Today I’m launching a double-header about books that will have you thinking back about how great writing has changed your life. Or something that you’ve read that just made you a sunnier, happier person, even if for just a fleeting moment (see the end of this post).
Welcome to Not In The Script, NITS for short, where we’re sometimes serious, sometimes not. The Book That Changed My Life kicks off the series with one of my favourite authors, Fiona Forsyth.
Fiona’s a classicist by training and profession who now writes novels set in the tumultuous years of Julius Caesar and the first Roman emperor, Augustus. (As it happens, so do I, but not nearly with the same panache and ingrained knowledge). She’s currently working on a new series following the adventures of the poet Ovid.
Here’s the book that changed her life…
THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: by Fiona Forsyth
The Crown of Violet by Geoffrey Trease
This Puffin paperback was found in Slough’s one and only bookshop when I was about nine or ten. Its price was still marked in shillings, and I found the cover fascinating – the masks and padded costumes of ancient Greek Comedy were completely new to me. (I note that Puffin decided to do without the phalloi that would also have been worn by the actors).
I had already decided that I wanted to study Latin and Greek and that it would be an uphill task as everyone told me not to. Dead languages, not useful, all the usual rubbish. This had created a certain obstinacy in me so when I found a story that was set in the Ancient Athens of Socrates and Aristophanes, of course I was going to buy it.
And it paid off – Trease was at his best here, I think, delivering a colourful and exciting tale and a passion for his subject matter.
As is usual in a Trease book, a girl as well as a boy is firmly at the heart of the story, not always a given in children’s historical fiction of my era, and very hard to achieve given the status of women in the ancient world.
Inside the author had dedicated the book “To J. and her friends who chose Greek” and immediately I was intrigued for of course I too wanted to choose Greek. If “J. And her friends” could do it, then so could I. In the end, inspired by “The Crown of Violet”, I read Classics at University and taught it for 25 years at The Manchester Grammar School.
In the early 1990s, I remembered to write to Geoffrey Trease to tell him what “The Crown of Violet” had done for me. I received in return an utterly charming letter in which he told me that that “J” was his daughter Jocelyn, and he had written the story for her to show her the excitement and glory of Athens as she and her friends struggled with the unfamiliar alphabet and the idiosyncrasies of Greek grammar.
All through my childhood I devoured historical fiction written especially for children, by many excellent authors such as Barbara Willard, Cynthia Harnett and Rosemary Sutcliff. It is no wonder I write historical fiction now myself.
But it is to Geoffrey Trease that I owe the biggest debt and the book that changed my life.
Special offer: Fiona’s Sestius trilogy is now only £1.99 on Kindle.
CHUCKLE TIME
I am compiling a list of amusing quotes from the world of books, especially (but not limited to) historical fiction. Here’s the first one:
"As they were drinking their soup, the old man asked Daniel, 'Now tell me, my boy, was it you or your brother who was killed in the war?' "
From Louis de Bernière's 'So Much Life Left Over', 2018.
Go on, share your own entry of amusing extracts from books and authors, whether literary giants or newcomers to the world of literature. Place your entry in the comments section. Your prize if I publish? A thumbs up from the island of Alderney and £10 when I’ve made my first million as an author…
Speaking of which, my new publisher Sapere Books now have my entire backlist on their editor’s desk and I’ll be the first to tell you when each returns to the wonderful world of published historical fiction.
OK, thanks for the challenge - this might not work on the page (sic) but I was reading a short story by Muriel Spark yesterday and this made me laugh out loud. It's from 'Miss Pinkerton's Apocalypse', one of the stories in 'The Go-Away Bird and Other Stories' (Penguin, 1963). A flying saucer has just come in through the window...
'Promptly, it made as if to dive dangerously at George's head. He ducked, and Miss Pinkerton backed against the wall. As the dish tilted on its side, skimming George's shoulder, Miss Pinkerton could see inside it.
"The thing might be radio-active. It might be dangerous." George was breathless. The saucer had climbed, was circling high above his head, and now made for him again, but missed.
"It is not radio-active," said Miss Pinkerton, "it is Spode."'
Thank you for this new feature, Alistair, and what a wonderful piece by Fiona Forsyth! Interestingly, Geoffrey Trease was a resident of my home town, Malvern, and founded the writers’ group I belong to. Sadly I didn’t meet his books as a child, though.