Sniffling With Sir Walter Scott

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It's about 10pm yesterday. Wife and daughter are in bed but I've stayed up to do a bit of reading in the living room. My Kindle (other e readers are available) tells me that there's 16 minutes left of Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman to finish. Smooth Classics from Classic FM is in the background. I've a cup of tea and some dark chocolate digestive biscuits. Half hour wind down with a book. What you might ask could possibly go wrong?

As it happens everything. It starts with a few sniffles that I can't seem to shake off, then sneezing and then moving to full blown eye watering. I know the wife had cooked onions but that was hours before. And let me tell you it definitely wasn't the book.

Struggled for a few more minutes but it was no use. Sir Walter would have to wait for another day as I went to sleep instead. There are few things worse for a reader than getting everything prepared for a quiet reading session and in the last moments being unable to do it.

That other day when the book was finally finished was this morning. 5am . BBC Radio 3 is on this time. A cup of tea but no digestives...... you can't spoil breakfast ......and thankfully no sniffles.

The Talisman is the second book in a series set in the Crusades. Something I didn't know when I started (my fault). It's best approached as a historical potboiler. As the disclaimer goes any similarity to real events is purely coincidental.

I didn't bargain for the lack of action in this novel. If in my late teens/early twenties this might just have been a gamechanger given my preconceptions when starting. At fifty three however it was unexpected and nothing else.

If you approach this book as a potboiler then you will be pleasantly surprised. For although it's clear where the author's sympathies lay with regard to the Crusades and indeed in supporting the British Christian way of life  in general (which includes the monarchy...he's not Sir Walter Scott for nothing) he showed a surprising amount of respect for the Muslim religion and the Muslim characters in this novel, which does him credit. It has a sense of nuance.

So as an entertainment for a fifty three year old man, baring in mind the time it was written then I would recommend it. If you're much younger....well you've been warned.

I've mentioned before that my Kindle (other e readers are available) does seem to have a sense of humour. For in the random way I pick ebooks the next one to read turns out to be Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I wonder if I'm the first man to have read an autobiography of Stevenson's wife before reading one of his classic works.

Definitely a book for the bucket list of literature before you die in that whether you like it or not you need to say that you've read it. That time for me has come at fifty three....yes I know.

Until the next time.