Book Club: Poet's Pub

Comprised of an entertaining series of vignettes that occur at the Pelican Pub in Downish, England, Poet's Pub is a humour-filled collection of stories by award winner Eric Linklater—one of the original titles commissioned by Penguin Classics founder Allen Lane—and again available to readers.

When an Oxford poet named Saturday Keith assumes control of the Pelican Pub, what he desires most is the peace and freedom to craft his poems without being disturbed. This is the least of what happens, for the local watering hole soon becomes an out-and-out attraction for various eccentric characters ranging from uncouth rogues to members of academia.

Whoops, been a little longer than I intended between posts... been a busy week, what with book club and my Diva Dance class last night (don't ask). Anyway, back to books.

When it was announced that the next book club read would be Poet's Pub by Eric Linklater, our faces all kind of screwed up with confusion... wha'? who? This is a 'classic'? Never heard of it. I wasn't particularly comforted by the blurb either so I put off reading it for a while, I'm afraid. Even when my mum picked it up off the table and read the first page she grimaced. Moving through it, though, I have to say it picked up.

I don't know about anyone else but I always slightly struggle with humour in books at the best of times. For me somehow humour doesn't always translate in books, which seems odd because I have a fabulous sense of humour (and modesty). I remember when I went to see Hilary Mantel talk at the Southbank Centre and she read out an excerpt from Bring Up the Bodies and suddenly a whole different side, a distinctly funny side, came across that I hadn't previously picked up. So when I saw this was a comic novel, one written in 1929 at that, I sunk slightly into my chair.

So I struggled at the beginning; it seemed more eccentric than it was funny and I didn't have a clue who all these people were running about and writing weird poems about rats and making bizarre cocktails. Moving on, though, the comedy started to come through and I did find myself having a little chuckle. It's wonderfully ridiculous and it was a nice change to read a book, more specifically a classic, that doesn't take itself too seriously and that isn't a million pages long! 

All in all, I enjoyed it. It's not going to go down in history as my favourite read ever. I'm also not sure it would suit everyone but it was fun and a little different. One point that was made at the book club was that it would work brilliantly on stage. I can see there was a 1949 film but no apparent evidence of a play, which is interesting as it has all the silliness and physical comedy of farce such as Michael Frayn's Noises Off and Joe Orton.

Highlight? "The red–haired vixen of a maid, Nelly Bly" of course!

Overall the book was rated 6/10 by the book club and 6/10 by me!