Simon Raven

Alms for Oblivion Vol I

Simon Raven's sequence of colourful and funny novels about the English upper-class misbehaving continues against a backdrop of intrigue in Athens, radicalism in Cambridge, turmoil in India and movie-making in Corfu. Dazzlingly witty and thoroughly depraved, Raven's world is also a dark mirror to our times - one that is sure to make you blush, shriek, laugh out loud and always read on. Volume 2: The Judas Boy, Places Where they Sing, Sound the Retreat and Come Like Shadows

Alms for Oblivion

In the Image of God

This hilarious instalment from Simon Raven's entertaining autobiography takes the reader to the four corners of the globe. A lifetime spent travelling - as a soldier and as a civilian - brought Raven into contact with an amazing selection of characters: Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, Morgan Grenfell, plus eccentrics such as Colonel Cuthbert Smith and 'Parafit' Paradore. Army life, travels, meetings, dinners and calamities take place in Kenya, Bombay, the Red Sea, Greece and California, among other exotic locations. Wherever he is, Raven entertains us in typical style.

Bird of Ill Omen

The Feathers of Death

Life with Fingel is never predictable or dull, as we discover in this collection of hilarious short stories about army life. Simon Raven writes with experience and humour about adventures and misadventures, deeds and misdeeds, fortunes and misfortunes of the regimental rascal Fingel.

The Fortunes of Fingel

A Study in the Oddities of the English Public School System

The Old School

This wonderfully funny cricketing memoir stems from the 1930s to the 1950s. With an unerring eye for observation, Raven hilariously recounts matches at Charterhouse, Cambridge and grounds as far afield as Bangalore, Kenya and Corfu. It is peopled with his famous and infamous friends and partners in crime and littered with memorable anecdotes.

Shadows On The Grass

A Novel

Blood of My Bone

Come Like Shadows is Volume VIII of the novel sequence Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven, published in 1972. It was the eighth novel to be published in The Alms for Oblivion sequence and is also the eighth novel chronologically. The story takes place in Corfu in 1970. Tom Llewyllyn and Somerset Lloyd-James (the latter by mistake) have been engaged to write the script of a movie version of the Odyssey, to be shot on Corfu. After some wrangling they ask Fielding Gray to help, since he is a man with knowledge of Greek and the classics in general. The shooting has many comic turns since the movie team wants to do a sexy story while the foundation supplying the money demands something more radical that will substantially alter the story. Left-wing actress Sasha Grimes, who is to be the foundation's "watcher" during the shoot, suggests, for example, that Odysseus give away his land to the poor.

Come Like Shadows

A Romantic Tale

Doctors Wear Scarlet

The death of the Provost of Lancaster College is a catalyst for a series of disgraceful doings in the continuing saga of the Canteloupes. Marius, under-age father of the new heir to the family estate, is warned against the malign influence of Raisley Conyngham. With fate intervening, the stage is set for another deliciously wicked instalment.

A string of long-lost and cursed rubies gives the title to this highly imaginative tale. Jacquiz Helmut and Balbo Blakeney, among other eccentric characters, pursue the jewels across four countries and eight centuries. Horror, intrigue and high comedy shape the story as it races towards an unforgettable climax.

The Roses of Picardie

The Roses Of Picardie

The sixth in the ‘First Born of Egypt’ series sees Raisley Conyngham exert a powerful influence over Marius Stern. His young pupil however is no defenceless victim. Marius has a ruthless streak and an ability to sidestep tests and traps that are laid for him. Which is just as well because everybody is after something from him.

In The Image Of God

'Each of the novels in Alms for Oblivion is an elegant morality tale, beautifully composed, sparkling with appreciation of the sheer limitless variety of human wickedness' TLS Simon Raven's sequence of colourful and funny novels about the English upper-class misbehaving continues against a backdrop of intrigue in Athens, radicalism in Cambridge, turmoil in India and movie-making in Corfu. Dazzlingly witty and thoroughly depraved, Raven's world is also a dark mirror to our times - one that is sure to make you blush, shriek, laugh out loud and always read on. Volume 2: The Judas Boy, Places Where they Sing, Sound the Retreat and Come Like Shadows 'The Alms for Oblivion series steers its way its stylish course somewhere between Fleming and Waugh' Guardian

Alms For Oblivion Volume II

'Brisk, bawdy and reckless' Evening Standard 'A freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh' Observer The Alms for Oblivion sequence - an extraordinary series of murders, suicides, affairs, fighting, fires and at least one explosion, blackmail, gambling, illness, madness, lots of parties and plenty of sex - draws to a close with two novels about death and retribution. But Simon Raven's achievement and the conflicted, colourful or uniquely vile characters he created are not easily forgotten after the last page is turned. Volume III includes Bring Forth the Body and The Survivors 'There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as nothing compared to the characters in Simon Raven's majestic, scurrilous and scabrous Alms for Oblivion cycle' Guardian

Alms For Oblivion Volume III

Der Krieg ist aus, und den jungen Engländern liegt, so scheint es, die Welt zu Füßen. Peter Morrison, Sohn eines reichen Landbesitzers, hat sich aus hehren Motiven für eine Offiziersausbildung im fernen Bangalore entschieden. In der Indischen Armee will er seinem Land und seinem König für einige Jahre dienen — und etwas von der Welt sehen. Auf dem Truppenschiff "Georgic" trifft er auf zukünftige Kameraden, die es ebenfalls in die legendäre exotische Kolonie zieht. Doch finden sie dort nicht mehr die alten Hierarchien, das lässige Luxusleben und das unbeschwerte Abenteuer vor. Vielmehr kündigt sich überall das Ende der britischen Herrschaft und die Übergabe Indiens an die einheimische muslimische und hinduistische Bevölkerung an. Und so steht Peter und seinen Freunden an der Offiziersschule völlig überraschend ein Inder als Ausbilder gegenüber: der exzentrische und in jeder Hinsicht ungewöhnliche Hauptmann Gilzai Khan. Diesem gelingt es jedoch, die skeptischen Offiziersanwärter für sich zu gewinnen, so dass sie ihm selbst dann noch die Treue halten, als er bei der britischen Regierung in Delhi in Ungnade fällt und die Armee verlassen muss. Als eines Tages die Bahnstation von aufständischen Indern belagert wird und diese Aktion Gilzai Khans Handschrift trägt, steht Peter Morrison vor der schwierigsten Entscheidung seines Lebens. Simon Raven wirft in "Blast nun zum Rückzug" ein eigenwilliges Schlaglicht auf die Kolonialgeschichte und nimmt dabei genüsslich die absurden und unrühmlichen Seiten des Armeelebens und der britischen Oberschicht in den Blick.

Roman

Blast nun zum Rückzug

Tvillingebrødrene Simon og Chris Ravens oplevelser, da de i en gammel bil kørte fra England til Vladivostok

Simon Raven

Books

Your next favorite book is out there