One of the most delightful and original satires I’ve read in ages, this debut novel pokes fun at just about every aspect of British society, from government spin-meisters and crass politicians to marriages of convenience, TV interview programs, consumerism, and the belief that many of the world’s problems would be solved if only other people were “more like us.” What makes this satire particularly refreshing is that the author writes it with a smile on his face, obviously preferring to prick balloons with his witty needling, rather than wield a rapier in a slashing attack. The absurdity begins on the first page, with a startling letter from an estate agent to Dr. Alfred Jones, a fisheries scientist whose crowning achievement to date is an esoteric paper entitled “The Effects of Increased Water Acidity on the Caddis Fly Larva.” The agent, Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, has a client “with access to very substantial funds” who wants to sponsor a project to introduce Scottish salmon and the sport of salmon fishing into the wadis of the Yemen during the yearly rains. (On my list of Favorites for 2007)
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Aldous Rex Llewellyn Jones, an elderly widower living alone, has nothing to look forward to. A former art teacher now living an isolated life inside a house for which he takes as little care as he does for his own hygiene, Aldous avoids contact with the outside world, even with his own children. One son lives in Belgium, another lives in the Venezuelan jungle with his Icabaru wife and child, and a daughter Juliette, a reporter for the London Evening News, has her own life. With his unique imagery and eye for the ironic or bizarre detail, Woodward makes Aldous, his friends, and his daily life come vividly to life in this quiet, unpretentious novel. He uses dark humor to makes observations about age which are sharp and memorable. Though there are moments of profound sadness, there are also moments of hope for Aldous’s belated self-awareness and enlightenment. Woodward never descends into pathos or sentimentality, reminding the reader that life is often absurd and that ironies can be found and appreciated even in the most difficult situations. (My Favorite novel of 2008)
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Sir Edward Feathers, known as “Old Filth,” is, ironically, “spectacularly …ostentatiously clean.” His nickname derives from the fact that as a lawyer, he “Failed In London, Tried Hongkong.” A “Raj Orphan,” Filth is a child of British civil servants of the Empire in Malaya. Like other Raj children, he is sent back to England, alone, at the age of five or six, to begin school in a country he’s never seen among people he does not know. Gardam writes a powerful character study of this intriguing character whose fate it was “always to be left and forgotten.” Now in his early eighties and living in Dorset, his wife dead, he reminisces about the past and hints at some terrible event that took place when he was eight, living in Wales with Ma and Pa Didds, who took care of him and two young cousins. Sophisticated and subtle, this novel, shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2005, is also compulsively readable with its poignant scenes and ironic humor. (A Favorite of 2006)
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When Mrs. Palfrey, a genteel, elderly widow, arrives with her possessions at the formerly elegant Claremont Hotel in London, she expects “something quite different.” Planning to stay at least a month, possibly permanently, she prefers her independence in this aging London hotel to living in Scotland near her daughter, who prefers to ignore her. A variety of elderly eccentrics call the Claremont home, and though the residents put up a good front, their loneliness and boredom are obvious. When she falls while walking one day, Mrs. Palfrey is rescued by Ludovic Meyer, a struggling young writer. As the two develop a close relationship, Mrs. Palfrey reminisces about her married life, teaching Ludo about the many kinds of love and all its pleasures, and he, having failed in past relationships, begins to understand what love means, blossoming under her attention. This 1975 novel is a sweetly romantic comic masterpiece in which old age is shown as a stage in life, one in which rewards and happiness are more important than the inevitable conclusion. (One of my Favorites for 2008)
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With sales of over half a million copies in Europe, this clever novel, newly released in the United States, may make Muriel Barbery as much of a literary phenomenon here as she is there, despite the novel’s unusual philosophical focus. The first narrator, Renee Michel, is a fifty-four-year-old woman who has been working for twenty-seven years as concierge of a small Parisian apartment building. Describing herself as a “proletarian autodidact,” she explains that she grew up poor and had to quit school at age twelve to work in the fields, but throughout her life she has been studying philosophy secretly. Alternating with Renee’s thoughts about her life and the books she has been reading, are the musings of Paloma Josse, the twelve-year-old daughter of wealthy and overly busy parents. Like Renee, Paloma pretends to be just average, carefully constructing her own façade so that she can fit in at school. She has decided that on her thirteenth birthday, she will take the only path open to her: she will commit suicide, burning down her house at the same time. The arrival of a new tenant changes all their lives.
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