Match Me Such Marvel by St John Clarke

Both images thanks to Yumk86 on Instagram 

Title: Match Me Such Marvel 

Author: St John Clarke

Publisher: not known 

Source book: A Dance to the Music of Time series by Anthony Powell (I don’t know which book)

OK, let me start by saying that I have never yet read any of the 12 books in the Dance to the Music of Time sequence. My father loved them apparently, but he died when I was 7, and my mother didn’t like them so we didn’t have any of these books in the house when I was growing up. Maybe one day I will give the first book a try. However, I do seem to have a huge pile of books to be read, so don’t hold your breath.

So anyway, in pursuit of fictional books, I discover that St John Clarke, is apparently a thinly disguised portrait of Nobel Prize winning author John Galsworthy, best known for the Forsyte Saga. St John Clarke has fictitiously written a number of fictional books, including Match Me Such Marvel. I have found several references to this fictional book, but do they tell me which actual book Match Me Such Marvel features in? Of course not. What they say is A Dance to the Music of Time. Perhaps it often gets a mention.

And here we are, St John Clarke has also written Dust Thou Art, 

E’en the Longest River, 

Fields of Amaranth,

The Heart is Highland,

Mimosa,

and Never to the Philistines. 

Apparently.

And do I have any clue what any of these fictional books is about? Well, no, obviously not. But look at the titles. Most of the Dance to the Music of Time books were published in the 1950s and 60s, so perhaps that’s why these fictional book titles sound so false to me. Match Me Such Marvel? What sort of book title is that? Maybe it sounded less fictitious back then.

Certainly sounds a whole lot fictitious now.

When I was a small child my godfather had a dachshund called St John. But nobody told me how to spell it. I have a clear memory of writing my Christmas thank you letters, and finishing my letter to Uncle B with a hope that “Sinjun” is well. That’s how you pronounce St John if it’s a name. If it’s a Saint, well obviously you pronounce it Saint John. And St John was my husband’s middle name.