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Chapman's Odyssey
Harry Chapman is gravely ill in hospital. Why can he hear his mother's voice, acerbic and disappointed in him as usual? Is it because of Dr Pereira's wonder drug? Perhaps her presence would be understandable enough, but what is Pip from Great Expectations doing here? Soon, more and more voices add to the chorus.
211 pages, Hardcover
First published January 17, 2011
3 people are currently reading
227 people want to read
About the author
Paul Bailey
171 books28 followersPeter Harry "Paul" Bailey was a British novelist and critic, as well as a biographer of Cynthia Payne and Quentin Crisp.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
February 13, 2011
At the front of this book, Paul Bailey expresses his "deep and abiding gratitude" to the Royal Literary Fund. He had had to turn to them for financial support in 2009 when publishers showed no interest in publishing it, despite his belief that it was as good as anything he had done since Gabriel's Lament (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1986).
As Philip Pullman said in his rousing speech in defence of libraries recently: "the greedy ghost of market madness has got into the controlling heights of publishing. Publishers are run by money people now, not book people. The greedy ghost whispers into their ears: Why are you publishing that man? He doesn’t sell enough. Stop publishing him. Look at this list of last year’s books: over half of them weren’t bestsellers. This year you must only publish bestsellers. Why are you publishing this woman? She’ll only appeal to a small minority. Minorities are no good to us. We want to double the return we get on each book we publish."
Harry Chapman, a melancholic 70 year-old writer who describes himself as 'a common or garden queen', finds himself in hospital with stomach pains. He drifts in-and-out of consciousness: lapsing between the here-and-now and the there-and-then. Conversations with the nurses, to whom he recites poetry, blur with the internal voices of long-departed family and friends - and various literary characters, including Pip, Emma, Prince Myshkin and Bartleby the Scrivener.
Having finished Chapman's Odyssey - and it was one of those books I really didn't want to end - I would like to offer my thanks to the Royal Literary Fund as well. And also Bloomsbury for using some of the money they earned from another Harry to allow us to get to know this one. Everything Ali Smith is quoted as saying on the cover is spot on. No reviewer could fail to use the words beautiful and moving.
The reminiscences of a life. So many memories, so many people, so much poetry: treasures stored in a mind destined to be lost? Like this book nearly was? Imagine living in a world in which beautiful, moving books like this go unpublished. Like Bartleby, I would prefer not to.
As Philip Pullman said in his rousing speech in defence of libraries recently: "the greedy ghost of market madness has got into the controlling heights of publishing. Publishers are run by money people now, not book people. The greedy ghost whispers into their ears: Why are you publishing that man? He doesn’t sell enough. Stop publishing him. Look at this list of last year’s books: over half of them weren’t bestsellers. This year you must only publish bestsellers. Why are you publishing this woman? She’ll only appeal to a small minority. Minorities are no good to us. We want to double the return we get on each book we publish."
Harry Chapman, a melancholic 70 year-old writer who describes himself as 'a common or garden queen', finds himself in hospital with stomach pains. He drifts in-and-out of consciousness: lapsing between the here-and-now and the there-and-then. Conversations with the nurses, to whom he recites poetry, blur with the internal voices of long-departed family and friends - and various literary characters, including Pip, Emma, Prince Myshkin and Bartleby the Scrivener.
Having finished Chapman's Odyssey - and it was one of those books I really didn't want to end - I would like to offer my thanks to the Royal Literary Fund as well. And also Bloomsbury for using some of the money they earned from another Harry to allow us to get to know this one. Everything Ali Smith is quoted as saying on the cover is spot on. No reviewer could fail to use the words beautiful and moving.
The reminiscences of a life. So many memories, so many people, so much poetry: treasures stored in a mind destined to be lost? Like this book nearly was? Imagine living in a world in which beautiful, moving books like this go unpublished. Like Bartleby, I would prefer not to.
April 10, 2012
A fantastic book. Moving and funny by turns. I can't recommend it more highly, unless you're in hospital, but then again, if you have a sense of humour...
May 7, 2022
Fanciful description of the final days of writer Harry Chapman, whose Odyssee is restricted to a hospital environment. Suffering from a lump in his stomach, Chapman drifts in and out of reality. His long-dead parents tantalize him, as do his long-lost lovers and friends. He's visited by literary heroes and villains (among them Pip from Great expectations and prince Myshkin from The idiot).
