Vastly under-rated British fiction
344508
In reality, this volume is a collection of three separate but related Hamilton novels from the late twenties-early thirties: The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure, and The Plains of Cement.
The first relates the story of a barman's obsession with a scheming prostitute, the second is a tale of a "nice girl"'s downfall through drink, and the final novel tells of a plain-looking barmaid's emotional turmoil when pursued by a much older man.
These themes, and the dialogue used by the characters, are inevitably dated. However, Hamilton's wonderfully compassionate writing make simple themes appear to be universal and timeless.
Indeed, loneliness, unrequited love, fear of rejection, unfulfilled dreams etc are components of the universal human experience. However, in Hamilton's hands, these components never result in full-blown despair. The characters are so resilient that there is always, even after the most appalling experience, a note of optimism.
Few British writers have written so eloquently about the simple dreams, modest personal ambitions and cultural limitations of ordinary people in what was then a rigid class society.
In particular, his insight into working class "pub culture" (in these novels and later works such as "Hangover Square" and "Slaves of Solitude") is extraordinary. Its a pity his "research" led to such heavy alcohol dependence, with its resultant impact upon his literary achievement!.
The three novels in "20,000 streets" are a great introduction to Hamilton, and along with his later more sophisticated work, make a case for a much belated re-appraisal of his place in 20th century British literature.
2761093
This books originally was put out under the banner of historical romance, but actually landed in the wrong spot. It should have been historical fiction, a wee fine distinct, but a significant one. Yes, there is romance, but only as a small part of the true tapestry of human emotions. It did not fair well in the US mostly because of the romance banner. So for sometime the book has gone unnoticed and was only available in used bookstores. Thus, I was delighted to see the wonderful work given a reprint treatment more deserving of his subject matter and hopefully people will discover this marvellous story of Scotland.
Many of you I am sure know of the Great potato famine that hit Ireland, how nearly a million died. But were you aware, the same blight that hit Ireland, moved to Scotland? Worse, this horrible loss of life sustaining crops came at one of the ugliest periods in Scottish History: the beginning of the Clearances. More and more of Scotland's Gentry were city folk, generally living in the big cities of Scotland and England, and paid a Factor to run their country estates, caring little how he ran them as long as he produced profits to sustain their rich lifestyles. Crofters were not really a money making situation for these people wanting the highest return for the least investment. Sheep were low maintenance, high cash return. People cost more and what the gave as payment for living on the land was small. So began the Clearances, literally running people off land their families had farmed and lived for centuries to make way for sheep.
Island Harp details this terrible slice of Scottish History through eyes of Mairi and is based on fact. Set on the Isle of Lewis during the Clearances of the 1840's, when the English landowner (the Countess of Seaforth) drove crofters from their homes to use the land for grazing or hunting. Young Mairi loves her life, simple though it is. She loves her family, her beloved grandfather Fearchar, Gran, brother Tam, and other relatives of the Clan. But one Summer, her life is shattered as the laird's factor as set fire to their homes, the start of the evictions. Fearchar runs into the burning house to rescue the harp he treasures and dies for his effort, but before dying he bads Mairi to protect the harp a symbol of their heritage.
A dash Captain Iain MacDonald ride in to the rescue. Scot by birth, he soldiers for the English Queen and is a son of one of the Local Gentry. Iain does what he can to help Mairi and her family and naturally she falls in love with him. She gives herself to him in the Ring of Stones (Calanais) knowing she will always loves this man. Later, as she learns she is with child, she finds out Iain is engaged to wed another - one of his class. Mairi leads her clan to the Auld Broch (an ancient circular tower) and reclaims it for her people, rallying them into farming on land considered unfarmable, weaving, fishing - anything to survive. Not only does Mairi and her child survive, they thrive along with her Clan.
Mairi is the embodiment of the Clan mentality, how the Scots survived and endured, their spirits unbroken through one of the worst periods in history. It is a story of personal triumph, of dreams and determination.
WISE Writers and Readers Book of the Month for February 2000
2183153
As far as summarising  the plot is concerned, there's not much that can be added to the previous reviews without spoiling surprises for readers. And surprises there certainly are.

