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Poet's Pub

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 24 ratings · 8 reviews

This paperback edition forms part of a boxed set of facsimilies of the first ten Penguin Books, published to mark the Penguin's fiftieth anniversary.

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Published December 1929 by Penguin (first published 1929)

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Aug 21, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Linklater, Eric. POET’S PUB. (1930). ****. This was Linklater’s early breakthrough novel that was extraordinarily popular in its day. It holds up very well. I’m amazed it is still out of print since it reads very much like a Wodehouse novel – which now seem to be all the rage in their rediscovery. The story is really about a pub called “The Downy Pelican,” but was run by Mr. Saturday Keith, a poet of no great achievement, but an excellent publican. His real attraction to the owner of a chain of...more Linklater, Eric. POET’S PUB. (1930). ****. This was Linklater’s early breakthrough novel that was extraordinarily popular in its day. It holds up very well. I’m amazed it is still out of print since it reads very much like a Wodehouse novel – which now seem to be all the rage in their rediscovery. The story is really about a pub called “The Downy Pelican,” but was run by Mr. Saturday Keith, a poet of no great achievement, but an excellent publican. His real attraction to the owner of a chain of pubs who hired him was that he was a rower at university, though he was never on a winning team. The pub is in a small town called Downish, an hour or so outside of London. Under Mr. Keith’s management, the pub has become very popular and all of its thirteen rooms are usually all rented out at any given time. It usually collects an odd assemblige of eccentric Brits who somehow manage to “get on” with each other within the pub’s atmosphere. The conversations among the guests are often vague, but always tongue-in-cheek. For example, in a conversation between a Mr. Van Buren (an American traveller) and a British professor of literary criticism, we hear the following: “Van Buren continued to grumble and professor said consolingly, ‘When I was a young man I used to make tremendous literary discoveries. They were of two kinds. I either found that my theories were already common knowledge, or that for some reason which I had completely overlooked they were quite untenable. In the latter class there is one whose memory I cherish. It was that Bacon cribbed his Essays from a notebook of Shakespeare’s which he had picked up in a tavern.’” The book continues in this vein for the first half until we have gotten to know the flock of guests at the pub. It is only after we know them pretty well that the story turns into an adventure tale tied into two tales of romance. This is the style of novel that is not written anymore, and you find yourself smiling a lot while you are reading it. Recommended.(less)

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Nov 25, 2011 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, library-books

Saturday Keith (his parents' seventh son, named after the day of his birth) is a poet, but he's feeling glum after some less-than-flattering reviews of his latest book. He's quit his job at a shipping/exports company, and ends up getting set up as manager of a fancy pub/inn owned by the mother of one of his novelist-friends. As the manager of the Pelican, Keith gets to see bits of people and their lives; so do we, as readers. But it's not just ordinary daily life and love and meetings that we se...more Saturday Keith (his parents' seventh son, named after the day of his birth) is a poet, but he's feeling glum after some less-than-flattering reviews of his latest book. He's quit his job at a shipping/exports company, and ends up getting set up as manager of a fancy pub/inn owned by the mother of one of his novelist-friends. As the manager of the Pelican, Keith gets to see bits of people and their lives; so do we, as readers. But it's not just ordinary daily life and love and meetings that we see: a theft at the Pelican turns the book into a madcap chase. Linklater is clever and often funny; several bits, particularly toward the end, made me laugh. He's good at dialogue and bits of conversation, and while his descriptive passages are sometimes over the top, they mostly manage to be amusing rather than annoying. This passage, in which the pub's bartender (who has invented two blue cocktails, which a guest at the inn has just christened "Oxford" and "Cambridge") mixes drinks, seems pretty representative of the book's general style:

'Anything that a lady like Miss Benbow suggests is all right, sir,' said Holly politely; and deftly poured measures of this and measures of that, crystal clear, faintly yellow and richer orange, a glass delicately poised with the rising meniscus unbroken, a drop, two drops of wormwood, a fluid once of sweetness and an ounce of twice-distilled strength...gravely, intent on his task as an alchemist seeking the elixir, the aurum potabile, Holly poured his chosen liquors into a long silver shaker, added broken fragments of ice, screwed down the top, and, like a man with the palsy, shook. His hands were clenched on either butt, his muscles were taut, his face set like a mask. And all this time his audience watched him silently as if a conjuror were at work, and where paper flags had gone in the doves of peace might emerge. (39)

Also, this made me grin, because my boyfriend and I often squabble about how, um, contrary I am:

'I like independence more than anything else. But a girl can be independent without contradicting everything she hears.'
'Not if she's honest. People talk such rubbish.' (48)

(less)

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Apr 10, 2013 Christine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An excellent read! One of the few books (if not the only one) that made me laugh out loud. Wonderful British humour that sneaks up on you during regular conversation and makes you pause to smile.

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Aug 04, 2012 Bruce Amaro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Entertaining and a 20th century Canterbury Tales of characters in English pubs as English life once was before 1939.

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Apr 21, 2013 Halley rated it 2 of 5 stars

I found this book boring. It read a lot like a play, now that I think of it. It's a charming comedy of errors, I guess you could say. I think the most entertaining character was the blue cocktail (yes, I'm referring to an inanimate, albeit alcoholic, object).

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Feb 04, 2013 Charles Moody rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This spirited farce is fun from the first page to the last. The cover describes it as a “literary Cheers,” but I think a closer movie/TV comparison might be Bringing Up Baby. There are misunderstandings and a comic chase, and throughout the kind of snappy and hilarious dialogue that you can imagine Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant delivering. I was not ready for the book to end, and sorry that there wasn’t a sequel.

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Mar 13, 2013 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: penguin-classics

Good story, great characters, and terrifically witty dialogue make this book a true pleasure.

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Sep 20, 2012 D.T. Max added it

great fun and silly. like one long pbs masterpiece theatre episode.

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Jun 07, 2013 Robert Teeter marked it as to-read

May 24, 2013 Michael Nascimento marked it as to-read · review of another edition

May 17, 2013 James Ervin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apr 22, 2013 Eamon marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Apr 21, 2013 Bee Ernst marked it as to-read

Apr 07, 2013 J. added it

Mar 25, 2013 Joseph Quinton marked it as to-read

Mar 20, 2013 Bosa Mora marked it as to-read

Mar 17, 2013 Lisa Isselée rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mar 16, 2013 janel.m rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, 2013

Mar 02, 2013 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Feb 17, 2013 Paul Dodaro is currently reading it · review of another edition

Feb 15, 2013 Nathan marked it as to-read

Jan 28, 2013 Sara marked it as to-read

Jan 24, 2013 Heather marked it as to-read

Jan 29, 2013 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jan 18, 2013 Leslie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jan 03, 2013 Zoe marked it as to-read

Dec 31, 2012 Brett is currently reading it · review of another edition

Dec 24, 2012 Blue Caeruleus marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

Dec 12, 2012 Anna marked it as to-read

Nov 30, 2012 Roland rated it 3 of 5 stars

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