As Chapman hurtles towards his final days, the fantasies become ever more surreal (a Day of the Dead in the company of Malcolm Lowry, Joseph Roth and Fernando Pessoa and a banquet served by an aging and dying waiter).
Intriguing, moving and funny at the same time.
As Chapman hurtles towards his final days, the fantasies become ever more surreal (a Day of the Dead in the company of Malcolm Lowry, Joseph Roth and Fernando Pessoa and a banquet served by an aging and dying waiter).
Intriguing, moving and funny at the same time.
August 12, 2014
Paul Bailey, Chapman’s Odyssey
Despite the title Paul Bailey’s new novel is hardly a sequel to Homer and still less a tribute to George Chapman, the Elizabethan poet who first made Homer accessible to a vast readership, culminating in John Keats with his sonnet, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.’ No, our hero is not Chapman, the poet and dramatist, and his voyages, alas, are extremely constricted, for throughout the novel Harry Chapman is confined to a hospital bed, from where, forever so to speak at death’s door, he is subject to an array of physical and mental tortures as he tries to put his life into some sort of perspective before his inevitable demise.
Harry is obviously, like his author, steeped in literature, a lover of poetry and the quirks of language, a sometime teacher and writer of sorts. None of this would necessarily endear him to a modern reader not a fan of highbrow English literature. The reader may well be tempted to conflate Harry with his author and find his constant so-so apt quotations to himself and to the surrounding hospital staff a little tedious and pedantic. To some extent this may be true; one would not relish spending half an hour at his hospital bedside while he spills out his learning and forever recites perfectly remembered lines. The many attendant nurses, medical orderlies, consultants and surgeons who visit him, however, seem to be fascinated and even delighted by their garrulously eccentric patient; they demand more and more. Give us a poem, Harry! Something cheerful, this time. And Harry duly obliges, sandwiching in between operations a little Shakespeare, Spenser or what-have-you before or after ‘going down to the theatre.’
A clever idea, and all good fun for the Eng Lit pundit, but perhaps not for the common reader and surely not for the ward orderly? What, however, is even better fun are the voices that pursue Harry in his sleeping or semi-comatose states. Pip of Great Expectations visits him a few times, as does Herman Melville’s Bartleby. His whole reading past comes back to him under or after anaesthetic. But even more insistent are the voices of his long-dead lovers and above all that of his acerbic mother, forever at his back and calling him to order. The mental and moral jumble caused by voices from his real and imagined past are even more painful and at times more exquisitely revealed than the immediate physical pain he endures from his lower bowel - and twice as embarrassing as he confides to the reader, but not the staff, his not so pretty history as a sexual deviant and moral leper.
In the end one comes to like, or even love, this hopeless and helpless wreck of a man who manages to keep his spirits up and even entertain others. For Harry the pedant and pervert, self-obsessed as we all are, reaches out from the grave (almost) to touch the reader. Here is a man, who, while being constantly confused, is in his heart suffering from very few or no delusions. Here, the reader feels, is an honest man – a deceiver who knows he is a concealer of much that is socially unmentionable, not respectable. Ultimately Harry wins us over because his revelations allow him to be honest to himself and to let the reader (though not the medical staff) into the inner reaches of his consciousness. You don’t have to be an Eng Lit wallah to enjoy this one; but if you are, then that’s a bonus.
Despite the title Paul Bailey’s new novel is hardly a sequel to Homer and still less a tribute to George Chapman, the Elizabethan poet who first made Homer accessible to a vast readership, culminating in John Keats with his sonnet, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.’ No, our hero is not Chapman, the poet and dramatist, and his voyages, alas, are extremely constricted, for throughout the novel Harry Chapman is confined to a hospital bed, from where, forever so to speak at death’s door, he is subject to an array of physical and mental tortures as he tries to put his life into some sort of perspective before his inevitable demise.
