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Alan Judd (1) (1946–)

Autor(a) de The Devil's Own Work

Para outros autores com o nome Alan Judd, veja a página de desambiguação.

19+ Works 760 Membros 19 Reviews

Séries

Obras de Alan Judd

The Devil's Own Work (1991) 145 cópias
The Kaiser's Last Kiss (2003) 118 cópias
Legacy (2001) 56 cópias
Ford Madox Ford (1990) 53 cópias
Dancing with Eva (2007) 51 cópias
A Breed of Heroes (1763) 48 cópias
Short of Glory (1984) 34 cópias
Uncommon Enemy (2012) 24 cópias
Inside Enemy (2014) 24 cópias
Deep Blue (2017) 16 cópias
Tango (1990) 15 cópias
Accidental Agent (2019) 12 cópias
Shakespeare's Sword (2018) 10 cópias
The Noonday Devil (1988) 8 cópias
Slipstream. (2016) 4 cópias
Queen & Country (2022) 4 cópias

Associated Works

The Good Soldier (1915) — Introdução, algumas edições4,763 cópias
Granta 7: Best of Young British Novelists (1983) — Contribuinte — 91 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome de batismo
Petty, Alan Edwin
Data de nascimento
1946
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
UK
País (para mapa)
UK
Educação
Oxford University
Ocupação
soldier
diplomat
security analyst
writer
novelist
Premiações
Granta's Best of Young British Novelists (1983)
Royal Society of Literature (1990)
Pequena biografia
Alan Judd is a pseudonym of Alan Edwin Petty, born in the UK. A graduate of Oxford University, he served as an officer in the British Army in Northern Ireland before later joining the Foreign Office. Since then, he has worked as a security analyst and a journalist. It was while working for the Foreign Office that he began writing novels. He made his literary debut with A Breed of Heroes (1981), which won the Winifred Holtby Award and was adapted by the BBC into a television drama. The main character, Charles Thoroughgood, returned in three more books so far, Legacy (2001), Uncommon Enemy (2012), and Inside Enemy (2014). Other novels include Short of Glory (1984), Tango (1989), and The Noonday Devil (1987). His historical fiction includes The Kaiser's Last Kiss (2003), which was adapted into the film The Exception in 2016, and Dancing With Eva (2007). In 1990, he published a biography of Ford Madox Ford, and wrote another novel, The Devil's Own Work (1991), paying homage to Ford. Judd is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator. In 1990, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Membros

Resenhas

I have not read any of the earlier novels featuring Charles Thoroughgood, although this stood fairly well on its own. I enjoyed it, but the whole plot felt extremely unlikely - I really hope the chiefs at MI6 are a bit more on top of things...
½
 
Marcado
pgchuis | Jul 21, 2023 |
Based in the period of the Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European Union, Judd paints a picture of the stratagems of both sides in order to meet their goals and the almost inevitable resulting compromise to allow each to say that these have been met. The main characters are Charles Thoroughgood, chief of MI6 and his deputy, Gareth Hawley, who aspires to become chief on Thoroughgood’s imminent retirement. Into the main storyline, is interwoven the possible Islamic threat posed by the godson of Thoroughgood’s wife, Sarah. Although Judd captures the tension of the negotiations well and the bureaucracy that frustrates and annoys Thoroughgood at his work, Hawley’s actions seem out of character with his previous career and thus undermine and weaken the end of the book.… (mais)
 
Marcado
camharlow2 | Dec 27, 2022 |
Oh, I really liked this. I think it helped that I know little enough of Marlowe to begin with that I wasn’t irked about errors or fabrications in his biography. If anything, the book has inspired me to read more about Marlowe.
What I also really like is that this book could have been a thriller of derring do and using Kit as and “action hero”. Judd doesn’t do this. This is told by a character (a specialist in cyphers and fellow “spy”) who is imprisoned in the Tower and is interviewed by someone 30 years after Marlowe’s death. The interview is being conducted apparently about Marlowe by order of the King.
It’s all about Kit’s character and more so his way of thinking, with his search for honesty (and whether it can be found in religion) in the foreground.
The suspense element is built around us not knowing why Thomas is being questioned about Marlowe.
It does become clear in the last chapter but in keeping with the espionage theme and the vagueness and ambiguity of what each of the characters say to each other, it is never spelled out for the reader.

Apart from the investigation into Marlowe’s thinking and character (both of which I thought were done really well), I loved the structure and style in which the story was told. I totally felt immersed in the Jacobean politics and plotting that made it impossible to trust any of the characters completely. Judd pitched this against the main character describing Marlowe’s search for truth in everything, which I felt was a superb contrast to the description of the environment in which Marlowe lived.

The ending also really worked for me. It finally touches on a point that other books such as Tamburlaine Must Die have picked up about Marlowe, but I really liked how Judd deals with it. Again, it seemed that Judd acknowledges that too little fact is known to be certain of much about Marlowe, and that speculation may actually distract from the bigger picture.

"What I can say is that a man is more than his proclivities. Christopher had hot blood and a fearless mind. He walked where the rest of us fear to tread and he dissolved my faith in the life to come. Yet he sought not to destroy, but to be true. His bequest to me was honest doubt. That is what I believe is important about him, more than his plays or his verses, of which I know sadly little. His life showed that the courage to be honest is the best exemplar of whatever life might be to come. If there is one. And if there is no life to come, only nothingness, then being honest about that and living fully in the face of nothing is an even greater virtue, the very best we can do. And that surely is deserving of something."

I very much look forward to reading more by Alan Judd.
… (mais)
1 vote
Marcado
BrokenTune | 1 outra resenha | Oct 10, 2022 |
Alan Judd's A Fine Madness, which is being republished in February 2022, has received mixed reviews on GoodReads, which I think is more about genre expectations that about the quality of the novel itself, which is first-rate. Marginally, A Fine Madness is a mystery novel: it's a imagined recounting of the espionage career and murder of the Elizabethan writer and sometimes intelligencer Christopher Marlowe by Elizabeth I's top code-breaker Thomas Phelippes. But primarily, this is a novel about faith and mortality and the ways a tight connection between faith and State can force individuals into internal contortions—and sometimes external ones as well.

The set-up here is that Phelippes is writing while imprisoned in the tower near the end of his life. A representative of James I has approached Phelippes saying the monarch wants to learn all Phelippes knows about Marlow, but without providing any context that could direct the flow of Phelippes' reminiscences. As Phelippes narrates his tale, he finds himself pondering Marlowe's approach to religion, particularly his views of mortality.

Phelippes is a cautious, conventional man in contrast to the firebrand Marlowe, who chooses to walk along every precipitous edge he can find, but the two build a warm, if at arms-length relationship. Phelippes frets over the risks Marlowe takes; Marlowe is gentle with Phelippes in ways he isn't with others.

If you're a reader expecting an action-packed tale of Elizabethan skullduggery, you're going to find this kind of ruminative novel unsatisfying. But if you're ready for a novel that makes you think about the issues that trouble Marlowe—and later Phelippes—you're in for a very rewarding experience. This is the kind of novel that merits more than a single reading and the repays readers' efforts in proportion to those efforts. Don't let the lack of swashbuckling blind you to the gem this novel truly is.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
… (mais)
1 vote
Marcado
Sarah-Hope | 1 outra resenha | Dec 17, 2021 |

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Associated Authors

Owen King Introduction
Francesca Melli Translator
Matt Godfrey Narrator

Estatísticas

Obras
19
Also by
2
Membros
760
Popularidade
#33,470
Avaliação
3.8
Resenhas
19
ISBNs
118
Idiomas
3

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