Three Cheers for Me

The Bandy Papers, Volume One

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Pub Date 12 Jan 2017 | Archive Date 23 Mar 2018

Description

For fans of Flashman or Derek Robinson, the opener in a classic series of humorous wartime fiction - and a favourite of P.G. Wodehouse

With his disturbingly horse-like face and a pious distaste for strong drink and bad language, young Bartholomew Bandy doesn’t seem cut out for life in the armed services, as we meet him at the start of World War I.

Yet he not only survives the dangers and squalor of the infantry trenches, he positively thrives in the Royal Flying Corps, revealing a surprising aptitude for splitarsing Sopwith Camels and shooting down the Hun. He even manages to get the girl.

Through it all he never loses his greatest ability – to open his mouth and put his foot in it.

"I enjoyed every word . . . terrifically funny." P.G. Wodehouse

Donald Jack’s blackly humorous Bandy "memoirs" are classics of their kind. Against an unshrinkingly depicted backdrop of war and its horrors, his anti-hero’s adventures are both gripping and shockingly funny.

The subsequent volumes follow his adventures through the war as a flying ace and into the 20's and 30's, with the last books carrying him into World War 2.

For fans of Flashman or Derek Robinson, the opener in a classic series of humorous wartime fiction - and a favourite of P.G. Wodehouse

With his disturbingly horse-like face and a pious distaste for...


A Note From the Publisher

Not available to readers in USA/Canada

Not available to readers in USA/Canada


Advance Praise

Reviews of The Bandy Papers:

“Funny. Very. Donald Jack has as light a touch with this fragile art as his hero has on throttle of a Sopwith Camel. Excessive corn is avoided in favour of wit and a delight in life.” New York Times

"Jack does more than play it for laughs . . . The mingling of humor and horror is like a clown tap-dancing on a coffin, but Jack is skillful enough to get away with it." Time Magazine

“For those to whom Bandy is a newcomer, what a treat is in store.” Toronto Star

“To know Bandy is to love him . . . you tend to gallop through and come hurtling out at the end panting for more.” The Sunday Sun

"I enjoyed every word . . . terrifically funny." P.G. Wodehouse

Reviews of The Bandy Papers:

“Funny. Very. Donald Jack has as light a touch with this fragile art as his hero has on throttle of a Sopwith Camel. Excessive corn is avoided in favour of wit and a...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9781911440598
PRICE £2.99 (GBP)

Average rating from 15 members


Featured Reviews

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This is a terrific, blackly humorous tale. The amazing thing is that the humour - which is everywhere in the book - somehow manages not to obscure the horrors of WWI but blends, apparently effortlessly, with it. The necessity of laughter in horrendous situations is abundantly clear here - as is the gradual fall from innocence of the initially ingenuous Bartholomew Bandy. Great stuff, and I'll be searching out the sequels. I simply can't understand why I'd never heard of this series before!

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An interesting and humorous story of an officer from a puritanical rural community in Canada drafted into with the army in WW1. He survives wounded from the battle of the Somme and after recovering in England is transferred to the RFC. Here he finds his element and become an Ace pilot surviving many aero combats and gains rapid promotion. However the stress and dangers that he faces leads to some relaxing of his straight jacketed life. He is also a most unusual autistic sort of character pragmatic and decisive in action but inept and bumbling in his social intercourses. This leads to the most hilarious conversations and incidents that can hardly be imagined. Reading can lead to involuntary bursts of loud laughter. The story leaves the reader wondering what happens next, will the hero survive the rest of the war, will he marry the fiancé that he acquires and how will he cope with married life? Can’t wait to find out.

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Bartholomew Bandy is a kind of Candide. As Candide he comes from North America, specifically Canada, seen as a place where a certain honesty of thought survives. The son of a bigoted and sober Pastor, goes to war with his his horse-face and his total social incompetence, which makes him say and do whatever comes into his head with the utmost awkwardness and without a second thought. Among hilarious adventures that look a bit like the mythical Müchausen Baron ones and on the wings of a fortune proportionate only to its incredible clumsiness, Bandy went from infantry lieutenant to ace gunner, in the meantime leading to madness any superior in which he comes into contact and having in the meantime learned to drink and smoke.
First Book of a long and successful series, it caused me crisis of laughter that I did not remember from the days of Three Men in a Boat, which is why I will try to get the other volumes.
Thank Farrago and Netgalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

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