Harry is obviously, like his author, steeped in literature, a lover of poetry and the quirks of language, a sometime teacher and writer of sorts. None of this would necessarily endear him to a modern reader not a fan of highbrow English literature. The reader may well be tempted to conflate Harry with his author and find his constant so-so apt quotations to himself and to the surrounding hospital staff a little tedious and pedantic. To some extent this may be true; one would not relish spending half an hour at his hospital bedside while he spills out his learning and forever recites perfectly remembered lines. The many attendant nurses, medical orderlies, consultants and surgeons who visit him, however, seem to be fascinated and even delighted by their garrulously eccentric patient; they demand more and more. Give us a poem, Harry! Something cheerful, this time. And Harry duly obliges, sandwiching in between operations a little Shakespeare, Spenser or what-have-you before or after ‘going down to the theatre.’
A clever idea, and all good fun for the Eng Lit pundit, but perhaps not for the common reader and surely not for the ward orderly? What, however, is even better fun are the voices that pursue Harry in his sleeping or semi-comatose states. Pip of Great Expectations visits him a few times, as does Herman Melville’s Bartleby. His whole reading past comes back to him under or after anaesthetic. But even more insistent are the voices of his long-dead lovers and above all that of his acerbic mother, forever at his back and calling him to order. The mental and moral jumble caused by voices from his real and imagined past are even more painful and at times more exquisitely revealed than the immediate physical pain he endures from his lower bowel - and twice as embarrassing as he confides to the reader, but not the staff, his not so pretty history as a sexual deviant and moral leper.
In the end one comes to like, or even love, this hopeless and helpless wreck of a man who manages to keep his spirits up and even entertain others. For Harry the pedant and pervert, self-obsessed as we all are, reaches out from the grave (almost) to touch the reader. Here is a man, who, while being constantly confused, is in his heart suffering from very few or no delusions. Here, the reader feels, is an honest man – a deceiver who knows he is a concealer of much that is socially unmentionable, not respectable. Ultimately Harry wins us over because his revelations allow him to be honest to himself and to let the reader (though not the medical staff) into the inner reaches of his consciousness. You don’t have to be an Eng Lit wallah to enjoy this one; but if you are, then that’s a bonus.
April 22, 2025
Paul Bailey deserves a revival : his writing is deft , sharp and inventive and can knock the spots off many contemporary writers and his ear for dialogue is superb. Here he charts the last days in hospital of an elderly and once celebrated writer, Harry Chapman , who , like Paul , has led a vivid life in London as homosexuality was legalised and he escaped the confines of his unhappy childhood
His journey , his Odyssey , takes place in the netherworld of delirium . He is dogged by the ghosts of his domineering mother, a charlady , his father , who died when Harry was a child and an alcohol dependent ex lover . More benign figures include a beautiful aunt and a surprising lover; bursts of poetry and music sooth , delight and placate him . Alongside this he encounters fictional characters he has loved throughout his life in an often playful series of dances , feasts and surreal scenes .
The novel is both playful and poignant as we are forced to consider the mundanity of death as it visits the ward , how that boundary between reality and delusion dissolves as the body weakens , suffers and finally let's go . How many real and fictional people we carry within us amusing, scolding , encouraging or disparaging and how rich is the substrate of literature is at times of stress .
By coincidence I'm also reading Lincoln in the Bardo / George Saunders , another novel that centres ghosts , transformations and suffering and with that same mix of humour and profoundness . What is a life for ? What are all these lives for ? I recommend them both .
His journey , his Odyssey , takes place in the netherworld of delirium . He is dogged by the ghosts of his domineering mother, a charlady , his father , who died when Harry was a child and an alcohol dependent ex lover . More benign figures include a beautiful aunt and a surprising lover; bursts of poetry and music sooth , delight and placate him . Alongside this he encounters fictional characters he has loved throughout his life in an often playful series of dances , feasts and surreal scenes .
The novel is both playful and poignant as we are forced to consider the mundanity of death as it visits the ward , how that boundary between reality and delusion dissolves as the body weakens , suffers and finally let's go . How many real and fictional people we carry within us amusing, scolding , encouraging or disparaging and how rich is the substrate of literature is at times of stress .
By coincidence I'm also reading Lincoln in the Bardo / George Saunders , another novel that centres ghosts , transformations and suffering and with that same mix of humour and profoundness . What is a life for ? What are all these lives for ? I recommend them both .
