Downloads and continuing sales via Lulu and Amazon

I guess writing has its rewards when others take some of their own time to read the book.

Each time the cash register 'dings' with a new sale of the paper back version, there is a special pleasure even if the reward is in cents (as I assure you it is, I do not make a living out of Scholarship).

For the moment, this blog is reverting to matters relating to Scholarship only. Other projects may emerge but only when I feel it is time for that to happen.  New ideas do occur to me as does the weight of a nearly completed draft of a book that is currently 'resting' near the back of this author's stove.

Season's greetings!

Ian

The Custard Boys by John Rae

I have been asked to provide a link to where one can find this book.

Whenever I am looking for a book the most reliable source for anything rare is abebooks.com.  Sure enough, 'The Custard Boys' is available for a price.

Since I bought my copy, it has shot up in price, that may be due to my publicising it.  It is now on for $45-$250.

The same thing happened after I purchased my copy of Montherlant's  'The Boy's, that now costs $200 and up, it is the most valuable book in my collection.

Good luck, both books had very limited print runs so are climbing in value all the time.

Early Flowering in Cornwall: Amazon Review of Scholarship by Edmund Marlowe

I hope Edmund Marlowe will not mind, but I have taken the liberty of posting his review at Amazon here for others to see.

"This moving story of sensitive Pip Cox's years as a boarder at The Rocks, a fictional prep school in Cornwall, is apparently otherwise only loosely fictionalised autobiography. Though it covers the full span of Pip's time there in the 1960s, most of the story concerns his last year, when he was twelve, and his deeply affecting friendship with slightly younger Sacha in the year below. The author has a remarkable memory of the atmosphere of prep schools and the emotions of young boys which he makes excellent use of, so that by the time we reach the love story at the heart of the novel we are well immersed in the details of life at The Rocks, whether special or mundane. 

On one significant point, I am puzzled. The average age at which boys reach the critical stage of puberty where reproduction is possible has dropped steadily from sixteen in the 19th century, when prep schools were invented, to below thirteen today. The invention is indeed sometimes said to have been occasioned by the need to segregate sexually-innocent pre-pubescents from their lustful elders. As late as 1986, the average age was 13.4. The 12-year-olds of The Rocks, however, were in 1968 at least as developed as boys today (they had to wash away the evidence of masturbation). Their headmaster even tells them a Victorian stable boy their age was "more than capable" of making a woman pregnant, which I suspect was actually impossible.

Why does this matter? The story hinges entirely on the deep suspicion of apparently everyone at the school that Pip's friendship with Sacha was sexual and so immoral on little more grounds than that Sacha was in the year below. The principal characters all conclude (rightly as it turns out) that Pip is queer and it is this perception he was nastily different that poisons the end of his time there.

This image of prep school as so sexually charged is so alien to my own as to demand explanation. Yes, pubescence at mine lent the emotions and friendships of many 12-year-old boys a new intensity, and a few engaged in fondling, but that is all. Boys at my prep school and those of my friends who had reached spermarche were either non-existent or unique. We never heard a suspicion of any boy being queer. The authorities never gave the slightest discouragement to age-discrepant friendships. It is in fact hard to see the rationale for such a taboo at prep school. It sometimes existed at public school because the still androgynous beauty of 13-14 year-olds could bring them to the erotic attention of female-starved older boys to a degree that adolescents with more developed manliness could not.

All these things depicted at The Rocks were by contrast so familiar to us at public school that a friend is convinced Pip's story has been transposed from one, which I doubt because the depiction of prep school otherwise rings so true. Is it possible that the author, having soon later established his sexual orientation and tormented by the sadness unjustly inflicted on him, has read too much into the earlier sexual consciousness of his peers and even himself, easy enough to do? Or is it possible that the headmaster who so brutally attacked Pip and his friendship was by his misplaced and exaggerated suspicion himself guilty of importing into the school an untypical hysteria about sex? Or was extra maturity another bonus of the location, which gave Pip "the typical Rocks look, long-legged and suntanned by years of days in the Cornish sun"? I wish I knew.

None of this in the least detracts, however, from the heart-wrenchingly poignant depiction of loss, which is the author's crowning achievement.

Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander's Choice, another pubescent boy's love story."

As I have stressed many times, Scholarship is a work of fiction but it is heavily influenced by my own memories of my time at prep school down to the incidents and dialogue that I can recall.

Were age-discrepant friendships discouraged? This is perhaps where I have taken a liberty with facts, I do not recall a deliberate separation of boys because there was a large difference in age, but I do recall that generally it was the boys who policed this aspect. As I was the youngest boy in my year, I drifted between being at the top of the year 'below' or being at the bottom of my real year so I had friends in both years, I recall being an exception, by and large friendships were contained within one's year.

It was very generous of Edmund Marlowe to write a review, I was particularly pleased to see the review from an author whose work I admire.

Writings, scribblings etc

I have also had some more feedback on Scholarship, which is always gratifying.  One thing I have noticed is that if one is minded to buy the paperback version, it is worth checking the prices at Amazon as well as at Lulu as they do seem to fluctuate with Amazon often cheaper.  Quite how, given Amazon takes a third of the published price, I do not know.  But take advantage of it, sales are always very gratifying even if I do not actually receive any money myself.

'Sales' of Scholarship be it downloads or actual books continue steadily, somewhat to my surprise, I was expecting some sort of decaying trend but no things continue at the same pace.  On blogspot I can see where the sources of traffic are, it is predictably UK biased but with a reach into places like the USA, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Ian

Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe

Finally managed to finish reading the above book over the festive season.

The ending hits like a rather unpleasant tackle whilst playing a dominant team, an expected result.

Anyway, I enjoyed some fine writing from Edmund Marlowe. Alexander indeed makes his choice and the plot heads in a familiar direction.  There is no getting away from it, 'school boy' romance tends to be something read through the cracks in one hands as one flinches at the on page action.

Of course when I finished reading, I can understand why our hero was called Alexander, it is all in the Greek references.  My hero nearly had the same name but in the end I went for the slightly more obscure Russian variant Alexei in honour of his slightly fiery nature and because I wanted to use the familiar version of Sacha.

I too nearly came out with the same ending but veered away at the last moment when I realised there was an alternate ending, which most people can relate to.

Anyway I recommend reading Alexander's Choice.

In the mean time, happy new year!

Ian

British Bulldog of Interest

My statistics tell me that there has been a large number of page visits, as usual it is British Bulldog that draws the crowds as does discussion of Edmund Marlowe's "Alexander's Choice".  I am glad I did not see that book before I wrote Scholarship as in some ways the story is not dissimilar, but that is hardly surprising when both are set in boarding schools.

Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe

I have been reading Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe.  This Eton set book has set tongues wagging as to who Alexander might be.  Some have even suggested that he is modelled on Boris Johnson, right era etc.  Seems implausible to me, I could not imagine anyone being attracted to Johnson!  There is a lot of great (and baffling detail) on the running of Eton as a school and how it is organised.  The Old Etonian Association said it was unlikely they would accept an advertisement for it in their annual review (correction provided by Edmund Marlowe himself).  Too close to home I imagine.
I have been watching the series on Harrow School as well.  What impressed me was the ridiculous amount of kit every boy needs.  Still the boys and the masters came over as pleasant people, not something I would have claimed was true in my day at a similar school.  I do recall we had a rowing fixture against Harrow and seeing a boy with bright green hair (or it may have been blonde and he was wearing lime green which made his hair seem green).  I was impressed and I have to say somewhat drawn to him!