The Maltese Novel

Greenmantle stands as 'the Malta book', just as a certain garment is 'the Montreal hat'. (There is also, of course, 'the Malta hat'.) There is equally a second 'Malta book', a trilingual book of poetry by John Cremona, Poesie - Poems - Poeziji (a dot should set on top of the 'z' in the Maltese, but blogging is made to disdain diacriticals for some technie reason).

The expression 'the Malta book', used of Buchan's novel, is, in true metonymic fashion, short for, an everyday ellipsis of, 'the book JT bought in Malta'. It's not a book about Malta, or originating in Malta (both of which Cremona's book is). Greenmantle is Maltese only for me, for 'yours truly'. It recalls a morning stroll from our hotel to adjacent Floriana, the temperature as always for that week 33 degrees, a stop at a tiny shop with a revolving rack of books, each going for 1 euro, the Buchan the most purchasable (I think I could have bought some Giradoux in French). Had I a certain sort of verbal skill which I have not cultivated over the years (perhaps I should have), I could render that shop for you swiftly, ecphrastically, as Buchan might have done. Example:

... [P]resently we saw a light twinkle in the hollow ahead.

It proved to be wretched tumble-down farm in a grove of poplars--a foul-smelling, muddy yard, a two-roomed hovel of a house, and a barn which was tolerably dry and which we selected for our sleeping place. The owner was a broken old fellow whose sons were all at the war, and he received us with the profound calm of one who expects nothing but unpleasantness from life. (154-5)

Thus might I work up a picture of my Floriana place-of-purchase; certainly I was sold the book by a man and a woman, probably a couple, certainly old and not-well-off.

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The source of the image is Google Images, namely an interview with the designer; the actual link seems broken, but the site where the interview appeared is listed as www.designrelated.com. Clearly the image is designed to be, stylistically, retro; Glenn Baxter used to work ironically in this mode. Note the pointed finger, which in fact identifies the picture as illustrating a moment in the novel which will be of interest to us.