March 24, 2023
That an author like Paul Bailey had trouble getting this novel published and depended on help for the Royal Literary Fund is not simply a scandal it is an a potent example of how bogus all the talk and promises of greater access promised by new media is. Despite publishers complaints about decreasing markets etc. their lists are full of mediocre novels which have the shelf life of a pint of milk. I am constantly coming across authors, still living, still young (or youngish), many still writing but if you try and get hold of their books published in 1990s or even later, they are out of print and only available second hand for hundreds of pounds (or dollars). If some is willing to pay £200 or more for a copy of novel published twenty five years ago doesn't it suggest there are many more who would buy a copy at a reasonable price?
End of my rant - fortunately Paul Bailey's 'Chapman's Odyssey' (and other of his novels) have managed to be published and though it and his other novels may never make a fortune it and his others are books that make life worth living. They are a rebuke to the tawdry limited and worthless. Which might make it sound like this novel is something heavy or portentous - which couldn't be further from the truth. It is utterly delightful, funny, moving, I don't normally care about spoilers but this novel while not full of plot twists is so simple that I don't want to limit or decrease any of the delights the novel holds.
It does play around with literary characters and references but in a light and pleasurable way, everything is about the joy life holds, but of course life is full of other sadder more distressing things and the novel doesn't shy away from them. It can't because it is a novel about a life lived.
I must add that this novel is one of many that makes me ashamed of my simplistic shelving categories which are no more then an aid to keeping track of my books. This is simply a wonderful novel by a wonderful novelist. That Paul Bailey is not better known or more widely read is something that we should all try and rectify.
End of my rant - fortunately Paul Bailey's 'Chapman's Odyssey' (and other of his novels) have managed to be published and though it and his other novels may never make a fortune it and his others are books that make life worth living. They are a rebuke to the tawdry limited and worthless. Which might make it sound like this novel is something heavy or portentous - which couldn't be further from the truth. It is utterly delightful, funny, moving, I don't normally care about spoilers but this novel while not full of plot twists is so simple that I don't want to limit or decrease any of the delights the novel holds.
It does play around with literary characters and references but in a light and pleasurable way, everything is about the joy life holds, but of course life is full of other sadder more distressing things and the novel doesn't shy away from them. It can't because it is a novel about a life lived.
I must add that this novel is one of many that makes me ashamed of my simplistic shelving categories which are no more then an aid to keeping track of my books. This is simply a wonderful novel by a wonderful novelist. That Paul Bailey is not better known or more widely read is something that we should all try and rectify.
October 12, 2020
As another reviewer has said here, 'Imagine living in a world in which beautiful, moving books like this go unpublished. Like Bartleby, I would prefer not to.' This is another stunning read from Paul Bailey that I thoroughly loved and am amazed to read took time to find a publisher. I likened Old Soldiers by PB to Charles Dickens. This time, I felt shades of Oscar Wilde and Pictures of Dorian Gray. It isn't entirely fair to review a book comparing one author to another, it's just this one feels like a very special writer to me, someone with incredible insight. This is a beautiful, twisty-turny, magical feast of a book.
January 10, 2022
Witty, playful. “The Story of one man’s retreat from illness into his imagination”.
January 26, 2011
An interesting novel on the themes of death and memory. Not original enough - reminiscent of John Banville's recent The Infinities (man on his deathbed surveys his life and surroundings).Paul Bailey inserts himself into the book in the guise of Harry Chapman, that novelist famous for writing a book about an old guy when he was still very young. A lot of quotation from poetry and nods to Shakespeare and Marlowe. A book for literary types in the know. Not much narrative drive and i disliked the ending where the first person narration that has gone before is replaced by an omniscient third person who tells us about Harry's funeral - it would have felt more complete to end the novel when Harry's consciousness ended, on his death. Well written and an enjoyable read with a few very good passages and interesting relationships between characters. Not ambitious enough to stay within Harry's head to the end.
November 14, 2012
Harry Chapman is dying He's not quite sure, of course, and the nurses and doctors are reassuring. His deceased parents, vanished lovers, distant friends, and the literary characters he has loved come and go unbidden as his mind drifts. Some are helpful, some consoling, others importunate, and relentlessly unpleasant. These relationships with the vanished, the distant, the imaginary continue and evolve.
Paul Bailey unfolds this journey in a way that is effortless, comic, and deeply poignant; it is utterly unsentimental. CHAPMAN'S ODYSSEY is the work of a great artist. It's a marvel.
