Adam Dumphy
Introducing Ranulf, “the unready”, fictional descendant of Ethelred “the unready” a medieval Saxon Kinglet. Ranny, Seventh Viscount Lindley is tour guide for some troubled friends through the Balkans in 1914.
There is Dimitrov and his bomb, the nicest Nihilist anyone could hope to meet but troubled at his girl friend Revolta’s late nights out “at the library”. Svetislof a fish truck driver/poet is troubled as his wife understands him but his mistress does not. And Princess Ireana of Illyria, disguised as a lady’s maid but troubled to find the frequent bows of a maid before royalty causes leg cramps and gives unlimited opportunity to any butler with a penchant for pinching. And others.
A parody of novels of the 1920s, intended to amuse.
Adam Dumphy, far past the three score years etc., can feel only ennui when reminded of the writing teacher’s “basic principles” of the “writer’s trade” to produce the “Great American Novel”.
Perhaps it is because he doesn’t much like the GANs with their violence, murder and gore. Bad enough in a book, on TV they leave him half-stunned and bleary eyed. And if the writers of the GAN really put a “bit of themselves” into each novel, as is recommended, he feels disinclined to ever stroll a dark alley with one.
He prefers to think of the dedicated reader as an inhabitant of a quiet nook searching for peaceful amusement. He writes for them.
Broad Moor Lands Manor, Northumberland, England, June 1914.
Spring in England can be unsettling. Those first wispy, ephemeral sunbeams to break through the gloom-laden slosh may well turn the most mundane Englishman’s mind to attempt elegiac poetry: the most Spartan Briton’s mind to Schillerlocken or Buttercremetorte with fresh, warm cream; and the most prosaic Brit to thoughts of eloping to the Grecian Isles with the Vicar’s wife.
And I was no exception as I had entertained all of these recently myself.
Nor was I alone. In Suffolk a man invented a bicycle which his dog could peddle. (Rover needed the exercise). A man in Downs divorced his wife for casting a hex on the favorite at Epson. (The Favorite, Royal Victoria at 2½ to 1 lost by three lengths and the judge awarded the divorce decree without demur.) In Yorkshire a man bit his dentist to prove that his new dental plate slipped. (The finger was hardly bruised.)
And subsequently this nefarious miasma spread throughout the Island even involving the prodigiously stuffy London Times as the morning headlines proclaimed:
“New York Stock Exchange and Milady’s hemlines rise to alarming heights.”
“Marshal Foch gains eight pounds on reducing diet.”
“The Prince of Wales falls off an Elephant. Ghandi laughs...”
Whether these two later items were related I never discovered as at that moment I realized I was being addressed and a reply expected.
Being quite unaware of the subject discussed I fell back on a gamut which had proven unfailingly successful with the sweeter sex.
“Quite right, Dear. Charming thought. Can’t think why I never thought of it myself.” I said.
“You agree then, Ranulf?”
My mother’s silky tone and the amused glance from across the huge steaming platter of kippers and scrambled, bangers and mash, set off my alarm.
I objected to what I suspected the subject was. “Except I quite fail to see, actually I feel it now my right, to go wherever I please on this my second grand tour. Did I not go everywhere and do everything you and Father expected of me the first time? Exposing my boyish charm and flawless husk to every scraggly-toothed, royal spinster in all MittelEurope as required.”
And it was a tremendous bore, I added to myself.
