• Visitors can check out the Forum FAQ by clicking this link. You have to register before you can post: click the REGISTER link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. View our Forum Privacy Policy.
  • Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!

Victorian Novels

Collapse
X
  •  
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Victorian Novels

    DESERVEDLY OBSCURE VICTORIAN NOVELS
    -----------------------------------
    The Victorian Era is remembered as a time when English Literature
    flourished, and the talents of Dickens, Hardy, Wilde, etc. set the world
    alight. There was also a lot of rubbish around, which the academic
    specialists have conveniently forgotten. So, to set the record straight,
    I'll review some of the literary low-spots of the Victorian Age.


    Jude The Obese
    by Thomas Hardup

    The story of a man who over-eats to combat the misery of his disastrous
    marriage, thwarted ambition, and hopeless passion for his married cousin
    Jim.

    Everybody gets really miserable and catches horrible diseases. Finally,
    in a fit of melancholy, the gigantic Jude hangs himself, causing the
    house to collapse, which kills his wife, his lover, his 24 children, his
    pet hamster, and the vicar who'd just popped in for a cup of tea.
    This is the most light-hearted and cheery novel by Hardup, who is also
    the author of "Miserable Fart From the Madding Crowd","The Mayor Of
    Casterbridge Dies Of Consumption", and "Tess Of The D'Urbevilles Jumps
    Under An Omnibus".

    "Jude" was twice as well received as any of his other works - i.e. two
    people read it.


    A Tale Of Two Titties
    by Charles Dickhead

    The story of the strapping young Englishman Sidney Cartoon, who, in a dim
    light, looks exactly like the one-legged, hunch-backed, cross-eyed albino
    French nobleman Count de Money. This astonishing resemblance enables
    Cartoon to perform a daring switch of identities in prison, leaving the
    Count to take the rap for running Cartoon's fraudulent dicky-bird selling
    business (hence the title).

    Famous for it's opening lines:"It was the best of times, it was the
    worst of times, it was Closing time.", and Cartoon's moving final speech:
    "It is a far, far better thing I do than wot I have ever done before, to
    leave that Frenchie in the clink and scarper."


    Dr.Jeffrey And Mr.Hives
    by Robert Pamela Stevenson

    In a quest to explore the outer limits of personality, the mild-mannered,
    sedate, introverted Dr.Jeffrey invents a potion which transforms him into
    the mild-mannered, sedate, introverted (but slightly taller) Dr.Hives. In
    his new identity, the hero indulges in a wanton orgy of cocoa-making,
    humming quietly, and sitting staring at the wall waiting for TV to be
    invented.

    This spare, lean, taut, concise, brief, short, unpadded novel (645 pages)
    has been variously described as 'too long' and 'far too bloody long'. It
    has been nominated many times as 'Most Boring Book Ever in the Entire
    Universe', but none of the judges could stay awake long enough to read it


    Smothering Tights
    by Emily Brontosaurus

    The story of young Cathys uncontrollable passion for the dark, brooding,
    mysterious, eternally-youthful Heathcliff Richard. The dark, brooding,
    mysterious youth intrigues Cathy with his wild eyes, untamed hair, and
    savage nostrils. However, she marries the noble Sir Ponse de Milksop
    Foppey-Weede (there is a subtle shade of effeminacy about this character)
    In a dark, brooding, mysterious rage, Heathcliff loses control and
    suffocates himself with the contents of Cathy's laundry basket (the
    'Smothering Tights' of the title).

    The novel is notable for it's description of the dark, brooding,
    mysterious moorland, which seems as much a 'character' as any of the
    people in the novel (particularly when it does some dark, brooding,
    mysterious card tricks in Chapter 5.)


    Arse's Adventures In Sunderland
    by Lewis Carrot

    Charming, nonsensical tale set in a land which seemed fantastical and
    mythical to Carrot's middle-class readers, i.e. the industrial North East
    The book concerns the adventures of a 12 year old girl with a pert little
    bottom who follows the Grubby Miner down his coal hole, and ends up at
    the Mad March Pubic Hare's Tea-Time Orgy.

    Some critics have claimed to detect unhealthy sexual obsessions in the
    books poems ('Jabberwanky', 'The Donkey and the Carpenter', 'Humpty-
    Dumpty-Rumpy-Pumpy'). Some even got so far as to say that Carrot was a
    horrible old pervy who couldn't leave young girls alone and should have
    been locked up. However, leading academics consider this a gross slander
    upon one of our most delightful writers, and speak of the hours of
    innocent pleasure that can be had with Carrot's books, especially the
    fully illustrated 'Swedish' editions.
    Brexit is having a wee in the middle of the room at a house party because nobody is talking to you, and then complaining about the smell.

Working...
X