Suffice it to say that this book contains a remarkable number of separate plots, that the author orchestrates their parallel progress with much skill, and that these plots converge in an extraordinary finale. The latter is tense, protracted, well-narrated and as horrifying and memorable as the climax of De Niro's `Taxi Driver' - though much more thought-provoking through the anguished dilemmas which arise for each participant. What a nightmare situation for each individual to face, each for different and often secret reasons! If nothing else, keep reading so you can understand the threads which converge in the utterly gripping last five chapters.

Some compelling tales from history form the backcloth behind this story. These are tales which largely have been muted in British history books or censored altogether. The extremes to which British Suffragettes took women's struggle for the right to vote, for instance, and the horrors of force-feeding of Suffragette hunger-strikers. The huge armed revolt by the original Ulster Volunteer Force and the help it received from Fifth Columnists within government forces. The underworld of vice and child prostitution serving the Edwardian gentry. The culture of sexual abuse in the British Empire's exclusive boys' boarding schools and the resulting misogynistic homosexuality common among officers in Kitchener's army. The darkest part of  `Cat and Mouse' is a double saga of gay revenge between misogynistic militarists of the 1914 warmonger kind. `Cat and Mouse' presents such history with the lightest of touch. There are no heavy-handed passages over-explaining things. Some readers may find a peep at Wikipedia helpful to further illumine real events, like some Suffragette tactics, about which nowadays so many Britons are ignorant.

But while `Cat and Mouse' features such historical issues, they are not its focus. First and foremost it is a novel and about people, a mixture of romance and thriller. First it engagingly explores its characters' very different worlds. Then it carefully brings them together for a shattering conclusion. You won't forget this book!
1253487
Caveat: there are small spoilers ahead, though fewer than in the Publsher's Weekly review that Amazon provides.

I really wanted to like this book a lot, and it certainly is not without its virtues. The way Ishiguro sustains the voice of the narrator over the course of the story is impressive; Kathy's voice is every bit as distinctive as Stevens' in The Remains of the Day and yet quite unlike it. The book also deals with worthy themes, not least the way we might come to take for granted something utterly shocking and repulsive. One reviewer asked why none of the characters tried to run away. My response is that the reader wishes they might, but the point of the novel is that the characters have been lulled into a sense that their lot in life is inevitable; they have their place and the most they could hope for (a hope that plays out in the final pages) is that there might be a brief respite from what must come.

More below on the psychological plausibility of that premise. My disappointment had to do with what sits in the background. The novel, after all, is set in contemporary England -- or, at least, a version of contemporary England that's supposed to be within a reasonable imaginative distance of the world as it actually is. Perhaps the scheme on which the novel is built could actually emerge from the real attitudes of contemporary Western Europe. The way we are to assume most people view Kathy and her fellow "students" is not unlike the kind of racism that's still far too common in supposedly civilized Europe. But even that sort of reflexive racism seldom goes so far as to call into question whether the "other" has a soul and, the most vicious aside, most Western racists would still be horrified by the use to which the "students" are put. It's true; we are within living memory of the Holocaust. But it's also true that because of those very memories, the Western world, at least, is a different place. Moreover, even though most of us have deep reservations about cloning, it's not because we think that cloned humans would be any less than human. On the contrary, our reservations are partly because it's so clear that these beings _would_ be humans -- just like us.

Or so one might think. In order to make the case that this isn't so, and that the England he imagines is within imaginative reach, Ishiguro would have had to tell us a lot more than he does about how his dystopia came about. What we get, instead, is a hasty and almost perfunctory account in the final pages that feels unconvincing and blunts the emotional force of the novel's ending.

