The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society discussion

A thread to discuss the author David Storey


David Malcolm Storey (13 July 1933 – 27 March 2017) was an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a professional rugby league player. He won the Booker Prize in 1976 for his novel Saville. He also won the MacMillan Fiction Award for This Sporting Life in 1960.



Works....

This Sporting Life (1960) (made into the 1963 film This Sporting Life)
Flight into Camden (1961)
Radcliffe (1963)
The Restoration of Arnold Middleton (1967)
In Celebration (1969)
The Contractor (1970)
Home (1970)[
The Changing Room (1973)
Pasmore (1972) – winner of the 1973 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Farm (1973)
Cromwell (1973)
A Temporary Life (1973)
Edward (1973)
Life Class (1974)
Saville (1976) – winner of the 1976 Booker Prize
Mother's Day (1977)
Early Days (1980)
Sisters (1980)
A Prodigal Child (1982)
Present Times (1984)[13]
The March on Russia (1989)
Storey's Lives: 1951–1991 (1992)
A Serious Man (1998)
As it Happened (2002
Thin-Ice Skater (2004)

Mark wrote on 17 Nov 2018: "Reading Saville at the moment, David Storey’s 1976 Booker Prize winning novel, and already know that five stars ain’t gonna be nowhere near enough.

I’d previously read and loved his This Sporting Life [1960] and Flight From Camden [1961]... but Saville will go down as one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and certainly Storey’s finest.

Recommended with confidence and enthusiasm, particularly for those who dug Barry Hines’ A Kestrel for a Knave."


Mark wrote on 17 Nov 2018: "Saville is an absolute masterpiece, in my opinion. No question about it. At nearly seven hundred pages, and not exactly action-packed, I imagine some would liken it to something worse than waterboarding, but I’ve found that it’s more than worth the investment, and that it pays handsome dividends. I’m not in the habit of wishing that a seven hundred page novel never ends, but that’s definitely the case with Saville. It’s a work of astonishing beauty and insight. Universal and timeless."



Saville centers around Colin, a young boy growing up in the fictional Yorkshire mining village of Saxton during the Second World War and the postwar years.

This is the story of a miner's son, and his growth from the 1930s on, his rise in the world by way of grammar school and college. At first there is triumph in this, not least for the father who had spurred him on, but later "alienated from his class, and with nowhere yet to go" Colin finds himself struggling to remain in the place that made him.

Saville won the Booker prize in 1976.

David wrote: "That’s some recommendation Mark, enough to have me order a copy at the cost of a few magic beans and pieces of coloured glass from eBay.

It will be joining er...several others on ‘the reading pile’ which is once again being regularly tutted at by the co-owner.

Thank you"


Nigeyb wrote: "I too have a copy winging its way to my mountain retreat courtesy of one of the good sellers at eBay (other retailers are available)"

My copy of Saville has arrived this very day. It's a sign I tells ya.

It's a weighty tome - 555 pages

In what sounds like the same spirit, Mariella Frostrup’s Radio 4 podcast of a few weeks back featured a didcussion on working class fiction, and there was a short reading from James Clarke’s award-winning The Litten Path. The excerpt mentioned Billy Fisher (Billy Liar) and Arthur Seaton (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), and the book is set during the pit strike of 84-85.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00...

My copy has just arrived, and as soon as I have this sodding cataract fixed, I’ll be straight into it. Kindle’s OK, but it’s not as comfortable as a paperback when one nods off with one’s face in it.

Sounds wonderful David. I'll be listening to that. Thanks.


And get well soon after your cataract op. My Mum was amazed at the difference after her operation.

Cataract removed and a splendid new lens fitted 6 days ago, in a procedure completed so quickly and deftly that I expected the surgeon to be clad in a Kwik-Fit overall when he took the surgical cloth off my face. Thank you NHS, Iove you.

So, the first real book being consumed in 18 months is The Litten Path. Three chapters and 56 pages in, and it is everything that the BBC podcast hinted at. Grimy pit village realism, the tragedy of broken hope, of lives already wasted by characters’ forties, but an almost Lawrentian glimmer of hope as young Lawrence (I’ve just realised the possible connotation in the author’s choice of name!) may just escape the life of drudgery and semi-squalor that has dogged his family and the whole community other than the posh bastards from the big house.

Booming echoes of Saville and hints of the inter-class theme of Tim Pears’s West Country trilogy (part 3 The Redeemed is next on ‘the pile’) so far, and if I can tear myself away from the cricket world cup final today, I’ll have devoured it by bed-time.

Congratulation on the success of your procedure David - that's great news.


The NHS is indeed amazing

I still have Saville on my shelf waiting for the right moment. Perhaps this very Summer?

Your early impressions of The Litten Path by James Clarke make it sound very worthwhile

The Litten Path is a sweeping debut that provides an intimate view of the miners' strike of 1984 as it unfolds through the eyes of two families on either side of the struggle. The Litten Path is a novel of the strike as much as about the strike, knitting the intense emotional and political terrain of the famous dispute with the stark landscape of a small town in South Yorkshire. Written in a tough yet lyrical northern vernacular, The Litten Path is grimly honest and tender, comic and painful, a story of the clash between the urban and the rural, class frictions and the pressures of family. It is about what happens when a decision is made, when one cannot turn back.