Paul Bailey unfolds this journey in a way that is effortless, comic, and deeply poignant; it is utterly unsentimental. CHAPMAN'S ODYSSEY is the work of a great artist. It's a marvel.
September 16, 2023
I am Harry Chapman.
Funnily enough the book is called Chapman's Odyssey. There are so many incredible things to say about this book, but I won't. I can't really gather all of my thoughts for it. I think everyone should read it.
Funnily enough the book is called Chapman's Odyssey. There are so many incredible things to say about this book, but I won't. I can't really gather all of my thoughts for it. I think everyone should read it.
September 19, 2020
A seventy year old man is in hospital and has many visitors including ghosts of the past and famous characters from classic novels. It's a feast for the imagination & written with great style. Highly recommended.
July 23, 2018
Recreates the hospital ward atmosphere and activity very well as well as the fearful anticipation of diagnosis and treatment. The memories of the main character build into a good narrative.
August 7, 2019
Can a novel about death be fun? This one kind of is.
September 23, 2023
A wonderful bookend decades later to Bailey's first novel, 'At The Jerusalem'. Bailey delights in self-reference and intertextual linkages, so he cites this first book in Chapman's own fiction output. It gives a strongly autobiographical poignancy to 'Chapman's Odyssey', as if it were Bailey himself who were reflecting on his twilight mortality from the hospital bed.
I have now read Bailey from start to finish (including the later bookend, 'The Prince's Boy'). This counts among my favourites, alongside Jerusalem; Gabriel's Lament; and Sugar Cane. The last two fit in the trope of 'traumatised mother's boy' fiction that seems peculiarly Bailey's own; Jerusalem and Chapman treat with the parallel infantilism of the institutionalised elderly. For me, these four books strike the best balance between humour, pathos and narrative drive.
Bailey isn't always easy to find: even his 1977 Booker-nomination needed tracking down. As noted by other reviewers, he seems to have struggled to get published at certain points in his career, until awards helped briefly raise his profile (1967, 1986). If you are new to Bailey, I would possibly recommend starting either here, or with Jerusalem. Both are slightly easier to locate and IMO among his best work.
I have now read Bailey from start to finish (including the later bookend, 'The Prince's Boy'). This counts among my favourites, alongside Jerusalem; Gabriel's Lament; and Sugar Cane. The last two fit in the trope of 'traumatised mother's boy' fiction that seems peculiarly Bailey's own; Jerusalem and Chapman treat with the parallel infantilism of the institutionalised elderly. For me, these four books strike the best balance between humour, pathos and narrative drive.
Bailey isn't always easy to find: even his 1977 Booker-nomination needed tracking down. As noted by other reviewers, he seems to have struggled to get published at certain points in his career, until awards helped briefly raise his profile (1967, 1986). If you are new to Bailey, I would possibly recommend starting either here, or with Jerusalem. Both are slightly easier to locate and IMO among his best work.
May 26, 2013
If I told you to read a book about an elderly man convalescing in hospital, would you drop everything to read it? Nah, me neither.
I read a review of this book a few months back, and it peaked my interest. I was curious, but sufficiently cautious to avoid actually going out to grab a copy. However; when I found it in a $5 bargain basement bin at my local bookstore, I figured that I might as well get it. I'm glad that I did!
I had never heard of Paul Bailey before reading this book, but I now know that he'd been shortlisted a couple of times for the Booker Prize; in 1977 and 1986. I also found an opinion piece that in which he was critical of the 2011 Booker Prize nominees in 2011. This was the same year that Chapman's Odyssey was released and overlooked, but let's choose to overlook any potential churlishness. His complaint was that the shortlist was a little too 'eccentric' and 'readable' and 'topical', and included the following quote...
Some people balk at the word "demanding", but I am happy with it. Art of the highest order invariably makes demands on the reader, listener or spectator.
I suppose that there were some demanding elements to Chapman's Odyssey. As Harry Chapman lies in his hospital bed he is visited by a multitude of characters. Aside from doctors, nurses, the occasional visitor and fellow patient, the visitors include ghosts of his past: family, friends, lovers and the occasional virtual stranger. And then there are fictional characters from books that he had loved. And then there are passages that relive memories of important events in his life, and then there are fantastic dreams, such as the one in which Fred Astaire dances with Celeste the Elephant.