That said, there's a coda that honesty compels me to add. When I finished the book, I felt much less moved than I thought I was meant to. But in spite of the clumsiness of the backstory, I woke up the next morning with a real sense of unease. It was not that I was ready to grant the plausibility of the backstory. It was that I could imagine all too easily that the characters might really have been manipulated into accepting the utterly unacceptable lot that they have been handed, however implausible that lot may be. These characters may not be intrinsically less soulless than the rest of us, but we can imagine them being robbed of a piece of their souls -- not by the circumstances of their births but by how they've been schooled to see themselves.
3875896
"The Life and Opinions..." is perhaps impossible to really classify.  It purports to be a biography of the fictional Tristram Shandy, but I don't think you can call something a biography when it only covers a year or so of the subject's life!  I would say that more than half of the novel actually falls into the "Opinions" referred to in the title.  The rest consists of short stories on Tristram's father, uncle, and a couple other minor characters.

I have never in my life read so many digressions from the topic at hand, most of which were utterly irrelevant but the charm of it is that Sterne *knows* they're irrelevant, but mockingly expresses his license of authorship in forcing the reader to go off on these sidetracks.  His attitude is: "If you can't wait a chapter or two to get back to the story, well, go take a flying leap, I'm the author."  Sometimes the digressions are exasperating.  Very unlike Victor Hugo's signature habit of digressing, say when a certain main character in Notre Dame decides to enter the Paris sewers, Hugo takes thirty or more pages to give a history of the design and construction of the Paris sewer system.  At least Hugo's digressions have *something* to do with the story.

Well, maybe that's the problem.  There isn't a main story in this novel.  It's not a storybook.  There are many short stories nested within the main framework, but there is no real protagonist or overarching theme of any sort.  Indeed, the end comes abruptly and there is absolutely no resolution of any conflict.

It's not trying to teach anything, really.

So what is it?  I'm not sure.  More a comedy than anything else.  Right up there with Dickens' "Pickwick Papers" in terms of humor, but lacking the story.  Maybe funnier than Dickens and just as clever.  I was rolling in the aisles so many times I lost count.

I read the Penguin edition, edited by Melvyn & Joan New.  The back cover does a better job than I could ever do in providing a sense of what you're getting into when you pick this one up:

"No one description will fit this strange, eccentric, endlessly complex masterpiece.  It is a fiction about fiction-writing in which the invented world is as much infused with wit and genius as the theme of inventing it.  It is a joyful celebration of the infinite possibilities of the art of fiction, and a wry demonstration of its limitations."

It's a large work, it will take a while to work through.  It's worth it.  There are passages I want to go back to and make copies of to tape to the walls, they're that brilliant.
3088817
When I wrote my last Amazon review, of Paula Byrne's "Mad World", the story of Waugh's relationship with the Lygons of Madresfield Court, I had - to my shame - never read "Brideshead Revisited".  I have now done so, and have little to add to the perceptive reviews that others have written.  It is a terrific read, with  sharp social observation of a particular segment of society, and (with the exception of a couple of too literary  long speeches) with brilliant dialogues.  In fact the essentials of the story are captured in the dialogues, in which the characters best reveal themselves and which are rather better than narrative descriptions, which I thought were occasionally over-written with some clever but forced analogies.

The book is generally held to be a roman &agrave; clef, with Sebastian inspired by Hugh Lygon, Julia by  his sister Mary, Cordelia by his sister Dorothy, Bridie their eldest brother by Lord Elmley etc, while Charles Ryder was Waugh himself.  This had made me expect that the story line of the novel would be along the lines of Paula Byrne's book, and the early part - about Oxford and about Charles' relationship with the self-destructive Hugh, and about Brideshead/Madresfield Court - is indeed  quite autobiographical.  But after that the story line diverges greatly from Waugh's biography.  The  Marchmains/Lygons are Roman Catholic, not High Anglicans, and that is essential to the novel and to its philosophy.  The marriage between Charles and his wife Celia is utterly unlike either of Waugh's two marriages.  His relationship with Julia, as a lover rather than kind of brother, started much later and after instead of before her unhappy marriage (to Rex Mottram, who is supposed to be a portrait of Brendan Bracken, instead of to a Russian Prince).  One of the highlights for me was how the ghastly Rex Mottram, determined to marry Julia, cynically converted  to Catholicism, only to find they would have to marry in a Protestant ceremony after all.  Bridie is specifically said to have failed to get into Parliament, whereas Elmley was an MP.

