In one of David Lodge’s campus novels, there’s a now very famous game where members of the English faculty have to admit to one another which books of monumental importance in English Literature that they haven’t read. I seem to remember that the trump book was Hamlet.
My version is less likely to be books (many of which I have read, a whole lot more I certainly haven’t), but rather films or TV. Particularly award-winning TV, or programmes that everyone else has watched. Sometimes it’s sheer bloody mindedness. I’ve never seen an episode of Coronation Street in my life, and I don’t intend to start now. I certainly refuse to watch Celebrity Big Brother – I only have a finite number of hours left of my life, and don’t intend to be too frivolous with them.
But there are more unlikely programmes that I should have seen. I’ve never watched Phoenix Nights. Well that’s not entirely true. I saw one episode and thought it was very funny. I’ve even got a couple of VHS tapes recorded from E4 when they ran “Complete Series 1” and “Complete Series 2” nights. So they’re there – just waiting to be watched. But I suppose my darkest programme is The League of Gentlemen. I just haven’t watched it. I’ve seen bits. It seems oddly dark and comic and I suspect I’d really like it. But I just haven’t seen it. I never listened to the radio series either. I don’t even have the video tapes for that rainy day to watch.
(As a further aside, I have so many tapes to watch that I sometimes wonder what kind of occassion would enable me to ever watch them all. It’s for reasons like this that I don’t think I could cope with a Sky Plus since however much capacity it has, I need more. I think the only way I could get through them would be if I were to suffer a particularly debilitating leg break affording me much time at home. Although that time would have to compete with the lures of my equally large pile of unread books, and things like the internet which’d be a constant distraction. “Would be”? It already is).
But back to this book. The Versuvius Club is written by one of the writers and performers of The League of Gentleman, Mark Gatiss. I’ve heard him interviewed on radio a few times and he seems an interesting sort of bloke. He has geekish tendencies that appeal to me as well – he’s a Dr Who fan who’s written Dr Who novels in the past, and has also written a story for the upcoming BBC series starring Christopher Ecclestone.
The ludicrous nature of this slim novel (half price in the Waterstones sale bargain hunters!) appealed to me, and it doesn’t take long to dash through. Lucifer Box is a kind of Edwardian James Bond, killing enemies and bedding those he meets along the way. He gets caught up in seemingly inescapable positions – and frees himself. The masterminds are fiendish and their plans practically demonic. The book’s an entertainment. It’s also quite obviously the first in a series, and personally, I look forward to more adventures.