- Paperback: 306 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (7 Feb 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099286025
- ISBN-13: 978-0099286028
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,038,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Fairness (A chronicle of modern twilight)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
About Helen, the tiny, blonde, serious girl whom the narrator meets when they are both looking after children during a summer vacation in Normandy. Her adventures in search of a morally satisfying life lead her into situations that are neither satisfying nor moral, from the mining boom in Central Africa to child abuse scandals of 1980s.
About the Author
Ferdinand Mount's earlier novel, Of Love and Asthma, was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for 1992. Umbrella, the first of his Tales of History and Imagination, was described by the Oxford historian Niall Ferguson as 'quite simply the best historical novel in years'. He is also well known as a political columnist.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ferdinand Mount is an elegant, controlled, and immensely intelligent writer, who never fails to offer some interesting morsels to chew on. In Fairness, the third novel in Mount's Chronicle of Modern Twilight, he features the same characters as in the two previous books. Gus Cotton, the narrator, is a young man who, at the outset of this book, becomes friends with golden-haired Helen, like him working as a nanny/tutor one summer in Normandy. Gus and Helen, their employers, the children and friends of the employers, and even the bookies and racetrack touts from the earlier novels in the series appear and reappear, sometimes in extraordinary coincidences, over the twenty year time span of this novel.
Unfortunately, Gus himself is a cipher in this novel, too phlegmatic to inspire much sympathy, and not strong enough to hold the myriad characters and long plot line together. Helen is described as aspiring "to a morally satisfying life," yet throughout the book she constantly makes self-interested and surprising compromises, and falls into bed with just about everyone. There are few occasions in which we see Helen wrestling with moral decisions--she simply acts, impulsively. A government-sanctioned stripping of mineral resources from a Central African country, a miners' strike, and a child abuse investigation feature in the plot and involve both Gus and Helen, though the significance of these events in 20th century British history is not really clear.
Fairness may be an important part of Mount's large scale Chronicle of Modern Twilight. It may develop themes and social commentary significant to the overall success of the Chronicle. As a separate novel, however, it lacked coherence, despite its sometimes wonderful and thought-provoking scenes. Mary Whipple
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ferdinand Mount has been called the successor to Evelyn Waugh, but one can see his Gus suffers from Hemingway's narrator's disease...or perhaps his body knows more than his mind when it comes to coupling with Helen, his flaxen-haired "serious" object of desire. Like Fitzgerald's narrator in the Great Gatsby, Gus stands on the sidelines. Like Hemingway's narrator in The Sun Also Rises, he watches his love engage in a number of inappropriate encounters and love matches. Helen represents the spirit of - the 60s? 70s? 80s? youth and life? in England - to Gus; she is his waifish Beatrice. And he is in hell.
Eight chapters and a brief ironic coda show that - even in the last couplet of the novel - Helen never gets it, and that of course means Gus never gets any. She is in turn nanny, chemist, mining geologist, wife and mistress....and thru the trick of "ancient mummery" a member of the House of Lords. Gus watches her set herself up with a succession of overinflated comedic figures including a Shavian industrialist--and his two russet women, a feckless travel agent, a satiric editor, and a Whitehall official with a CB -- the latter Gus's boss. Gus watches - hopelessly.
Gus draws first blood, sexually, in an encounter with his own employer while he's nanny(goat)ing alongside Beatr-- Helen. Later in a pleasant side trip to Tidewater Virginia Gus discovers that sex isn't so complicated if one just goes straightforward.
Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? Are these the lips that beguiled two-thousand eyes? How has she found this earthenware disguise? Is this the woman? the enchantress? the witch?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Does not travel well "across the Pond."
6 Aug 2001
Format:Hardcover
Ferdinand Mount is an elegant, controlled, and immensely intelligent writer, and his Jem (and Sam) is brilliant. When I saw this new book at the local bookstore, I read the blurbs on the jacket and and bought it on impulse. But while it was pleasant enough reading and offered some interesting morsels to chew on, I found it ultimately disappointing. The third novel in Mount's Chronicle of Modern Twilight, Fairness features the same characters. Unless you have read the other novels, however, you may be as nonplussed as I was by the huge gaps between the characters as described in summaries and on the book jacket, and the same characters as you find them in this novel. This is not Mount's fault, but the potential reader should be cautious.
