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The Delicious Vice
It must have been at about the good-bye age of forty that Thomas Moore, that choleric and pompous yet genial little Irish gentleman, turned a sigh into good marketable "copy" for Grub Street and with shrewd economy got two full pecuniary bites out of one melancholy apple of
108 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1907
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October 11, 2016
Originally published in 1907, this little book is a humorous love letter of sorts in honor of Reading The Novel. I suppose back then (like sometimes now) novel reading was considered a waste of time and effort. A reader should be learning history, philosophy, even (gasp) mathematics. Anything other than reading horrid novels.
Our author does not believe this, and I got a kick out of the way he explained himself. Mostly. He did have some tiny-minded ideas about women as readers and women as heroines in a novel; and he closed with some incredibly stupid (in my opinion) comments about women in general. Claiming those last two paragraphs were in jest did not excuse them, Mr. Allison. You might have been very much the old-fashioned 'protect the little ladies from the world' type of man, but you would be surprised at some of the kick-ass heroines in the novels of today. That attitude cost you a star, dude.
Anyway, let me ratchet myself back down and continue about the rest of the book. He did rattle off characters that were unfamiliar to me, and mentioned a few authors that I have not yet read (but will Someday) but actually my Someday list survived the reading of this book fairly safely with only 6 additions to it. Not bad, really. And I do look forward to reading the very first novel Allison read (at age 6), called The Scottish Chiefs. He cried at one point and when his father (aged 60, according to the author) found out why Allison had been so upset, he read the book himself. And also cried at the crucial scene. I hope I will remember to have tissues handy.
In his chapter called The Open Polar Sea Of Novels, Allison rails against those well-meaning adults who seek to guide a youngster in his reading.
The born novel reader needs no guide, counsellor or friend. He is his own "master." He can with perfect safety and indescribable delight shut his eyes, reach out his hand, pull down any plum of a book and never make a mistake. Novel reading is the only one of the splendid occupations of life calling for no instruction or advice. All that is necessary is to bite the apple with the largest freedom possible to the intellectual and imaginative jaws, and let the taste of it squander itself all the way down from the front teeth until it is lost in the digestive joys of memory.
He talks about heroes in one chapter and rascals in another, and here is a general statement showing his opinions on who writes both the best:
For heroes of the genuine cavalleria type, plumed, doubleted, pumpt and magnificent, give me Dumas; for good folks and true, the great American Fenimore Cooper; but for the blessed company of blooming, breathing rascals, Stevenson and Thackeray all the time.
I don't know about Thackeray, I haven't read him yet. But I do agree with Dumas, Cooper and Robert Louis Stevenson. And I am among the 2% of women who like Stevenson (at least Allison claims that 98% of women don't). Must have been all that sneak-reading of 'boy's books' that I indulged in as a little girl. Ah, those 'I want to be a lady pirate years', where have they gone? LOL
He made some wise statements about personal taste in reading, acknowledging that opinions differ, and that novels mean different things to different readers. My very favorite sentence in the book was this:
A novel is a novel, and there are no bad ones in the world, except those you do not happen to like.
Our author does not believe this, and I got a kick out of the way he explained himself. Mostly. He did have some tiny-minded ideas about women as readers and women as heroines in a novel; and he closed with some incredibly stupid (in my opinion) comments about women in general. Claiming those last two paragraphs were in jest did not excuse them, Mr. Allison. You might have been very much the old-fashioned 'protect the little ladies from the world' type of man, but you would be surprised at some of the kick-ass heroines in the novels of today. That attitude cost you a star, dude.
Anyway, let me ratchet myself back down and continue about the rest of the book. He did rattle off characters that were unfamiliar to me, and mentioned a few authors that I have not yet read (but will Someday) but actually my Someday list survived the reading of this book fairly safely with only 6 additions to it. Not bad, really. And I do look forward to reading the very first novel Allison read (at age 6), called The Scottish Chiefs. He cried at one point and when his father (aged 60, according to the author) found out why Allison had been so upset, he read the book himself. And also cried at the crucial scene. I hope I will remember to have tissues handy.
In his chapter called The Open Polar Sea Of Novels, Allison rails against those well-meaning adults who seek to guide a youngster in his reading.
The born novel reader needs no guide, counsellor or friend. He is his own "master." He can with perfect safety and indescribable delight shut his eyes, reach out his hand, pull down any plum of a book and never make a mistake. Novel reading is the only one of the splendid occupations of life calling for no instruction or advice. All that is necessary is to bite the apple with the largest freedom possible to the intellectual and imaginative jaws, and let the taste of it squander itself all the way down from the front teeth until it is lost in the digestive joys of memory.
He talks about heroes in one chapter and rascals in another, and here is a general statement showing his opinions on who writes both the best:
For heroes of the genuine cavalleria type, plumed, doubleted, pumpt and magnificent, give me Dumas; for good folks and true, the great American Fenimore Cooper; but for the blessed company of blooming, breathing rascals, Stevenson and Thackeray all the time.
I don't know about Thackeray, I haven't read him yet. But I do agree with Dumas, Cooper and Robert Louis Stevenson. And I am among the 2% of women who like Stevenson (at least Allison claims that 98% of women don't). Must have been all that sneak-reading of 'boy's books' that I indulged in as a little girl. Ah, those 'I want to be a lady pirate years', where have they gone? LOL
He made some wise statements about personal taste in reading, acknowledging that opinions differ, and that novels mean different things to different readers. My very favorite sentence in the book was this:
A novel is a novel, and there are no bad ones in the world, except those you do not happen to like.
Displaying 1 of 1 review