Like one of the previous reviewers, I felt that second - "Julia" - part of the novel was not quite as satisfying as the first - "Sebastian" - part, though the passages about the dying of Lord Marchmont, is profoundly moving.  By the time Waugh wrote this book, had long ago become a Catholic and knew what he was writing about;  and unbeliever Charles, for all his  resistance to what he thought was Catholic mumbo-jumbo, was just on the verge of understanding it also.
4317833
I came to this BBC TV series as a big fan of Chesterton's fiction, particularly his Father Brown stories.  Chesterton was a Roman Catholic, and is considered to be one of the strongest Christian contributors to 20th century fiction, along with Tolkien and Lewis.  His detective stories are especially charming and deep, and his love of wit and paradox, and ability to write terse and profound one-liners is remarkable.  The BBC series largely focuses on the character of Father Brown, and script writers were given freedom to work with the existing stories, adapting them at will, or to ignore them entirely and create something entirely original. The result was that only half of the initial lot of 10 episodes were based on Chesterton's short stories, and those very loosely at best; the overall impression has little in common with the Chesterton's Father Brown.

Does this matter?  Not necessarily, as long as it's done well, and still within the spirit of the original character. The Father Brown character is an endearing one, and other TV series have demonstrated that a Poirot or Holmes type detective can have a life far beyond what their creators like Agatha Christie or Arthur Doyle ever imagined.  British crime series often focus on charming characters and delightful settings, especially when these reflect an earlier period in history, and these are all strengths of the BBC's Father Brown series.  However, in many respects this series doesn't live up to the standards of detective films like the ones mentioned, nor does it live up to Chesterton's original fiction. The issue here isn't a matter of faithfulness to the original, and that any departure from this is anathema, but rather whether the TV series captures the elements of the original that made Father Brown a legend in the world of fiction to begin with.  The producers have evidently made a choice to make this a very modern production, and even though it is set in the 1950s, they've introduced many anachronisms that not only don't fit with the 1950s, but also don't fit with Chesterton's world or his vision.

Let me illustrate my point by commenting just on the first episode, Hammer of God.  The TV version begins with Catholics and Anglicans enjoying a combined social event, which is more reflective of modern ecumenism than it is of the 1950s, or of Chesterton's world.  While Chesterton's "Hammer of God" has only vague hints of possible marital infidelity, and at most the suggestion that the villain was making advances to the blacksmith's wife, in the TV series he not only beds her, but does so as payment for the blacksmith's gambling debt; furthermore, he turns out to be a closet homosexual, and for his out-of-touch clergyman brother this becomes the motive for murder.  Father Brown comes across as an emancipated and liberal theologian who is open to theories of evolution, non-judgmental, and is prepared to be use the privilege of confidentiality from the confessional booth mean he can approach people and assure them their secrets are safe with him.

These modern themes might appeal to and reflect a modern audience, but they embody a worldview and set of morals very much at odds with Chesterton's.  What's more, a wonderful opportunity has been missed by failing to capitalize on the brilliant one-liners and paradoxical language that makes Chesterton's stories so wonderful to begin with.  Virtually none of this clever dialogue has been carried over into the TV series "Hammer of God" episode at any rate, even though in the Chesterton canon this story is regarded as one of his all-time best for exactly that reason.  The TV series might take some of the characters from Chesterton, and some loose plot ideas, but that's about it - for the rest is a distinctly modern series that promotes contemporary values, and reflects very little of Chesterton's original.  Not only would Chesterton not approve; he'd probably be horrified. - GODLY GADFLY (August 2017)
3706762
I saw the author's post on Reddit begging for people to buy and review his book. I think that's pretty shameful, but I decided to check it out anyway. I thought of all those underrated fantasy books languishing on bookstore shelves. I've picked up a few that turned out to be surprisingly great, despite their lame covers. (The Dark Griffin by KJ Taylor is one) If this book is any good, I thought, then all power to Mr. Coulter. If the book can stand on its own, why not give it a buy and a good review? So while I'm proud of myself for giving it a shot, I can't say anything good about what I read.

