Tag: silly romance novels

Where’s Violet? (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

I’m already running low on gas this morning, and I don’t need extra agita. Nevertheless, I find I’m short an episode of Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular’s tempestuous Victorian romance set in the jungles of Scurveyshire, in southern England.

We have a recent page of her diary, found abandoned on her coffee table. Here is what I would consider a revealing excerpt.

Feb. 28: I can’t go on!  “So don’t,” says Mr. Pitfall, my neighbor. He has a passion for me that burns like something real hot, but I can’t think of what. He thinks I should have stopped Oy, Rodney at Chapter 531.

What to do, what to do? Mammoths at the gates of Coldsore Hall, warming up to break through the doors. Mr. Pudding has been eaten! And the June Taylor Dancers are on the warpath. Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad, wants to start picking them off with his hunting rifle. I try to dissuade him: “It’s not on, old boy.” “Dagnabbit, Germy, that sure is dissuasive,” he replies. Then he shoots another one.  Oh those Americans.

Meanwhile Mr. Pitfall is nagging me to run away with him. “This here passion of mine,” he said, “will make you think you’ve gone to Heaven early! Let’s start packing–do you want this Mandrake the Magician T-shirt? I once–“

And there it ends, only the one leaf torn from the diary.

I think I’ll go make mud pies.

 

Alas, Mr. Pudding!

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

We expected great things from Mr. Pudding and His Newts. Violet Crepuscular, the Queen of Suspense, had promised them to us! Sort of, at least.

But as we enter Chapter DCCCXXXI (or whatever–ask me if I care), we are informed that Mr. Pudding has been trodden underfoot by the stampeding mammoths, and then picked up and eaten by the Cyclops.

Meanwhile, we have a letter from one of our readers… a Mrs. Hobbity Smith from Fort Mange, North Dakota [sound of envelope being torn open].. I’ll read it for you.

“Dear Ms. Crepuscular, Whoever you are–

“Your misbegotten novel, Oy, Rodney, once seemed likely to blossom into great things. It was wonderful! But I’m afraid the last hundred chapters or so would have turned out better if they’d been written by monkeys.

“I challenge you, I dare you, to write one–just one!–reasonable, entertaining, and coherent chapter of this so-called romance. Ye gods, how many chapters has it been since the title character, “Rodney,” was even mentioned?”

That’s as far as I’m going to read. It really is a very harsh letter. I am told Ms. Crepuscular’s mother used to write even nastier letters to all sorts of people who weren’t expecting them.

How do we keep Violet from seeing Mrs. Hobbity Smith’s letter? That could wind up in a duel!

Enter the Cyclops (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Suddenly the sun was blotted out, and the great horned head, its one eye shining in the fog like a polished spatula before it scoops up any pancakes, slowly rises over the humped back of Pnath Hill… It is the Cyclops.

That quote comes straight out of Chapter 531 (or whatever) of Violet Crepuscular’s immoral classic, Oy, Rodney. If you’re looking for interminable romance with bells attached, pilgrim, you’ve found it!

But back to the Cyclops!

From his perch on the root of Coldsore Hall, the American adventurer Willis Twombley, who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad, ostentatiously takes aim at the cyclops’ single eye.

“If there’s anything I hate,” he cackles, “it’s a fake cyclops. Those dang-nab Elamites were always trying to run that scam. Well, here comes payback!”

Lord Jeremy Coldsore interrupts, with an unbecoming belch. “I say! Won’t that gentleman get rather fierce, if you take pot shots at him?”

“You just leave the cyclops to me, Germy!”

He takes careful aim, checks which way the wind is blowing… and shoots.

The bullet pings off the cyclops’ horn and wounds a woolly mammoth who has already been winged once and isn’t happy about it.

With an ear-piercing trumpet, the mammoth bears down on Lord Jeremy’s front door.

“And that’s all you get for now!!” adds Ms. Crepuscular. “There is a point where shilly-shallying must give way to pure suspense, or the reverse will happen and then you have a stupid book.”

Is the woolly mammoth really on the brink of being ...

(An Elamite hoax?)

The Cyclops Is Still Coming (‘Oy, Rodney)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Well, we’re still in Chapter DXXXI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney. “The cyclops was held up by other business commitments,” Ms. Crepuscular declares. “:I am not at liberty to disclose them.”

