What book does Oskar Jensen not understand the hype around?
What Book…
Crime writer, Oskar Jensen
…are you reading now?
A BUNCH, as usual. I’m juggling Nancy Mitford’s Don’t Tell Alfred, which is gloriously silly, with about a dozen books on an undisclosed historical figure for a possible film project.
The Mitford book was a Christmas present – it’s a continuation of the lives of characters from her more famous novels, set in 1950s Paris, and is like reading a satirical, well-written diary.
In general, I try to alternate detective fiction, both classic and new advance titles I get sent, with heavier literary stuff.
…would you take to a desert island?
OPTIMISM says, finally, a chance to get to grips with Dostoevsky! Realism says, maybe just reread Agatha Christie or The Chronicles Of Narnia endlessly for comfort.
I will try to strike a balance and lug along all 12 volumes of Anthony Poole’s A Dance To The Music Of Time because it’s brilliant, acerbic, wise, and enough to build about half a raft.
The books follow the life of an anonymous narrator through epochal changes in the 20th century.
The most infamous recurring character is Widmerpool, a glorious creation played by Simon Russell Beale in the TV adaptation all the way through from schoolboy to elder statesman.
The first book Oskar ever read was King Tulle by Irmelin Sandman Lilius
…first gave you the reading bug?
I HAVE a seven-month-old baby and the classics still get results – The Elephant And The Bad Baby; We’re Going On A Bear Hunt; Peepo! Anything we show him by Elsa Beskow, the Swedish author and illustrator, gives me a shiver of joy, so I think those were very important to me early on.
But the first children’s book that I remember going back to again and again – and still do – is King Tulle by Irmelin Sandman Lilius.
It’s got everything – a brave son, trolls, fabulous dream sequences, epic journeys, a giant bird, a bewitching woman-who-is-also a fox… and yet it makes perfect sense. Just a beautiful book.
…left you cold?
R. O. THORP’S new murder mystery, Death On Ice, is set in the Arctic and is very cold indeed. But as a sometime historian of Victorian Britain, although I love Dickens’ journalism or Hardy’s poetry, I find their novels stultifying.
I like Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series, but the way people rhapsodise it … am I missing something?
HELLE’S Hound by Oskar Jensen (Viper, £16.99) is out now and available from the Mail Bookshop