Congrats on the successful procedure... it sounds like you’ve been truly liberated. Enjoy the results!

And thanks for the Litten Path tip. It very much sounds like it deserves a place on my shelf, so will absolutely chase down a copy.

Thank you both. My eyesight is improving every day since the surgery.

The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do...

I'm sure, given your praise of Storey, that you'll enjoy The Litten Path, Mark - about 50% through now, and there are several juicy sub-plots bubbling away nicely on the undercard and with the dynamic of the 84-85 Miners' Strike still fresh in my mind, it's going to get very interesting.

Yes indeed, a wonderful world to be sure


The Litten Path by James Clarke sounding better than ever

The Litten Path has been added to the top of by to-buy list, and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

P263:

“Straight after that the police held a victory march through Armthorpe centre, half those responsible for the carnage dressed in boiler suits with no ID numbers, just as had been at Orgreave that day. There, the most violent had been dressed the same, a brutal lot, more army than police, like them in Belfast got. One minute Maggie was parading all over the Falklands sinking her ships. The next she was giving the same treatment to her own people. Truly, these were strange times Shell was living in”.
(James Clarke, The Litten Path. Salt Publishing ISBN 978-1-78463-146-8)

I’ve not had such a paragraph stoke up my latent inner ire for a long time.

David wrote: "I’ve not had such a paragraph stoke up my latent inner ire for a long time. "

Spoken like a man who, perhaps wisely, avoids transcripts of Trump rallies.

Orgreave is a stain on the nation's history


Trump is beyone words

Mark, Trump is just too frightening to contemplate. He’s a caricature of a cartoon of a satire of a villain. Yet it’s real. I shouldn’t bury my head in the sand, but the plummet in socio-political wellbeing since the 2008 financial crash (Barack’s election notwithstanding) is a cause for worry, and I just avoid reading about it now.

Not so The Litten Path. Nearly there with it, and I think I may be tempted to go straight back to the front cover and start again, just to wring a little more from it. You’ll enjoy the writing; the juxtaposition of the lyricism in the descriptions of the natural beauty, almost cussed in its survival among the industrial wastelands of the coalfields, with the bloody brutality on the picket lines is erm...striking.

Orgreave is one of several stains on the nation’s psyche, Nigey, and South Yorkshire police have acted scandalously in more than a few.

There will be justice, though. I think I shall wear my The Enemy Within/Justice for Orgreave t-shirt today. That’ll show ‘em.

Thanks David - The Litten Path sounds absolutely essential


David wrote: "I think I shall wear my The Enemy Within/Justice for Orgreave t-shirt today. That’ll show ‘em."

The revolution is just a t shirt away

Apologies for having dragged the subject away from David Storey on to The Litten Path and personal political snarling.

I got the t-shirt about 4 years ago, and for a few quid more, the superb CD as a people’s aural record of the scandal and its reverbations.

It was the first album I reviewed on my currently-dormant site:

http://www.bluesandmoreagain.com/revi...

That's a great review David - thanks


Going off on tangents is our stock in trade here at TPHAS

Thanks again for the enthusiastic tip, David -- I’ve ordered a copy and am very much looking forward to tucking into it. Not knowing very much at all about Orgreave, I suspect I should probably do a little bit of reading-up on the subject beforehand, to maximize my understanding of the novel.

With David Rodigan’s My Life In Reggae now mercifully out of the way, I’m poised to dive into The Litten Path. Very much looking forward to it...

I’ll be very interested in your take on it. The background Clarke uses is particular in place, time and in its huge societal effect, but the personal and community conflicts that are his story are universal.

Do let us know how you get on.

Also waiting with keen anticipation Mark

I’m about half-way through The Litten Path and, unless something remarkably unforeseen happens, it’s heading straight to five stars from me. David was spot on with the comparisons to Storey’s Saville -- they complement each other very nicely.

James Clarke’s career sure seems like one to follow.

Read it, Nige. Run don’t walk.

I’m delighted (not to mention relieved) that it’s pleasing you, Mark.

Clarke’s will indeed be a career worth following.

Yeah, I’m indebted to you for that recommendation. I already know that it’s one of those novels to be re-read and, until that time comes, it will occupy a prime slot on my shelf of favourites.

Thanks Mark and David. I’ll definitely be reading it

I read Saville many years ago, but don't remember much about it, so it is due for a reread. It looks as if The Litten Path would complement it well.
(I did not grow up anywhere near a mining town, but I married someone who did.)

Thanks Val - I'd be interested to hear the reaction of someone who lived in a mining community

I’ve just now finished The Litten Path. An easy five-star rating, and certainly one to recommend. Absolutely one to re-read, and I can’t help feeling certain that I’ll get even more out of it the second time round.

Many grateful thanks, David, for bringing this one to my attention. Left on my own, I’m pretty sure I’d never have stumbled upon it.

