Jane Gardam: Old Filth
By Jesse Kornbluth
On a long drive, with a choice between NPR and Classic Rock, we chose NPR. Soon we were listening to a program about summer reading. I have trouble finding new fiction that makes me want to read the second paragraph. But not the hosts of this show. For them, there were “great reads” — page-turners like Gone Girl— and “beautifully crafted” books. They liked the great reads; they swooned over beautiful craft. Really, there was no book they didn’t love.
What does “beautifully crafted” mean? This: The plot is secondary, the characters are precious, you’ll drown in metaphor, and the structure has been fractured so you’re here on one page, decades removed on another. In a word, “beautifully crafted” is everything I loathe.
But what if a book is actually a model of craft and a great read?
That rarely happens — but I’ve just read one.
Jane Gardam didn’t start writing until she was 43 and the youngest of her three children was off to school. Now 85, she has published 25 books. She’s the only writer to have won the Whitbread for best novel twice. She’s been nominated for the Booker. Among Those Who Know in England, she’s on a very tall pedestal.
In 2005, Gardam was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction for “Old Filth.” Let’s not misunderstand: Filth means “Failed in London Try Hong Kong,” which is what Edward Feathers did. He became a rich, successful lawyer there, and then a judge, and now, as the novel begins, he’s 80, and, with his wife Betty, retired to the English countryside.
“Pretty easy life,” remarks a judge who knew him well. “Nothing ever seems to have happened to him.”
How could you — an American reader — possibly care about this man?
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