All books are built on language, no more, no less. Good usage of language is the foundation of a good book. Therein lies the main problem with this debut effort. It seems that Mr. Coulter tried to set a tone reminiscent of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, but he ended up sounding repetitive and dull. There's no cleverness to his diction, no wit to his observations.

From an early paragraph: "This caused consternation, and the guards abandoned the rest of the lengthy preparations and took off after him."
This sentence is far too busy, and says little more than the exact meaning of the words. There is no implication to be had, no subtlety to what he says. Perhaps that's asking for too much, but if somebody evaluates their own work as "hilarious, brilliant and dramatic" can I really be blamed for high expectations?

The first few pages are serviceable at best, and I thought that perhaps it would get better as it went along. Later on, we find passages such as this one: "As the thief quietly considered her vivacious question the Sylus constellation lit up the night sky, making it glow and throb uniquely and giving the scene a very dreamlike look that enchanted them both considerably."
It gets quite a bit worse. In the words of Stephen King, "the road to hell is paved with adverbs", and here we have no less than three, all of them superfluous. Why are both characters enchanted "considerably"? Why are we told they are enchanted rather than see it for ourselves? The power of story comes from character, and there is no character to be found if the author keeps the reader at an arm's length from everything in the story.

All of these problems could be solved by two things: honest self-evaluation and many, many revisions.

Addressing Mr. Coulter directly now: You have enthusiasm for writing, and you have the self-motivation to write a novel. All that's left is for you to realize that this is nothing more than a draft. This is a framework of something with the potential to be halfway decent. All of the problems with sentence structure and diction can be solved by revisions, but you first must have the ability to tell yourself that this is not at all hilarious, very far from brilliant and only slightly dramatic. Being blind to the flaws in your own work is your greatest enemy as a writer. If somebody has been helping you edit, they are not doing a very good job. You need somebody who will be harsh, almost insulting to your writing, if you want to get better. The basic world and plot seem competent enough, build off them. Focus on refining your characters, always try to find ways to more efficiently tell your story, and your work will improve by leaps and bounds.
2316578
I had heard about Out of The Silent Planet on IO9.com and did not recall reading it. I'm not a big C.S. Lewis fan, other than his Screwtape essays, but I decided to find a copy and give it a try. Definitely not disappointed, as this story is very archetypically British ... a sort of combination of H.G. Wells, Dennis Wheatley, and many of the cheap British science fiction films of the sixties. It could fit into quite a few recent eras, but the first person relation of the events of Ransom on the planet Malacandra is more Wellsian than anything.

For the most part, there's a lot of exposition about the flora and society of Malacandra, but it isn't nearly as droll or sleep-inducing as you might expect; we get to see Ransom's continually expanding viewpoint on this new planet and the strange creatures that inhabit it (strange to him, at least).

This book doesn't hit you in the face with Christian theology like the Narnia books do, so I found it a very enjoyable read!
4674477
This is my first Nicholson novel.  I came to it as a big fan of his "Shadowlands," the made-for-TV movie about bachelor Oxford don and author C. S. Lewis and his relationship with American poet Joy Gresham,  that then became an acclaimed West End/Broadway play that morphed into an Oscar-nominated movie.  I also loved his movie "Firelight." So I was really expecting this tale of a large cast of British suburbanites and their intersecting lives over the course of the 2008 Christmas season to be my kind of novel.  What I wasn't expecting was that I'd sometimes have to put some effort into not nodding off or that frequently my mind would wander to what-if thoughts of how much better a novel this might have been if someone who really understood  women had created the women's roles--someone who could plumb their depths, give them some distinction and dimension and make them as memorable  as Nicholson makes his male characters.  But they're not.  With the possible exception of Alice, Nicholson's female characters are  basically forgettable, blah stereotypes. His male characters, on the other hand,--particularly the beleaguered screenwriter, the cheating plastic surgeon, the aging portrait artist and the lonely plumber who restores violins--were obviously carefully crafted and empathetically wrought--the kinds of people I truly enjoyed getting to know and spend time with and whose pain, hopes and angst I could feel. And I love the notion that the cure for all that is to buy the guy a shed. (Hey, wait a minute: That give-him-a-shed thing as a solution to male angst also came highly recommended in the fabulous--and also British--Shania Kindersley-Sarah Vine book "Backwards in High Heels: The Impossible Art of Being Female." Are the Brits onto something there?, I asked in the original incarnation of this review.  Only in terms of terminology, I've just learned.  Here in America, I'm told,  we call them "man caves.")