OK. Yes, I admit, that does sound 'demanding'. Trust me though, it was as entertaining as any novel that I've picked up, and surprisingly easy to read. And despite being about a dying man in hospital, you would be wrong to think it's depressing - it's most certainly not a funeral speech.
I have now read a few online newspaper reviews of Chapman's Odyssey, and I realise that there were a myriad of hidden meanings and allusions behind the stories that I just didn't get. It seems like the sort of book that could be prodded and studied by literary minds far greater than mine. I don't think this makes it 'demanding'... I think it makes it the sort of book that I would want to re-read to understand some of the additional layers that I hadn't got the first time round.
I read a review of this book a few months back, and it peaked my interest. I was curious, but sufficiently cautious to avoid actually going out to grab a copy. However; when I found it in a $5 bargain basement bin at my local bookstore, I figured that I might as well get it. I'm glad that I did!
I had never heard of Paul Bailey before reading this book, but I now know that he'd been shortlisted a couple of times for the Booker Prize; in 1977 and 1986. I also found an opinion piece that in which he was critical of the 2011 Booker Prize nominees in 2011. This was the same year that Chapman's Odyssey was released and overlooked, but let's choose to overlook any potential churlishness. His complaint was that the shortlist was a little too 'eccentric' and 'readable' and 'topical', and included the following quote...
Some people balk at the word "demanding", but I am happy with it. Art of the highest order invariably makes demands on the reader, listener or spectator.
I suppose that there were some demanding elements to Chapman's Odyssey. As Harry Chapman lies in his hospital bed he is visited by a multitude of characters. Aside from doctors, nurses, the occasional visitor and fellow patient, the visitors include ghosts of his past: family, friends, lovers and the occasional virtual stranger. And then there are fictional characters from books that he had loved. And then there are passages that relive memories of important events in his life, and then there are fantastic dreams, such as the one in which Fred Astaire dances with Celeste the Elephant.
OK. Yes, I admit, that does sound 'demanding'. Trust me though, it was as entertaining as any novel that I've picked up, and surprisingly easy to read. And despite being about a dying man in hospital, you would be wrong to think it's depressing - it's most certainly not a funeral speech.
I have now read a few online newspaper reviews of Chapman's Odyssey, and I realise that there were a myriad of hidden meanings and allusions behind the stories that I just didn't get. It seems like the sort of book that could be prodded and studied by literary minds far greater than mine. I don't think this makes it 'demanding'... I think it makes it the sort of book that I would want to re-read to understand some of the additional layers that I hadn't got the first time round.
April 11, 2018
Chapman's Odyssey is a wonderful and poignant story that takes places entirely in a hospital bed. I recently spent some time in one of these beds myself, where I was reminded of the fever days of my youth. Murmurs in the background, intense images inside my head. The dream state that you wish for and then wish to go away, once it captures you. Sickness is a retreat from life, and at the same time a strong reminder of that life. This is the atmosphere in which Paul Bailey writes the story of Harry Chapman, who is (perhaps) dying, in a hospital, in the company of nurses, fellow dying patients, his mother's ghost (who is hardly the ghost of the mean mother of Harry's childhood), and a few memorable fiction characters, such as Melville's scrivener Bartleby. In the delirium of sickness and sedation, these presences fuse into a distorted crowd that colors (and taints) Chapman's introspections and reflections on his life.
July 18, 2013
If you delight only in easy to read, linear plots laid out with a predictable dramatic arc, then this book is not for you. "Odyssey's" references to literature, poetry, the theatre and the creative world bring Mr. Chapman's unique sensibilities and take on life to light. Bailey builds this indelible portrait through the time frame of one critical experience - hospitalization and surgery - along the way weaving in Chapman's circle of family, friends and lovers where Chapman's drug induced brain works them in. Where else would you find Mom (long dead) and Pip from Great Expectations sharing pages if not barbs? Puns abound, great writing throughout, emotions are lovingly conveyed without sentimentality or reproach. This is one writer deserving a wider audience.
Thanks to Doug Pennick for recommending this one.
Thanks to Doug Pennick for recommending this one.