As soon as James Clarke’s next one’s announced and up for pre-order, I’ll jump. In the meantime, I’m off to see what else catches my eye on the publisher’s website.

Oh, and Nige... I grew up not so very far from the coal mines of Kentucky, but I’m not sure that counts!

Mark, I get almost as much pleasure from reactions such as yours as I do from my own reading of the novel. I feel exactly as you do about the potential for getting more out of Clarke’s carefully-selected prose on a re-read, and The Litten Path is one that won’t be going to the charity shop any time soon.

As I said originally, I stumbled upon it almost by accident via the BBC podcast to which I subscribe and for which I gave the URL away up there ^ somewhere. I don’t know if you can access it in the US, but I listened to the Working Class Literature episode again at the weekend and marvelled at it once more. The podcast, and others with a literary theme, is a constant, second-to-none source of reading recommendations, as is this group, and I’m always interested in what my fellow members recommend, and appreciative of the tips you all give.

I declared my affection for the NHS on having my vision fixed, and I’d bracket the BBC with it as an institution that we in the UK are blessed to have, a stout, solid sanctuary and a means of escape from worrying reality during our current dark times.

I found certain passages of The Litten Path to be a bit hazy, seemingly throwing me slightly off the path [no pun intended]. But, ploughing on, it all came together very cleverly, and made total sense. That’s the main reason that I’ve marked it for a re-read... I think that going into it with a knowledge of the general arc, it will prove to be a much more relaxed experience.

Still, it’s definitely one of those novels that will stay with me for a very long time. The character development was perfect and, as you said, the universal themes were told with grit and honesty.

Hell, I might even prefer The Litten Path to Storey’s Saville!

I've ordered my copy. Hurrah

Yay. That’s the spirit!

You’re a good man, Nigel!

I started my reread of Saville, but then one of the Booker list library reservations became available, so I put it aside for a while. I don't know why I can't remember it very well from my first read, perhaps because it is very slow paced, with few really dramatic incidents. I am enjoying it however.

Splendid news Val - I still have it waiting the right moment.


My copy of The Litten Path has arrived too, and I have enjoyed the Working Class Writing BBC Radio programme David mentions above. Thanks David.

#achievement

Saville is definitely a slow burn, and you could argue that it never really catches fire, but I really enjoyed the journey and can’t imagine forgetting it any time soon, barring some unfortunate mishap that wipes my memory. Just a great book to escape into, I reckon. Well, for me, anyway. Here’s hoping I haven’t led -- or re-led -- you down a path that ends in you questioning not only my taste, but my sanity.

And, of course, good luck with The Litten Path, Nige. I’m pretty certain you’ll love it.

It was about forty years ago Mark. Goodreads says 2011, but that is because I was in a group which was reading all the Booker winners and the person who set the challenge up put 01-01-2011 as the start date and couldn't change it, so we all had to put dates in 2011 for all the ones we had already read for them to count.

I have remembered one bit now, starting farm machinery by shoving a burning rag in a hole. I asked my Dad about it at the time I read the book and he explained, as he used to do it himself as a teenager in the 1940s. The baler would have been diesel powered, but with no ignition system, so to start it the operator would squirt some paraffin into the ignition chamber and then shove in the burning rag, which was also soaked in paraffin, to ignite it and warm the chamber up sufficiently for the diesel fuel to ignite.

A health and safety officer's worst nightmare

Farming was a dangerous occupation, second only to coal-mining. I think building is the most dangerous now, but that is more because there are very few people working in mines or on farms these days than because of improvements in health and safety.

Your descriptions are not misleading Mark, the level of detail and the small incidents of everyday life mean that I was immersed in Storey's world throughout the book.
It was heading for at least a four star rating, until near the end. Storey does not adequately explain why Colin falls out with the rest of his family to the extent that he does and there is very little build-up to it.

Thanks Val.


As someone steeped in the Booker prize, to what extent do you think Saville was a worthy winner in 1976?

I would have to have read all the other contenders, but it does not seem like an unworthy winner. There was no published long list back then, but the others on the shortlist were:
An Instant in the Wind by André Brink (which I have not read)
Rising by R.C. Hutchinson (which I had not heard of before checking the Booker site)
The Doctor's Wife by Brian Moore (which I have read, but did not rate highly)
King Fisher Lives by Julian Rathbone (also not read)
The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor (which I have read and liked very much)
My preference would be for William Trevor, but I can see how someone could make a good case for David Storey.

Some of the other early winners can't possibly have been the best books published in English that year. Something to Answer For (1969), Holiday (1974 joint) and Heat and Dust (1975) spring to mind, and I think V.S. Naipaul won more for his other work than for In a Free State.

Thanks Val.


I know so few of those book 😬

Splendid intel there, Val. Thank you. I'm unaware of most of them too!

Despite still not having read Saville (or The Litten Path) - and having owned both for quite some time, I picked up a couple more DS books for a quid each at, of all places, Sutton Hoo. I now add Lao own A Prodigal Child and Pasmore

More updates as and when