grow doubtful of the benefits of military policy, and begin to think that victory will come too late to do them any good.
But what can they do? A remedy was discovered by Aristophanes about 2350 years ago. It is re-discovered and re-applied. And it is again successful.
This is an Aristophanic comedy, and takes some Aristophanic liberties. It is satirical when the author pleases and when he cares to be serious he is very serious indeed. There is no monotony. The story shifts from realism to wild burlesque; from earnest appeal to uproarious extravagance.
The final scenes are in Edinburgh. Aristophanes made his insurgent women seize the Acropolis – here they take possession of Edinburgh Castle, as tall an eminence, and hold it against the infuriated men. The fight for the Castle is the culminating incident in a vigorous and many-sided novel.
Juan in China: The earlier adventures of Juan Motley – a lineal escendant of Byron’s Don Juan – are recorded in Juan in America (Penguin 1143). From America he goes on an amorous adventure to China where he becomes involved in politics and warfare and deals with them in his own practical and fantastic way.
The Merry Muse: ‘Immortal impropriety’, in the shape of a hitherto unknown manuscript by Robert Burns, is found among the effects of a dead schoolmaster of impeccable reputation. Despite the scandal it threatens, his widow cannot afford to conceal it, for it is worth a great sum of money.
The Northern Garrisons: The Northern Garrisons" visits the soldiers of WWII in some of the most barren and inhospitable of outposts. Eric Linklater, in his mission to document the lives, trials and achievements of these men, travelled to Shetland, Orkney, the Faeroes and Iceland. In Iceland Linklater notes how quickly the soldiers must adapt to their surroundings whilst trying to engage a local population that is somewhat indignant at being ‘occupied’. But when taking a closer look, we see the resilience of the new troops in training as they endure the arctic conditions of Iceland, the taut waiting of the soldiers as they yearn to engage an unseen underwater enemy, and the good humour these men share, both with each other, and the locals that they must live alongside. First published in 1941 as part of The Army at War Series, The Northern Garrisons" is a portrait of the vigilance, patience and ingenuity of the men who defended these Northern Isles, and protected the shipping lines that delivered vital supplies to England.
The Raft & Socrates Asks Why: Are the people of Britain capable of serving the new world, of writing with honour a new chapter of history? The answer, conclusively, is Yes…. But Socrates, in the third of the pieces, has still to be satisfied that the Allies are truly conscious of their purpose. A four-fold rule of law is not enough: the peace within that rule must not be an idle peace, but creative. If that is not explicitly our intention and desire, then why are we fighting?" The Raft and Socrates Asks Why are imaginary conversations revolving around the political and military problems of WWII.
The Raft is set in the mid-Atlantic, where six survivors from a torpedoed ship discuss the position of Britain and the difficulties and moral dilemmas of a soldier life. Socrates Asks Why is a conversation between Socrates, Voltaire, Johnson and Lincoln where the Allies’ aim of peace and ending of the war is discussed and questioned. These conversations were first published in 1942.
Ripeness is All: Are the people of Britain capable of serving the new world, of writing with honour a new chapter of history? The answer, conclusively, is Yes…. But Socrates, in the third of the pieces, has still to be satisfied that the Allies are truly conscious of their purpose. A four-fold rule of law is not enough: the peace within that rule must not be an idle peace, but creative. If that is not explicitly our intention and desire, then why are we fighting?" The Raft and Socrates Asks Why are imaginary conversations revolving around the political and military problems of WWII.
The Raft is set in the mid-Atlantic, where six survivors from a torpedoed ship discuss the position of Britain and the difficulties and moral dilemmas of a soldier life. Socrates Asks Why is a conversation between Socrates, Voltaire, Johnson and Lincoln where the Allies’ aim of peace and ending of the war is discussed and questioned. These conversations were first published in 1942.
A Terrible Freedom: First published in 1966, Eric Linklater’s brilliant novel tells the story of a double existence.
Evan Gaffikin, sixtyish, grumpy and bored with his dull commercial success, discovers and develops his power to dream: to dream in such depth and in such glowing reality that he is able to escape his extraordinary existence. We learn of his double life as scenes from Gaffikin’s real life alternate with his surrealistic, vivid, and often hilariously bawdy forays into the world of unreality. As his dream-world and its remarkable characters, gradually get the upper hand, the tension of the novel rises and the climactic sequence – in a yacht off the Hebrides – is mysterious and exciting.
A Terrible Freedom could, perhaps, be described as an idiosyncratic venture into the realm of science fiction; but it may be preferable to see it as a conventional novel built with classical composure of unconventional material. Either way it is a tour de force of imagination and narrative skills.
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