Favorite novels that feature traditional knives, guys?

[5K Qs]

Works for me, Gary!

Thanks, Vince.

I've been reading some of Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries this summer, and I think a pen knife was mentioned in at least one of them, but I don't remember which story. (I've read all the stories in The Innocence of Father Brown and most of the stories in The Wisdom of Father Brown - I think those are the first two collections, and I'm just reading them online with my laptop.)

- GT

 

[Henry Beige]

Without reading through all of the back posts here I can’t say whether anyone has mentioned that Longmire carries a Buck 110. Whoever mentioned the knives in Cormac McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” neglected to mention that a knife fight figures prominently in each of the three novels.

 

[jackknife]

Without reading through all of the back posts here I can’t say whether anyone has mentioned that Longmire carries a Buck 110. Whoever mentioned the knives in Cormac McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” neglected to mention that a knife fight figures prominently in each of the three novels.

The Longmire Buck 110 was a Hollywood liberty with Craig Johnson's books. The literary Walt Longmire carried a Case. Its mentioned in a few books, but only one refers to it as a bone handled trapper.

The Buck probably had more film presence.

 

[Henry Beige]

The Longmire Buck 110 was a Hollywood liberty with Craig Johnson's books. The literary Walt Longmire carried a Case. Its mentioned in a few books, but only one refers to it as a bone handled trapper.

The Buck probably had more film presence.

By George, you are right. The Images in the TV series must have overborne my memory of the books, most of which I read several years before the series. When I think about Longmire and a knife, all I see is that 110.

 

[5K Qs]

I'm currently rereading Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, one of my favorite books of all time. The Land family from Minnesota is pulling an Airstream trailer through North Dakota, hoping to locate the oldest (16) son, Davy, who shot a couple of low-lifes threatening the family, was arrested and put on trial for murder, and escaped from jail before the trial ended. His 2 younger siblings, brother Reuben (12) and sister Swede (9), decide they, being fugitives from the law as well, need to swear an oath of silence signed in blood, like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn did. Swede tells Rube to get out his knife.
I had a castoff Scout of Davy's – the big blade was only knuckle-long, having been snapped off trying to pry something. I swiped it cautiously. "Swede, it's really dull."
"Hm – we'll use the awl."
"The awl? No, Swede." I'd holed innumerable leather belts with that awl; it was blunt as a baby tooth. Also corroded. "We'll get sick," I told her. "We'll get lockjaw and have to go to the hospital, and then we won't be fugitives anymore."
So we stuck with just the appalling oath. I've forgotten the exact parlance, but it was a rare and lofty oath, studded with illustrious and disused old words, such as treachery, and banishment, and leprous."

- GT

 

[hsherzfeld]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. The knife seems to be an indispensable tool for Royal Navy sailors.

"One midshipman still had his dirk, and the two others their silver spoons. Several of the foremast-hands had saved their ditty-bags, often beautifully embroidered, their hussifs, and of course their knives." -- The Fortune of War p.93

"As is was, all the weapons the Surprises possessed were [Jack Aubrey's] sword, Blakeney's dirk and pocket-pistol, and the boat-hook; the seamen all had their knives, of course, but then so did most of the Norfolks."

"He slipped the pistol into his pocket -- there was already a long thin dangerous blade of the kind called a gully inside his belt and a jacknife on a laniard round his neck -- passed the hat and followed his Captain." --The Far Side of the World, pp. 385 and 399

 

[mnblade]

Here's another: Ford Mattox Ford's The Good Soldier. A pen-knife figures prominently into the plot.

For any of you Kindle users, I just saw this book on "sale" at the big river site for a whopping $0! Needless to say, I "bought" a copy.

-- Mark