The author's note on the back page says that this novel "picks up some of the characters of my earlier novel 'The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life,' which was set in 2000, eight years earlier." Had that note been at the beginning, I might have read that one first. Not sure it would have made a difference, but I would have liked having that option.
3608495
If you haven't read this series of novels, you are really, really missing on a classic.
4958838
This is a fun "book-about-books", espcially if you're well aquainted with the British masters such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Wordsworth and, well, the Bronte sisters. The premise of people being able to interact with characters from literature is facinating. The zany alternate universe where time-travelling occurs and the Crimean war still rages is a bit over the top; however, it is literary science fiction after all.
My two favorite aspects of the book were the delightfully munching bookworms that can alter literature and the notion of French Revisionists always trying to undermine British historical triumphs.
The protagonist, Thursday Next, is likable enough. She is a Special Operative in literary detection and fights against the delicious villain Acheron Hades, whose idea of power is to wreck havoc in famous literature.
Of course, the book is quite silly with minimal character depth and run-of-the-mill writing; however, the imagination of it all makes it all worth it. It is simply a fun read!
2701765
Kings and Queens, the first book in this series, was one of my favourite books of last year. It was a terrific, ambitious piece of work, updating the history of the dynamic, tempestuous reign of Henry VIII to the modern era.

Many readers felt it was Tyler's best work - I certainly agreed - and when I heard a sequel was on the way, I gave a wry smile at the news. How could she top that? I wondered.

So it was with some anticipation that I started to read Last Child, the sequel to the original. The story itself is a straight continuation of the first. Lanchester Estates faces a succession and Harry Lanchesters daughter Isabella - cranky, eccentric, tortured and unpopular - takes the reins following a bleak (and beautifully written) tragedy early on in the book.

The process of change is monitored and scrutinised by a cast of characters on various levels of the periphery, a cast who were all part of Kings and Queens, and who are all themselves in the throes of lifes twists and turns.  The story focuses on the succession itself, how that works, how it progresses, what it means for the sprawling corporate goliath that is Lanchester Estates and, critically, what it means for the cast themselves.

In essence, the plot itself is secondary to a series of skilful dissections, not of individuals, but of the relationship between individuals all with varying degrees of interest in Lanchester. It all could be extremely complex, but Tylers clean, economical, unfussy prose, sensible chapter divisions, and ruthlessly dry dialogue ensures a simplicity that makes this a wonderfully accessible tale.

This is a Jacobean feast of people, characters and viewpoints - the same event often viewed from differing perspectives, sometimes radically different.  Its hard to single out one I enjoyed more than the other but two vignettes do stand out.

One is the ongoing saga of Raine and her relationship with the bluff northern arriviste, the much older Jim Dudley, which riveted every time the two appear in the narrative, and the almost painful analysis of the decline of the marriage between Amy and Robert.

Anyone who has ever experienced the death of love in a marriage will be alternately engrossed and repulsed by these chapters, told by an author who clearly knows how to get to the heart of a matter. I was rooting for the marriage to work but alas, we all know that Bambis mother is going to die at the hands of the hunter no matter how many times we watch the film. Thus, for me, the character of Erin became the villain of the piece, rather than the rather unfortunate and hapless Isabella, who always seemed to me to be a victim of circumstance. Erin will always be so.

