Wastepaper Baskets from Three Embassies by Jefferson X Root
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| US Embassy in London: thanks to The Guardian |
Author: Jefferson X Root
Publisher: Not known
Source book: The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
We suspect that Jefferson X Root has never been into any embassy, and Mr Miller, the local vicar, who is discovered reading this book, describes it as journalism. He thinks it ill-conceived, ill-written and ill-presented. One wonders why he was reading it at all? Perhaps he’s one of those people who cannot give up on a book halfway through. As we find Mr Miller reading, Jefferson X has missed seeing Lenin as he was out of Moscow at the moment (and no, we really have no clue whether it was Jefferson X or Lenin who was out of Moscow but probably it doesn’t make a lot of difference).
Also in The Brandons, Mr Miller has been commissioned to write a little book (he calls it an opusculum) about the poet John Donne. Donne is usually pronounced Dun but Mr Miller tells us firmly that he always says Don. He tries without much success to read excerpts from his book to Mrs Brandon.
It begins ‘Drummond of Hawthornden, in his notes on Ben Johnson’s Conversation, on the occasion of Johnson’s famous visit to him in 1618, reports Jonson as declaring that “He esteemeth John Donne as the first poet in the world for some things.” But Jonson also asserted that “Donne….”’.
You must bear in mind that Mr Miller is interrupted in his reading by Rose bringing a fresh pot of tea, Turpin mowing the lawn, Rose coming back to take the tea things away, Nurse wanting to talk about Miss Delia’s knickers (underwear), Mrs Brandon’s need for her cushion which keeps falling off her chair, and even Sir Edmund Pridham who fancies a brandy and soda.
Despite these trials Mr Miller finishes his book and posts it to his publisher. And decides to dedicate it to Mrs Brandon. Perhaps ‘To LB, in gratitude’. Unfortunately it is, as yet, without a title.
See also Hilary Grant’s many attempts to read his book to Mrs Brandon. He has greater success reading to his cousin Delia.
Also featured in The Brandons, a twopenny book called Pure as the Lily (much later an actual book called Pure as the Lily by Catherine Cookson), and another twopenny book (borrowed from Cook) called Her Dreams Came True.
NB Lord Peter Wimsey is a great fan of John Donne, and was delighted when his wife to be, Harriet Vane, bought him a letter actually written by Donne as a wedding present. Albeit disappointed because he had wanted to give it to her.
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| The old US Embassy in London: thanks to The Economist |
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