The Dud Avocado (VMC Designer Collection)
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Review
**'A champagne cocktail ... Rich, invigorating, and deceptively simple to the taste ... One falls for Sally Jay Gorce from a great height from the first sentence (OBSERVER )
** 'A carbonated first novel that will set male readers to thinking sheepishly of plain wrappers (TIME MAGAZINE )
** 'As delightful and delicate an examination of how it is to be twenty and in love and in Paris as I've ever read (SUNDAY TIMES )
** 'Scandalous and entertaining ... Both funny and true (EVENING STANDARD )
** 'A carbonated first novel that will set male readers to thinking sheepishly of plain wrappers (TIME MAGAZINE )
** 'As delightful and delicate an examination of how it is to be twenty and in love and in Paris as I've ever read (SUNDAY TIMES )
** 'Scandalous and entertaining ... Both funny and true (EVENING STANDARD )
TIME MAGAZINE
'A carbonated first novel that will set male readers to thinking sheepishly of plain wrappers'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
When the World was Young,
By
This review is from: The Dud Avocado (VMC Designer Collection) (Hardcover)
Thanks to a generous donation from her Uncle young American actress Sally Jay Gorce is in Paris in the 1950's. She is affectionate, optimistic, feckless and given to falling in love with unsuitable men. Like her creator she rather brave and clear sighted. Sally Jay is delightfully funny and well aware of her own failings.
I am indebted to Rachel Cooke whose excellent article in the "Guardian" prompted me to re-read this novel. I can vouch for the sense of authenticity that it gives and though while in Paris around that time I never did meet anyone quite like Sally Jay the chaotic life of expatriate Montparnasse that she describes certainly rings true. The comments on the differences between Saint-Germain and Montparnasse reveal the author's eye for detail. Never having read them I can make no comment on the more recent authors mentioned but I do suggest that Truman Capote's Holly Golightly, created at about the same time, is more a creature of male fantasy than of reality. Dundy's heroine in not particularly judgmental but there is an underlying self-doubt and insecurity about her that makes her far more than some icon for 'women's liberation'. There have been a few distortions of the past on television recently and it would be a pity if any reader of this novel were to be weighed down by false assumptions. It was written to be enjoyed and is best read as such. There's a bit more too it than that, of course, and Dundy's autobiography "Life Itself" is revealing while "The Old Man and Me", another first person novel, is remarkably frank for its time.
28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An American in Paris,
By Is (Tokyo) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Problem: You feel like reading something that's witty and light-hearted but not so embarrassingly girly that it makes you feel like you should be wearing fluffy pink slippers and call your beloved "snookums". You loved "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons and "In The Pursuit of Love" by Nancy Mitford. You have been known to dream of Parisian boulevards and bohemian attic flats in Montparnasse. The thought of strolling down Boule Mich in an evening gown makes you feel all warm inside.Solution: The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy, following the adventures and misadventures of Sally Jay Gorce. In the proud tradition of Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, Sally Jay is an American in Paris, sardonic and enamoured at the same time, and determined to soak up everything the Moving Feast of Lights can offer. In contrast to Ernst or Gertrude, though, she is more busy flitting around cafes and pursuing a very modest stage career than devoting herself to High Art. She just wants to live, damn it! And that's exactly what she does, mixing with shady aristocrats, hustlers, painters and Southern belles from the Left Bank to Biarritz. Sally Jay's streetsmart voice conveys a great sense of time and place. The fifties slang is really cute, and it's interesting to see the how the Home-makers of America moral values prevailed even in bohemian Paris. Even though some plotlines seem a bit weak (without giving too much away: how traumatic is it to lose a passport, for example?), the charm and exuberance of this book makes it seem churlish to complain. You could definitely do worse than party in Paris with Sally Jay.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my all time favourite books,
By
This review is from: The Dud Avocado (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)
I fell head over heels in love with Sally Jay Gorce when I read this book. She is eccentic, intelligent, self aware, intelligent and witty but succumbs to self doubt and lack of experience. Rarely do you encounter a character so real. This book is a joy from first sentence to last. I never wanted it to end. Perfect.
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