Simon Raven (1) (1927–2001)

Published in 1980, and set in 1974, this jolly romp of a treasure-hunt falls into the gap between Raven's novel sequences Alms for oblivion and the first-born of Egypt. Although it doesn't belong structurally to either of the big sequences, it uses characters and locations from both.

The story is straightforward in essence, but complex in detail. Two groups of searchers are looking for a fabulous lost treasure, the twelve rubies known as the Roses of Picardie, last seen some time in the 17th show more century, following the trail from opposite ends. As they range across France, Greece and Italy following abstruse historical clues, others are plotting against them back home, and of course there is a mysterious evil genius at work somewhere too.

Since this is an escapist bit of romance, Raven is free to use supernatural elements to spice up his story as it builds up towards its suitably disgusting climax, but we are never really forced to accept the supernatural: there is always a way to read the text without it.

Good fun, beautifully written (as always from Raven), savage in its analysis of human nature, and never dull. Don't read this if you're looking for something uplifting and moral, but if you're in the market for a thriller that doesn't insult your intelligence, it might be a good bet. show less

Simon Raven is probably best known as the author of the ‘Alms for Oblivion’ series of ten novels. Like Anthony Powell’s marvellous ‘Dance to the Music of Time’ sequence, those novels are largely autobiographical, with Raven being represented by the character of Fielding Gray (with a few embellishments). There the similarity ends. Powell’s chronicle is gently paced, with an almost hypnotic impact as the characters gather substance. Raven’s roman fleuve is more direct, with every show more character flawed and self-serving, often with hilarious impact, though tragedy is never far away either.

Raven described this volume as a "cricketing memoir" but it is essentially a collection of extremely funny, utterly scurrilous anecdotes from his time at Charterhouse (from which he was expelled for “the usual thing”), Cambridge and then the army, covering the period from about 1944 to 1960.

None of his friends escape entirely unscathed from these recollections, though most of those who emerge with the greatest slurs on their reputations were already dead by time the book was published. It is, however, usually Raven himself who is portrayed as having behaved in the vilest manner (and contrition is largely absent).

Anyone familiar with the "Alms for Oblivion" novel sequence will readily recognise the source for many of the narrative episodes, and it is extremely amusing to try to identify the paradigms for the likes of Somerset Lloyd-James and Peter Morrison.

However, I am confident that even a new reader who has neither encountered any of Raven's fiction, nor ever shown any previous interest in cricket, will still find this book entertaining. show less

This is a book where readers will certainly differ in their reactions according to whether they choose it because of the author or because of the title and subject. Those looking for a serious examination of the English public school system will come away not much the wiser, but fans of Simon Raven will find an enjoyable sequence of salacious anecdotes, containing much the same mix of fact and fiction as his novels.

The anecdotes that make up this "memoir" are put into the mouths of various show more people he encountered at different stages in his career: a Jewish godparent, an uncle who gives him the basic data about schoolboy sex, various teachers, fellow undergraduates and army officers. All are presented in direct speech (even the stories he was supposedly told when he was seven-and-a-half years old), so we know that we shouldn't take them too literally as testimony: it is a novelist's way of setting different points of view for us.

Raven approves of public schools, of course, but he approves of them for typically outrageous reasons. They provide endless opportunities for harmless, pleasurable sex; they teach intellectually challenging but useless knowledge (Greek grammar; Latin verse composition); and above all, they produce an arrogant, self-confident élite, indefensible but utterly unscrupulous in its own defence, without which life (especially for the novelist) would be too dull for words. His straw men find plenty to bitch about: public schools are intolerant of Jews and of those who refuse to fit in; they demand not participation (in games, religion, whatever), but total allegiance; those who mock their institutions and those who deviate in the most minor ways from dress codes and similar arcane conventions are punished far more harshly then those who cheat, steal, or abuse their fellow scholars; schools other than Charterhouse are variously bourgeois, arrogant, philistine, boorish or hypocritically pious; the public school system tramples on the faces of the poor; the public school myth (as represented in the boys' magazines of Raven's youth) sets up an impossible dream of what education should be like; public school politics teaches utter contempt for outsiders and puts the preservation of the group above all other moral values. Of course, Raven sees (or provocatively pretends to see) many of these "arguments against" as reasons for seeing public schools as a good thing in themselves.

Obviously there are scores of various kinds being settled here. We should remember that Raven was proud of having been expelled from Charterhouse "for the usual reason". By claiming to espouse élitist values, he was irritating the élite that had tried to get rid of him, and at the same time stirring up the peasants by revealing to them just how unjustly privileged their betters were. Fun for all. His defence of Jews and attack on Roman Catholics is probably calculated to annoy as well, rather than revealing his true opinions (although Barber does point out in his biography that Raven resented his mother's conversion to Catholicism). show less

The fourth in the First-born of Egypt sequence revives the issue of Lord Canteloupe's succession, and gives Raven the chance to push back the boundaries of good taste a bit further...

As we know from the earlier parts of the sequence, Canteloupe is too decayed (or possibly too idle) to father a child himself. His first attempt at arranging a surrogate has produced an infant with mental and physical handicaps that clearly make it an unsuitable candidate to inherit a marquisate: he has put show more arrangements in place to produce a second surrogate, but the inconvenient baby Tullius must be got out of the way somehow. If the last book had shades of Dick Francis, we seem to have stepped back into the baroque world of Mervyn Peake here. But Raven never loses his sense of irony: only he would arrange that the story should reach its grotesque climax in the lunch interval of a country-house cricket match. show less