Gus Cotton, the narrator, is a young man who, at the outset of this book, becomes friends with golden-haired Helen, like him working as a nanny/tutor one summer in Normandy. Gus and Helen, their employers, the children and friends of the employers, and even the bookies and racetrack touts from the earlier novels in the series appear and reappear, sometimes in extraordinary coincidences, over the twenty year time span of this novel. Unfortunately, Gus himself is a cipher, too phlegmatic to inspire much sympathy, and not strong enough to hold the myriad characters and long plot line together. Helen is described as aspiring to a morally satisfying life, yet throughout the book she constantly makes self-interested and surprising compromises, and falls into bed with just about everyone. There are few occasions in which we see Helen wrestling with moral decisions--she simply acts, impulsively. Though the blurb-writer calls her a modern female counterpart to Candide, she is actually a mystifying and depressing character, without the obvious naivete one associates with Candide and which allows for lively satire.
A government-sanctioned stripping of mineral resources from a Central African country, a miners' strike, and a child abuse investigation feature in the plot and involve both Gus and Helen. While these may be the scandals that have defined--and sometimes shattered--the latter decades of the 20th century for British readers, they are not so familiar to American readers, and their significance pales.
Fairness may be an important part of Mount's large scale Chronicle of Modern Twilight. It may develop themes and social commentary significant to the overall success of the Chronicle. As a separate novel, however, it was not an exhilarating or comic experience, at least for this American reader. This rating is three stars for enjoyment, five stars for the writing. Mary Whipple
Gus Cotton, the narrator, is a young man who, at the outset of this book, becomes friends with golden-haired Helen, like him working as a nanny/tutor one summer in Normandy. Gus and Helen, their employers, the children and friends of the employers, and even the bookies and racetrack touts from the earlier novels in the series appear and reappear, sometimes in extraordinary coincidences, over the twenty year time span of this novel. Unfortunately, Gus himself is a cipher, too phlegmatic to inspire much sympathy, and not strong enough to hold the myriad characters and long plot line together. Helen is described as aspiring to a morally satisfying life, yet throughout the book she constantly makes self-interested and surprising compromises, and falls into bed with just about everyone. There are few occasions in which we see Helen wrestling with moral decisions--she simply acts, impulsively. Though the blurb-writer calls her a modern female counterpart to Candide, she is actually a mystifying and depressing character, without the obvious naivete one associates with Candide and which allows for lively satire.
A government-sanctioned stripping of mineral resources from a Central African country, a miners' strike, and a child abuse investigation feature in the plot and involve both Gus and Helen. While these may be the scandals that have defined--and sometimes shattered--the latter decades of the 20th century for British readers, they are not so familiar to American readers, and their significance pales.
Fairness may be an important part of Mount's large scale Chronicle of Modern Twilight. It may develop themes and social commentary significant to the overall success of the Chronicle. As a separate novel, however, it was not an exhilarating or comic experience, at least for this American reader. This rating is three stars for enjoyment, five stars for the writing. Mary Whipple
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Subtle, Understated, Moving....
4 Aug 2002
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
As a newcomer to Mount's writing, I admit his style tends to develop slowly for readers expecting more obvious dramatic flair.
For whatever reason, Gus reminds me of John Dowell, Ford Madox Ford's ambivalent, wavering, duped, narrator in "The Good Soldier." They both are jilted lovers who gradually realize their idealized conception of the world around them is a facade. This is one of the variations of first-person narration. The common theme is to give the narrator all knowing insight, VOG (voice of god), compared with the mere mortals surrounding them. In this novel, Mount takes the less traveled path. That being, the less than entirely reliable narrator who evokes pity. The possibilities here are usually more interesting. Insomuch as the reader identifies with the author's voice, the learning curve is dynamic and elastic...
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful
You won't get no satisfaction
6 Dec 2001
Format:Hardcover
I really tried to get into this novel, being a big Waugh fan. And while I have respect for Mount's writing style, this novel basically stinks. The characters are pretty obtuse, and there are too many of them and they run together...sort of like Brideshead Revisited, except these characters aren't interesting or charming. The just have eccentric names. Due to its far-flung locations and bizarre characters, this novel should be far more exciting than it is. Overall, much like the hero, a reader can't get no satisfaction.
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