Oliver's Travels

by Alan Plater

When Oliver is made redundant he decides to go on a pilgrimage to discover the world's number one crossword compiler, known as Aristotle. Along the way he falls in love with a policewoman, causes the arrest of a Chief Constable and the resignation of a Cabinet Minister. When Oliver is made redundant he decides to go on a pilgrimage to discover the world's number one crossword compiler, known as Aristotle. Along the way he falls in love with a policewoman, causes the arrest of a Chief Constable and the resignation of a Cabinet Minister.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Alan Frederick Plater CBE was an English playwright, novelist, and tv scriptwriter.

Reviews

[Christopher Everest · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is on my list of all-time favourite books - books which I regularly re-read whenever the mood takes me. It is, as the title suggests, about Oliver who sets off on his travels in response to redundancy. It is about learning, about relationships, about humour, and about that journey we all make from cradle to grave. The character of Oliver is one I identify with - as I do Trevor Chaplin from Alan Plater's Beiderbecke series - a teacher of comparative religion and a crossword enthusiast his musings on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness strike a philosophical note that reverberates with me and my own perspectives on how to cope with the modern world. Oliver, for me, is a role model who embodies a healthy disregard for convention. He seems to represent in his humorous, anarchic view of authority a sense of the genuine, the real. He is dismissive of the pompous, vacuous nature of those individuals who aspire to control both their own surroundings and the rest of us. Plater has drawn a man of the people, a sounding-board of how humanity can, and why it needs to survive. It is life-affirming and optimistic. It speaks to me. Oliver and Diane make me feel life is worth living.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books. Oliver is a lecturer in comparative religion who is made redundant as his polytechnic becomes a new university. He decides to take the opportunity to visit his favourite crossword compiler, and in the process finds murder, mayhem and his predestined life partner.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this four-part series when it was on PBS years ago, and recently we managed to get (through inter-library loan) the hard-to-find DVD. It was as good as we remembered. The book on which the series was based is even harder to find, but it is just what I had hoped--a clever and more developed version of the same quirky story. Briefly, Oliver and Diane travel from south Wales to the Orkneys looking for Aristotle, who is (in Oliver's opinion) the world's greatest setter of crossword puzzles, and who has disappeared from his burned-out country cottage. Along the way they fall in love and also become embroiled in a series of what appear to be corporate-inspired murders. All very whimsical and eccentric. And thoroughly enjoyable.

[Nick Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a warm bath, a nice cup of tea or a cat your lap, this is a gentle book. Or so you think until it goes all Skyfall on you! The wordplay will find resonances with many older readers, particularly and although set in the nineties when there were phones and computers, it’s early days. I really enjoyed this although it lost a star for a fairly tame ending. Nonetheless, well worth a few hours of your time on a damp day.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

So enjoyable. Five stars for the simple pleasure of reading it. A book tied together with a tenuous plot (but a gripping one) and dotted with brilliant jokes, memories of Jimmy James, Bobby Thompson, Spike Milligan, Raich Carter, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington etc etc.
A few holes in the plot but who cares. A treat to read.

[Ian Sergeant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky fun. Don't look for any hidden meanings or morals within the text. Plater makes the most bizarre scenes seem real, with the creation of a modern-day, middle-aged English eccentric.

[GALI LAWAL · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Erik Deckers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story when it was turned into a television mystery, and I have looked for the book for years. When I finally found it, I discovered it was an almost scene by scene reproduction of the show. That’s OK though, it didn’t have to be entirely different. In fact, it’s not that surprising since the author was also the screenwriter. In my mind, all the characters in the book looked like the characters on TV, and that made it much more enjoyable.