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The Errol Flynn Novel
1st Indigo 2000 trade edition paperback new . In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Geoff Nicholson
52 books55 followersGeoff Nicholson was a British novelist and nonfiction writer. He was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Essex.
The main themes and features of his books include leading characters with obsessions, characters with quirky views on life, interweaving storylines and hidden subcultures and societies. His books usually contain a lot of black humour. He has also written three works of nonfiction and some short stories. His novel Bleeding London was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.
The main themes and features of his books include leading characters with obsessions, characters with quirky views on life, interweaving storylines and hidden subcultures and societies. His books usually contain a lot of black humour. He has also written three works of nonfiction and some short stories. His novel Bleeding London was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 3, 2009
A Tale of a Flynn Completist, January 1, 2008
"However, if you are a Flynn completist, and you happen to stumble upon a used copy for no more than 50 cents, you might go ahead and add it to your collection - if only to keep it out of the hands of someone else.. Or it might make a useful thing to start the logs burning in your fireplace on a cold winter night. Or still again, it might be worth keeping in one of your drawers for its limited curiosity value, as yet one more piece of garbage about Errol Flynn that has no redeeming value, and is about as bad a book as it could possibly be." Lincoln Hurst
It appears that there is a love/hate relationship with this novel. And it looks as if hate is on the fast-track. Not for me, I found it a bizarre fascinating read. Geoff Nicholson is known as a farcical writer, and I can see some of that exhibited in this novel, but it needs more. This was no laugh out loud novel, sort of a hehehe under your breath. Some of the story is so far fetched that I can envision a movie screen with the characters looking at each other in confusion.
Jake is a down at the heels wanna-be actor, working in a photo shop when one day a former classmate, Sacha, appears, and within a day Jake has been hired to appear in a film about Errol Flynn. Dan Ryan, the director starts sending reams of paper, books about Flynn, music and what not. Jake has difficulty keeping up with all of the info flying at his feet. And then he realizes that he wants to play Errol Flynn. This seems to have been the plan all along and off he goes to make a movie. Nothing is ever as it seems we are told, and that is true here. The film is strange, Errol Flynn is shown as the sexually explicit man he was, warts and all are fully filmed. Dan Ryan, the director becomes more unhinged and the dark side of movie making is exposed. Dan Ryan's, wife Tina, seems to be made of sterner stuff but is that really true? The novel moves from London to Hollywood to Las Vegas and the desert in-between. The charcters are more outlandish and overdone as the story moves on, but that is when the fun really begins. The novel bogs down at times, but at the same time I needed to know the ending of this strangely elusive novel. The sex talk is explicit, but there is nothing here that has not been said time and time again.
This is a novel of obsession, the dark side of Hollywood with a twist. Not enough of a twist to keep Errol Flynn intact, but this was entertaining in a bizarre sort of way. Would Errol Flynn approve? No idea, but why should we care?
Recommended. prisrob 01-01-08
"However, if you are a Flynn completist, and you happen to stumble upon a used copy for no more than 50 cents, you might go ahead and add it to your collection - if only to keep it out of the hands of someone else.. Or it might make a useful thing to start the logs burning in your fireplace on a cold winter night. Or still again, it might be worth keeping in one of your drawers for its limited curiosity value, as yet one more piece of garbage about Errol Flynn that has no redeeming value, and is about as bad a book as it could possibly be." Lincoln Hurst
It appears that there is a love/hate relationship with this novel. And it looks as if hate is on the fast-track. Not for me, I found it a bizarre fascinating read. Geoff Nicholson is known as a farcical writer, and I can see some of that exhibited in this novel, but it needs more. This was no laugh out loud novel, sort of a hehehe under your breath. Some of the story is so far fetched that I can envision a movie screen with the characters looking at each other in confusion.
Jake is a down at the heels wanna-be actor, working in a photo shop when one day a former classmate, Sacha, appears, and within a day Jake has been hired to appear in a film about Errol Flynn. Dan Ryan, the director starts sending reams of paper, books about Flynn, music and what not. Jake has difficulty keeping up with all of the info flying at his feet. And then he realizes that he wants to play Errol Flynn. This seems to have been the plan all along and off he goes to make a movie. Nothing is ever as it seems we are told, and that is true here. The film is strange, Errol Flynn is shown as the sexually explicit man he was, warts and all are fully filmed. Dan Ryan, the director becomes more unhinged and the dark side of movie making is exposed. Dan Ryan's, wife Tina, seems to be made of sterner stuff but is that really true? The novel moves from London to Hollywood to Las Vegas and the desert in-between. The charcters are more outlandish and overdone as the story moves on, but that is when the fun really begins. The novel bogs down at times, but at the same time I needed to know the ending of this strangely elusive novel. The sex talk is explicit, but there is nothing here that has not been said time and time again.
This is a novel of obsession, the dark side of Hollywood with a twist. Not enough of a twist to keep Errol Flynn intact, but this was entertaining in a bizarre sort of way. Would Errol Flynn approve? No idea, but why should we care?
Recommended. prisrob 01-01-08
June 11, 2009
Jake, an out of work actor, gets sucked into a movie project about Errol Flynn, financed by the mysterious Dan Ryan. Dan lives like Errol Flynn, drinking copious amounts, starting fights in bars and filling his voracious sexual appetite. Yet the movie is a nightmare, the script poor and the direction non-existent. Jake starts to wonder what is really going on. Then one moment the shooting suddenly wraps up. Jake follows Dan and his wife to Las Vegas, discovering that Dan financed the film with a robbery; it was his lifelong dream to make a movie about Errol Flynn and by extension himself - but he didn't realise he didn't know how to make a film.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 28, 2012
I originally read this as a teenager and enjoyed it a lot. Recently I read Errol Flynn's autobiography, so I thought I'd re-read this to see if it still stood up, I expected it wouldn't.
I did find myself enjoying it again, and read it quite quickly for me. The story is about an actor who get's a part in an independent film called The Errol Flynn Movie, and things go a bit crazy bonkers early on, then things get worse. As with Nicholson's books there are obsessive characters and humour. Fans of Nick Hornby, Dan Rhodes, and similar authors should try a Nicholson novel or two.
I did find myself enjoying it again, and read it quite quickly for me. The story is about an actor who get's a part in an independent film called The Errol Flynn Movie, and things go a bit crazy bonkers early on, then things get worse. As with Nicholson's books there are obsessive characters and humour. Fans of Nick Hornby, Dan Rhodes, and similar authors should try a Nicholson novel or two.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews