Category: 6Degrees

Six Degrees of Separation: From Vanity Fair to Mr. Standfast

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It’s the first Saturday of the month so it’s 6 Degrees of Separation time!

Here’s how it works: on the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Click on the title to read the book description on Goodreads or my review, as appropriate.

Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting women: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia Sedley, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family.

Vanity Fair is one of the places visited on the journey Christian undertakes in John Bunyan’s allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress.

The Pilgrim’s Progress was a very influential text for author, John Buchan; from his earliest childhood through to the end of his life. In his autobiography, Memory-Hold-The-Door (published as Pilgrim’s Way in the United States), Buchan describes The Pilgrim’s Progress as ‘his constant companion’ noting, ‘Even today I think that, if the text were lost, I could restore most of it from memory’.

John Buchan’s essay on John Bunyan appears in his 1908 collection, Some Eighteenth Century Byways.

Buchan used another location in The Pilgrim’s Progress – The Interpreter’s House – as the title of his address to Edinburgh University in July 1938 on the occasion of his installation as Chancellor of the University.   (The Interpreter’s House (1975) is also the title of David Daniell’s authoritative book on Buchan’s writing.)

In Witch Wood, Buchan’s 1927 historical novel set in seventeenth century Scotland, the book’s hero, moderate Presbyterian minister David Sempill finds himself in ‘the Slough of Despond’ (another location in The Pilgrim’s Progress) as he battles religious extremists within his parish on the one hand and black magic on the other.

But finally, to the John Buchan novel which has the most obvious link to The Pilgrim’s Progress – Mr. Standfast (1919).  As well as its title, which references a character in Bunyan’s text, The Pilgrim’s Progress has a physical role in Mr. Standfast, acting variously as a prize, a code-book and a source of moral comfort.  It also provides a means of private communication between hero, Richard Hannay, and his comrades.  For example, at one point, Hannay sends the message: ‘”If you see Miss Lamington you can tell her I’m past the Hill Difficulty”.  Yes, that’s a reference to another location in The Pilgrim’s Progress.

So from Vanity Fair, we’ve made a John Buchan themed ‘pilgrim’s progress’ from John Bunyan’s famous allegory to wartime adventure.  Where did your literary connections take you this month?

Next month’s starting book is an all time favourite – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Outsiders to Black Narcissus #6Degrees  6th October ’18

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Here’s how it works: on the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton . Click on the title to read the book description on Goodreads or my review, as appropriate.

The Outsiders tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson is also about two young people – Jess Aarons and his friend Leslie Burke – who, for different reasons, feel as if they are outsiders. Together they create an imagined world where they reign as king and queen.

Bridge to Terabithia is one of the books mentioned in Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading in which she describes how the books she read as a child inspired a lifelong love of reading.  As she says: ‘I have lived so many lives through books, gone to so many places, so many eras, looked through so many different eyes, considered so many different points of view.’   

However, one of the authors Lucy confesses she has never got to grips with is Charles Dickens.  Unfortunately for her, this means she has yet to experience the joy of reading a book like Great Expectations, (If you’ve never read it and feel, like Lucy, disinclined to do so why not watch the brilliant 1946 film version starring John Mills and directed by David Lean instead?)

Great Expectations opens with a scene involving an escaped convict and this also forms part of the story line of one of the most famous of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes long stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles, set on Dartmoor.

Dartmoor is also the location for Karen Maitland’s latest medieval thriller, A Gathering of Ghosts.  The book is set in 1316 in the isolated Priory of St Mary, owned by the Sisters of the Knights of St John.  In my review of the book I commented on the claustrophobic atmosphere created by the author that seems to affect some of the Sisters more than others.  At the time, it made me think of Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden so no surprise that this book is my final link in the chain.

Black Narcissus is set in a remote convent in the Himalayas, a former palace that was home to the harem of the local overlord.  The nuns come into conflict with the natives and with one another as they try to adapt to their exotic surroundings.  Again, there’s a terrific 1947 Technicolor film version directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.  It won Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction and, if you watch it, it’s easy to see why.

So this month we’ve made a journey from teenage angst to grown-up madness and hysteria.

Next month’s starting book is Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.