Thats Tylers strength. She writes the characters in such a way that its very much up to the reader how they perceive them. There are no favourites in a Tyler novel. There are just people. People left in real situations and what you, as a reader, do with them is in the lap of the gods. For me, thats the mark of a serious dramatist  which Terry Tyler is  at the very top of her game.

I heartily recommend Last Child. I loved the book, which I read mostly on two long flights. The time flew by, which is a great recommendation in itself. Its up there pitching with the very best books of the year so far and it will definitely be in the spotlight of the best British dramatic fiction at years end.

What next, he says, expectantly.
3635843
This review is from: English Journey (Hardcover)

J.B. Priestly was a very popular novelist and playwright. His fame reached its apex in 1940 with his BBC radio broadcasts on Sunday evenings. These wartime commentaries reached upto 16 million UK listeners. He threatened to rival Churchill in popularity.
This book is his first exercise in social and political comment and is based on a journey through the England of 1933. Already a popular writer he received a large advance from both Heinemann and Gollanz to support his travels by bus, train and his chauffeur-driven Daimler. His journey starts in the south and meanders through Bristol, the Cotswolds, Birmingham, the cities of the northwest and over to The Tyne and Durham, before returning to London via East Anglia.
He writes well in a simple, often humorous, middle-brow prose. His contemporaries, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolfe and George Orwell were deeply suspicious of his popularity and influence, mocking his style and affected northern roots.
Priestly had served in the First World War and had been wounded by shrapnel and was later badly gassed and taken from the line. One of the highlights of the book is the record of his regimental reunion where he meets the 8 survivors of his old platoon. Some of these men believed he had been killed in action. That really is a reunion.
Some men had been invited and had been told that if they lacked funds, others would buy their tickets for them. Some replied that they were still unable to attend because they could not afford proper clothes. This was the worst period of the inter-war depression, long before the Attlee/Beveridge welfare state.
The delight of the book is not in description of place, which is done well enough, but in the authentic dialogue.
A ship's steward on a posh ocean liner describes how he has nowhere dry to sleep and no time of his own to grab a meal. A Cotswold stonemason describes his commitment to his trade, a Gateshead communist tells of his commitment to the class struggle. These are real people, undiluted.
The North -South divide is stark and cruel yet Priestly's reaction to the gross inequalities he witnesses seem strange and muted. He was caught-up in the debates of his time and like the British as a whole was prone to racism and snobbery. He is contemptuous of the Irish in Liverpool (.."they settle in a poor corner and turn it into a slum." p206), the Jews in Hollywood and the "fur trade" . There are references to 'Kaffirs' and the poor quality of the offspring of inter-ethnic marriage. Yet juxtaposed to these nasty prejudices rests his certainty that the English are a decent and moderate people.
The nadir of his long journey is in Shotton. It is a hellish place where even the ground is on fire and smoke and sulphur make the air un-breathable. He curses the London capitalists who have raped this grim land for profit.

So, he is likely to support a radical 'left' programme for social revolution? Not a bit of it. He mocks the naivety of Bob the communist. He tut-tuts the "Marxians" (sic) and clings to his belief that everything will equal out without the cataclysms of militant Nazism or social revolution. A few years after writing this book he founded the Common Wealth Party with Sir Richard Acland, the author of "Unser Kampf".
Acland and Priestly believed in the common ownership of land. Acland gave his 19,000 acres to the National Trust. Priestly, who had a harder route to wealth, decided to hang on to his estate a little longer.
Was he just a petit bourgeois writer pretending to be a "leftie". That would be unfair. But the party he founded was absorbed back into Attlee's Labour Party, and land remained in private ownership.

The book is well-produced and the introduction is helpful.
4034895
Pym's novels aren't epics or sagas, they're rather small but always graceful examinations of ordinary people and the situations in which they find themselves. The setting this time is London of the late 1970s and there are four focal characters, two younger and in tune with the times (more or less), and two older who are trying hard to pretend "the times" don't exist. The slightly pompous Humphrey Boyce is a 60-year-old antiques dealer of no great fame who is attempting to introduce his orphaned 24-year-old nephew, James, into the business. "There was something about the idea of an orphan that brought out the best in Humphrey, that desire to do good without too much personal inconvenience that lurks in most of us."

