Moggerhanger

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Thinking about what I would write for the preface of this book, it occurred to me that in fact this had already been done — far more appropriately (and probably far better) — by the author himself, in his essay, “On the Picaresque Novel and the Picaresque Hero,” included in A Flight of Arrows — opinions, people, places, Robson Books, 2003/Open Road Distribution 2016.

It is fascinating to read Sillitoe’s references to the not yet written (at least, not yet completed) third volume of the trilogy. The book you intend to read now proves that he was unable to resist the blandishments of its hero, Michael Cullen. I know that he had wanted to write a modern picaresque novel, its tone culled from those earlier works of the picaresque by Mateo Aleman and Alain LeSage, shadowed by the works of those great masters. I was as captivated and amused by this book as by the earlier volumes — although there is no real need to have read them in order to understand and enjoy the tale of Michael’s latest adventures. Alan waited for fifteen years to write volume two. The interval between that and the third volume was double: thirty years. It seems unlikely that he (or anyone else) could have lived long enough to continue with this story.

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