Pearls before swine

    

     My 'books of the year' list has increased in length as Jane Gardam's new novel has taken its place among my best reads. The Man in the Wooden Hat is a welcome return for Sir Edward Feathers Q.C. (Old Filth) and his arch-rival - both in life and in court - Terry Veneering, but the story's main character is Filth's wife Elisabeth, and it is their marriage, seen through her eyes, which is at the book's heart.

  I'm trying to analyse Jane Gardam's technique in producing a memorable novel, one of spirit and of strong emotion expressed with a lightness of touch, which passes almost as a confection, and I'm finding it hard to fix exactly how she does it. It's not a soufflé as it has a seriously solid heart, but at the same time it's sketchy (in the best sense) and vivacious, hinting at details rather than labouring them, alluding to events and building on recollections but never lingering too long, and the result is crisp and powerful, quaintly comic, moving and surprising.

   The reader follows the couple from Hong Kong to London, then back to the colony and finally to Dorset, but Elisabeth's loving nature informs their story, and her relationships with her husband, Veneering, and one other person whose name I shan't mention, punctuate it and bring meaning to her life as her other pursuits provide mere diversions. With twists as fine and carefully graduated as its heroine's two ropes of pearls (tokens of the love of two men), it leaves the reader wanting more, or - at the very least - to begin it all over again.

    

Comments

[Samantha]

My book club discussed Old Filth and we all really loved it. Such great characterisation. I will now have to add this book to my bookdepository.co.uk order :-)

[adele geras]

She is a wonderful writer and I can't wait to read this one.

[Elizabeth]

I agree, she is a wonderful writer. I'm leading the discussion of Old Filth for my book club in November, so I've ordered The Man in the Wooden Hat from The Book Depository; quite a coup!!