They meet Leonora, a single lady in her fifties, at a Sotheby's auction and the long-widowed Humphrey is soon wining and dining her, trying to decide if he really wants to consider remarriage after so many years. Leonora, as we soon discover, is both extremely self-regarding in a ladylike way -- she simply assumes her own gracious and elegant superiority -- and rather dismissive about other people. ("One has to be tough with old people," Leonora went on, "it's the only way -- otherwise they encroach.") She lives on a small inherited income and is far more interested in the rather shy and overly diffident James, never mind that she's literally twice his age, than in his uncle. And then James meets the recently graduated and very untidy Phoebe, who is doing literary estate work in the country at the moment, and in whom James finds himself becoming rather interested, even though the girl isn't especially attractive and seems rather stand-offish and gawky, especially compared to Leonora.

And that's the set-up. From that point, Pym stands back and watches quietly as chemistry happens. Actually, it's all rather a game. Humphrey wants Leonora but he isn't trying very hard, really. Leonora (whose last name is "Eyre," as in "Jane") wants James, but only on her own terms; sex definitely isn't part of her plan. Phoebe (whose last name is "Sharpe," as in "Becky") doesn't really know what she wants -- perhaps James, but it's so much work. And what does James want? If only someone would tell him.

And then James goes off on an antique-buying trip to Spain and, since the lease on his flat is about to expire and he'll have to find a new place when he returns anyway, he lends some of his furniture to Phoebe. Leonora, discovering she has a rival, turns out the old lady living in the top-flat flat of her building (which she owns) and fixes the place up for James, even going so far as to demand the return of the lent pieces from Phoebe. (Face it, she's a bully if she suspects her desires might be thwarted.) One hopes that James will finally acquire a spine at this point, but no: He's actually discovering another side of his own sexuality in Spain with a visiting American professor. And when he returns to London, he knuckles under to what everyone else seems to expect of him. This sounds somewhat pathetic but Pym's narrative skill makes it all seem inevitable. Like most of her books, it's a group portrait in multiple dimensions.

Pym also is a master -- mistress -- of quiet humor, as in James's first visit to Phoebe's tiny rural cottage. "`Are you any good at gardening?' she asked. `No,' he said quickly, seeing himself having to mow the lawn, `but my mother was a great gardener.' No doubt his mother was dead, Phoebe thought, giving him an unfair advantage over her, with a mother alive in Putney." Marvelous stuff, and very much worth the reading.
2550420
A vastly underrated gem. Definitely worth your time
4052843
I picked this up out of curiosity to see what Gaiman is all about. This is the story of Richard Mayhew, a hapless London businessman with a Type-A+ girlfriend. One day they happen across what appears to be an injured homeless girl. Over his girlfriend's protestations, Richard stops to help the girl. This act of kindness sends him hurtling into a world beneath the city (London Below) populated by all manner of fascinating, disturbing, and murderous people, and into a desperate attempt to escape killers whom no doors can keep out.

This is what Charles Dickens would have written if fantasy had been popular in his day. The book has a very strong mythic feel to it, being populated not so much by characters as by archetypes - an incredible variety of archetypes, including cultists (the Rat-Speakers), rogues (the Marquis de Cabaras), murderers (the horrible and hilarious Croup and Vandemar), warriors (the woman Hunter), outcasts (Old Bailey), demons (the angel Islington), and more. There is scarcely a role in the story that doesn't seem familiar - familiar because it has leapt from the ancient pages of human stories. The only character that feels flat is Richard, not so much because he's not mythic and cool, but because he's a bit of a whiner. He gets his act together about halfway through the book and starts acting like a man, but it takes rather too long. After I had read the book, I discovered, much to my surprise, that it's actually a novelization of a BBC TV series. This might be the only screen adaptation to ever make it onto a list of best anything, anywhere. Overall, despite the lack of big ideas or compelling subtext, this is a thoroughly original and enjoyable RPG adventure writ large and writ well.