Customer Reviews

Handley Cross: Or, Mr.Jorrocks's Hunt

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought I was pretty familiar with fictional England, from Chaucer to Austen to today. There were quirks and idiosyncracies, sure, but it all seemed to fit fairly comfortably into the same general galaxy.

However, Handley Cross was a shock. It isn't a great book but it's certainly a different one. Superficially it's a little Dickensian in temporal and (sometimes) physical setting, but the cultural and mental world it describes is completely foreign.

I cheerfully admit that I've done no research whatsoever, so I have no idea if Surtees means Mr Jorrocks to be a satire or an oddity or (as it appears to this superficial reader) a much-loved and highly approved-of character. But compared with just about any other protagonist in English literature he's a monster. The inherent barbarities of fox-hunting are the least of it. Jorrocks seems to have no redeeming features at all. His 'sporting' nature is all there is to him, and while Surtees finds this attractive, to anyone else it's appalling. He is enthusiastically ignorant of everything outside sporting pursuits, and hardly a pleasant person within them.

You probably should read this book - it's entertaining and reasonably well-written. But be prepared to have your Anglophilia challeneged.