May 19, 2014
I found this to be a warm, whimsical story of a man sifting through his perceptions and memories while lying in a hospital ward during his final days. Harry Chapman is wry and observant, even as he drifts between waking and dreaming. His nurses are fond of him, the patient in the next bed tries to sell him T.S. Eliot's dentures, and his doctor resembles a fruitseller in a painting by Fillipino Lippi. He receives visits from his long-dead mother, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Babar the Elephant. Chapman takes it all in stride as Bailly tells a story about love, absurdity, and the pleasures of reading. There is nothing precious or sentimental about Chapman's deathbed musings: he's just a man making sense of the world as he always has. He is someone I would have liked to know.
June 28, 2012
In this novel Bailey writes about the vague dividing line between being asleep and awake and between life and death. An old man is taken to a London hospital with severe stomach problems. Under the influence of pain and medicins he loses himself in hallucinations. He hears and sees people and voices that interfere with his state of mind. Reminiscent of the Singing Detective and equally funny and moving. Harry Chapman doesn't sing though, he recites poetry to the nurses, who adore him for being so polite and old-fashioned.
March 3, 2013
I pulled this off the new fiction shelf at the library out of desperation. It is a very curious book about a professor of poetry and his last days in hospital. He talks to all sorts of people some who are real and others remembered. Chapman is gay and has numerous partners and lovers. His mother is the strongest negative voice that visits him regularly. The incredible thing is that he has memorized 100's of poems and can quote them easily. Paul Bailey is British so some references are opaque to Americans.
October 4, 2014
Bailey is a masterful writer, whose Kitty and Virgil I loved. Here, however, I found the frame too pat: a gay actor-novelist finds himself in a hospital, and his life there alternates with memories/flashbacks of his past. The chronologically-named chapters are, of course, anything but chronological, at least with respect to the past.
This was good travel reading but, unlike Kitty and Virgil, not very special.
A 3.5 based on the quality of the writing.
This was good travel reading but, unlike Kitty and Virgil, not very special.
A 3.5 based on the quality of the writing.
July 18, 2012
I Review Paul Bailey’s “Chapman’s Odyssey”
Go to my blog:
Have Words Will Write ‘Em
and then to the Minneapolis Star Tribune
--Joe
When he’s lucid, Harry, a so-so former actor turned accomplished novelist, recites T.S. Eliot and Shakespeare for the nurses and orderlies who tend him. But his periods of lucidity are ephemeral, and it’s clear that he is dying.
Go to my blog:
Have Words Will Write ‘Em
and then to the Minneapolis Star Tribune
--Joe
April 29, 2013
A seventy year old writer is in hospital with a stomach complaint. He is visited by the voices of childhood friends, characters from novels and his dead parents.
A very well told story that develops in a very touching manner. This book is both entertaining and thought provoking.
If you wonder about the haphazard why that life unfolds then you may find this book worth reading.
A very well told story that develops in a very touching manner. This book is both entertaining and thought provoking.
If you wonder about the haphazard why that life unfolds then you may find this book worth reading.
July 14, 2014
The setting is a hospital, with an failing man thinking over his life. The writing cleverly jumps between acts and scenes in his life, just as our thoughts can. It took a bit of time to adjust to this presentation, and sometimes I had to stop and think about the story to realize where in his life his thoughts had drifted to. Overall very well done.
January 2, 2013
First I've read by this Brit, but it won't be the last. Terribly ill in hospital, Harry Chapman is "visited" repeatedly by the ghosts of his dead mother and lovers and a eclectic bunch of his favorite literary characters. We learn a lot about Harry through these "conversations".
September 7, 2014
Who would have thought a novel about a man in a hospital bed and about to die, could be so entraining and witty and thoughtful a not in the least bit morbid? The best part of it though, is reading the supremely elegant and lucid sentences he constructs.
August 7, 2012
Vibrant with wonderful characters and simply beautiful writing, Chapman's Odyssey celebrates books, poetry, and the imaginative life.
April 15, 2013
A peculiar but very interesting book. I particularly enjoyed Baarbar and Celeste's appearances.
February 4, 2013
Lovely "odyssey"! Lying in the hospital, Harry Chapman remembers snatches of his life, converses with dead family and friends, as well as charming the hospital staff.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews