{"id":749,"date":"2019-02-11T09:21:42","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T09:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=749"},"modified":"2019-02-11T09:21:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T09:21:50","slug":"review-of-davenants-egg-and-other-tales-by-jemahl-evans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=749","title":{"rendered":"Review of Davenant\u2019s Egg and Other Tales by Jemahl Evans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In this slim volume<\/a>, the reader encounters five tales centred upon the Royalist Siege of Gloucester in 1643. Each is narrated by the author\u2019s roguish character, Sir Blandford Candy, who provides the reader with insights into life both within the besieged city, and without. Notable historical personages make an appearance \u2013 Charles I, Sir William Davenant, and Colonel Edward Massey \u2013 as well as plausible sundry ordinary folk, such as a couple of gravediggers, trying to go about their everyday business in far from everyday circumstances. Evans thus paints with a varied palette, vividly transporting the reader into the miserable and dangerous reality of the time, but not without a certain admixture of wit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author has researched the history underpinning the siege well, which helps lend an authenticity to his stories, and out of the five, it would have to be The Gravediggers<\/em>, with its slow-witted and yet noble Haystack that proves to be the most moving. However, it is in the last tale \u2013 The Red Regiment<\/em> \u2013 that we finally hear Candy speak in his own voice, and what a scurrilous and appealing voice it is. It contains one of the most memorable images encountered within the book\u2019s virtual pages, in which Candy voids the contents of his bowels in a field, before wiping his arse on pages torn from a book of psalms and prayers. In the trilogy of novels associated with this collection, it is Candy who speaks to the reader in the first person, and from what little I have so far read of its first instalment \u2013 The Last Roundhead<\/em><\/a>\u2013 his irascible and witheringly witty voice comes across as a strongly appealing one, suggesting that the novels make for a more satisfying read. There might lurk within, just the slightest smidgen of Smollett, and that\u2019s no bad thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To dip into the tale of another seventeenth-century rogue by the name of Robert Tooley, click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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