‘Ravensdale’ and ‘That Scoundrel Emile Dubois’ Free on Oct 4, 5 and 6 And Some Random Ramblings on Capitalisation

The adventures of Reynaud Ravesnsdale, aka Mr Fox, and Emile Dubois, otherwise known as Monsieur Gilles, are to some extent linked and when doing a giveaway I decided to do it for them both on 4,5and 6 of October.

Somebody once congratulated me on ‘how  your links never come out’. Let’s hope there’s no cause for congratulation this time.
‘Ravensdale’ is on Amazon at

http://a-fwd.com/s=lucinda+elliot+ravensdale&asin=B00JSPXQV8

while his cousin That Scoundrel Emile Dubois is on

http://a-fwd.com/s=lucinda+elliot+scoundrel&asin=B00AOA4FN4

Whew! That’s exhausted my IT skills for the day…And I got it wrong first time, and it had kindly to be pointed out to me how to include the ASIN’s…

Moving on to some rambling, readers have asked me why put in seemingly unnecessary capitalisations. Some love it, some hate it, but as to why I use them – I  borrowed or stole the idea – however you want to put it – from the writer of the early and mid twentieth century Patrick Hamilton.

I loved this style of emphasizing the cliches of everyday speech, the threadbare and stereotypical archetypes of much conventional thought, when I first encountered it in his masterpiece ‘The Slaves of Solitude’.

I’ve quoted from that book in this blog before, so this time, I’ll quote from another of his, ‘Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky’ an earlier work which follows the fates of a barman come aspiring writer who becomes wildly infatuated with a young ‘sex worker’ Jenny, the dismal experiences of his fellow bar worker Ella, who in turn worships him, and the story of how Jenny came to ply the trade she does.

Patrick Hamilton’s writing focuses on the loneliness and dreariness that he found in a life that drove him to drink and an early death. To some extent he is the male counterpart of his contemporary, the writer on isolated women Jean Rhys, and he can rival her for gloom; his comedy is always dark. Still,  his ability to see he absurd linked with the tragic  was outstanding. For instance, here is Jenny expounding on her relationship with a man she once knew: –

“Well, one day,” she continued, settling down comfortably into her story, ‘I was walking about – just not far from here – when Up comes a Lady to speak to me. Oo, and she was a lady, too – all lovely fur coat and everything. An’ she asks if she can speak to me, as she’s something to say, like. An she takes me round the corner, like, an she says, ‘Now I want you to tell me what Relationship you Bear t my husband.’ she says.  ‘You and I know all about that sort of thing,’ she says, ‘an’ I simply want you to tell me quite straight,’ she says, ‘An’ I’ll make it Worth your While.’ she says. See?”   Bob saw…

Patrick Hamilton’s work has largely sunk into obscurity, save perhaps his classic plays turned into films, ‘Rope’ and ‘Gaslight’. ‘Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky’ was also made into a film, but that has largely been forgotten.

In 2005 this work was shown as a four-part series on Channel Four,and also released as a DVD. Sadly, this did not spur a large renewal of interest in his work,  but his astonishing talent for minute, tragi-comic observation was exceptional, and his disappearance from the public knowledge is a great loss.

To return to what J B Priestly called Hamilton’s use of ‘Komic Kapitals’, a final, historical note…In the eighteenth century, it was the custom routinely to capiatalise many nouns, which is why my characters also do it in their letters, as I think this adds a certain vigour to them lacking our bland modern communications. However, as modern editions of the novels of this time tend to standardize spelling, grammar and punctuation according to modern notions, many readers remain unaware of this one time custom.

So, Now I Am Looking Forward to a Cup of Tea…