Meanwhile, woolly mammoths, provoked by the June Taylor Dancers, continue to make a shambles of downtown Scurveyshire. (Editor’s note: There is no uptown.) The regular people are holed up in Coldsore Hall.

Johnno the Merry Minstrel thinks he has a solution to the problem. He has decided not to reveal it. Just then–

Cyclops the 7th voyage of sinbad Black and White Stock ...

“Holy moley!” exfoliates Lady Margo Cargo. “The cyclops! He’s coming up Fulonda Hill! We’re all doomed, I tell you! Doomed!”

“Aw, dry up,” repatriates her fiancee, Lord Jeremy Coldsore.  “Anyone would think you never saw a cyclops before.”

Meanwhile Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad, continues to take pot shots at the dancers.

“They ruined The Jackie Gleason Show for me, them gol-danged dancers,” he carols.

“Hadn’t we ought to save some ammunition for the cyclops?” Lord Jeremy proposes.

“Nah! Just poke out his eye with a pointed burning stick, and you’ll have him where you want him. Leastways,” Twombley adds, “that’s how we always done it in Akkad.”

Stay tuned for next week’s installment of this breath-taking serial. In the meantime… fret about it!

Mammoths? What Mammoths? (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Editing Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, shouldn’t happen to a dog. Now she says her notes are lost, she has to write some kind of bilge about Ice Age woolly mammoths terrorizing the English countryside during Queen Victoria’s reign. I don’t understand “has to”!

Scurveyshire is right smack-dab in the middle of the mammoths’ projected course from Whitby on the North Sea to Bowling Mickle in Cornwall. Assisted by various incapable people, Lord Jeremy tries to organize an evacuation.

“That word is spelled wrong,” I complain to Ms. Crepuscular on the phone.

“Shut up,” she reasoned.

The American adventurer, Willis Twombley, who believes himself to be Sargon of Akkad, has some advice to offer.

“Move everybody into Coldsore Hall and block up all the doors and windows,” he says. “Then, when the mammoths come, everybody bang on pots and pans until the brutes flee back to where they came from. We used to do that when the Mitanni raided us. Worked like a charm!”

Constable Chumley agrees. “Say-ay mon differy, moddle my gurth!” he ululates.

The mammoths are expected to stumble into Scurveyshire at 9:16 tomorrow morning.

“Be there or be square,” says the author.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+jungle+1952+movie%2C+mammoth+scene&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS758US758&oq=the+jungle+1952+movie%2C+mammoth+scene&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.13249j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f64db826,vid:vEuMMsZv-lA,st:0

Can you beat that? They didn’t put their mammoths in the trailer.

 

Alas, Poor Violet! (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Who would have ever thought that Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, would have bogged down after a mere 530 chapters?

She blames me for it.

“What am I supposed to do with that frothing dragon of yours?” she shouts on the telephone. Really, I’m not up for this. “And I’d have married Lady Margo Cargo and Lord Jeremy Coldsore 300 chapters ago, if I’d had my way!”

“You can’t do that. It would be bigamy.”

To show me who means business, she has embarked on a new plot line that has nothing to do with anything that went before it. “It’s prehistoric mammoths tearing apart suburban villages–and we have to see if hand grenades can stop ’em,” she parobviates.

I venture the observation that there is a movie very similar to that, only set in India instead of the suburbs. This earns me 15 minutes of abuse.

Well, give her a week and see if she comes up with something. Oy, Rodney meets Dracula, something along those lines… but I’m only guessing.

More Suspense: Almost ‘Finis!’ for Violet

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

It’s not quite “The dog ate my homework,” but it does explain why we still haven’t seen Chapter DCCXLIV of Violet Crepuscular’s interminable romance, Oy, Rodney. As excuses go, this one is hard to beat.

It seems her next-door neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, had a quicksand bog installed in his front yard–sort of a fad in that neighborhood. And Violet, just as she was cogitating the next chapter of her classic romance, fell in. Just before she went under for good, Mr. Pitfall came out with his pet bison, Mickey, and pulled her out.

“The experience left me drained of creativity,” she confides in her readers, “so that chapter will have to wait until my senses return to normal. It was only the fourth time in my life that I’ve fallen into quicksand, and it kind of takes the wind out of my sails.”

We are promised a chapter next week, come what may. Really, this is playing hob with the narrative.

Can We Help the Queen of Suspense?

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

We’ve been waiting two weeks for Chapter DCCXLIV of Violet Crepuscular’s immortal romance novel, Oy, Rodney. Is she all right?

“She went out trick-or-treatin’ last night,” says her neighbor, Mr. Pitfall, “and never come back. She wears the same costume every year–a milkmaid with sort of a stuffed possum on her shoulder.” Last night was Oct. 5. “She likes to get out there before anybody else,” explains Mr. Pitfall. “Once or twice she came out in August. Nobody ever gives her any candy. I give her some chewin’ tobacco once.”

To recapitulate: The June Taylor Dancers, transported into the Victorian Age, are hiding in the woods around Scurveyshire. Lord Jeremy Coldsore is hunting for them with his 20-pound accordion. And Mr. Pudding is preparing his newts for war. There’s also something about Lady Margo Cargo discovering the source of the Nile, but Ms. Crepuscular has been strangely silent about that.

She does have a message for her readers. If you can’t find a copy of The Scurveyshire Times, here’s the substance of it.

“Dear readers, I have not stopped writing! I am only building up the suspense. That is why they call me The Queen of Suspense. That is why they call my most devoted readers ‘Idiots.’ Next week, honest, I’ll have that chapter for you!”

[Editor’s Note: Mr. Pitfall goes to bed at 6 p.m. every night. If Violet had come home at 6:15, he would have missed her.]

Violet Crepuscular: ‘I Have No Ideas!’ (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon

Sooner or later it comes to every writer (with the notable exception of Edgar Rice Burroughs): that conviction of utter hopelessness, that inability to write another word. We call it “Maria.”

Everything is set up for Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, to embark on Chapter DCCXLIV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. The June Taylor Dancers are lurking in the woods around Scurveyshire. Lord Jeremy has his 20-pound accordion. {“Does it weigh 20 pounds, did it cost 20 pounds, or both?” we hear you ask.) Mr. Pudding has organized his newts.

And there’s poor Violet, stuck in neutral.

“A Greek fortune-teller told me this would happen!” she confides in her rapidly diminishing host of readers. “How told me in great detail how to avoid it; but I don’t speak Greek, so I didn’t understand a word of it.”

The publisher is thinking of bringing in a ghost writer, but that would require a seance.

“I have to break through!” Ms. Crepuscular agonizes. “There must be dozens of readers waiting tensely for my next chapter!” Will the newts run wild? Will the June Taylor Dancers dance to Lord Jeremy’s tune? Has the evil medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, come back to stay? Is the theater really dead?

[Advice to Violet: You need an agent, kiddo. Binky Fong Associates is looking for new authors to introduce to a largely Manchurian audience. Tell ’em A Guy sent you.]

‘The Return of Black Rodney’ (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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Oy Rodney – Lee Duigon‘

At last! Chapter DCCXLIV of Violet Crepuscular’s classic (if interminable) romance, Oy, Rodney.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Ms Crepuscular addresses her uncountable multitude of readers. “I misplaced my notebook and couldn’t remember what was supposed to happen in the story.” She refuses to tell us where the notebook turned up. When our associate editor tried to find out, goons came to his door.

“A lot of people are mad at me for bringing the June Taylor Dancers in and making them villains,” she continues. “Well, wait’ll you read about the music Lord Jeremy plays on his 20-pound accordion! We’re thinking of including an audio disc in the book, when it’s published. Warning! It would be most unwise to play this music to any potentially dangerous animals or humans.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for Chapter DCCXLIV. She hasn’t told us anything about it! Has she actually written it? We sent some of our goons to her door to find out. (Yes, there are more goons in the publishing industry than you would ever imagine. We can’t do without them.) After some very rough treatment, Ms. Crepuscular admits she hasn’t written anything in several weeks.

“I can’t help it!” she exfoliates. “Haven’t you ever heard of writer’s block? That awful, unbearable sense of just not knowing what to write! I wake up screaming, I tell you!”

The medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney–well, he seems to be missing, too.