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by Penelope Fitzgerald
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by Penelope Fitzgerald
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by Penelope Fitzgerald
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by Penelope Fitzgerald
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'The Golden Child is rich in the qualities which have marked Fitzgerald's subsequent career; a pleasantly uncluttered prose style; an eye for the absurd and pretentious; the knack of being able to give comedy an undertow of menace. Most museums take themselves too seriously: here is the perfect riposte.' Sunday Telegraph 'Penelope Fitzgerald combines some gentle mockery of museum bureaucracy and procedures and some sharp parodies -- of memos, structuralist lectures, children's essays and committee jargon -- with a more serious view of the responsibilities of museums. She shows culture off-handedly inflicted by curators on a patient, suffering public, who are depicted as endlessly queuing and being systematically denied information and tea.' TLS 'Penelope Fitzgerald's first novel degenerates amusingly into tortuous espionage, giving hints of the wit and wisdom to come in her later award-winning books.' Mail on Sunday
England's answer to the King Tut madness - the "Golden Child" exhibit at London's great Museum - inspires a literate mystery-comedy that begins superbly but soon becomes far too knotty and cutely frazzled. Waring Smith, a junior officer at the Museum and chum of ancient Sir William Simpson (who unearthed the Golden Child tomb in Africa decades ago but now just putters about the Museum), is sent to Russia when the Museum suspects that there may be fakes among its borrowed Golden Child treasures. Indeed, Smith sees all the real Golden goodies in the Kremlin (!) and returns - only to find that Sir Will has been murdered in the Museum library. The clues include lots of silly hieroglyphics, and Smith's assistant sleuths include a professor named Untermensch and a socialist dissident on the Museum staff. Several bright comic moments, a few nicely Wodehousian oddballs, and some museum satire directly relatable to Tut - but Fitzgerald's formula plot is only half hidden behind all those obvious red herrings and all those hard-working verbal grace notes. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Beautiful re-issue of this wonderful Fitzgerald backlist title -- her first novel The Golden Child, Penelope Fitzgerald's first work of fiction, is a classically plotted British mystery centred around the arrival of the 'Golden Child' at a London museum. Whilst the new exhibit lures thousands of curious spectators, it also becomes the sinister focus in a web of intrigue and murder. The Golden Child shows how Fitzgerald's distinctive wit and humour and her sense of the absurd were present at the very beginning of her career. It shows, as always, how acutely perceptive of human nature she is, how understanding and how forgiving. It is also, perhaps more than any other of her books, a minor comic masterpiece.
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'The Golden Child is rich in the qualities which have marked Fitzgerald's subsequent career; a pleasantly uncluttered prose style; an eye for the absurd and pretentious; the knack of being able to give comedy an undertow of menace. Most museums take themselves too seriously: here is the perfect riposte.' Sunday Telegraph 'Penelope Fitzgerald combines some gentle mockery of museum bureaucracy and procedures and some sharp parodies -- of memos, structuralist lectures, children's essays and committee jargon -- with a more serious view of the responsibilities of museums. She shows culture off-handedly inflicted by curators on a patient, suffering public, who are depicted as endlessly queuing and being systematically denied information and tea.' TLS 'Penelope Fitzgerald's first novel degenerates amusingly into tortuous espionage, giving hints of the wit and wisdom to come in her later award-winning books.' Mail on Sunday
England's answer to the King Tut madness - the "Golden Child" exhibit at London's great Museum - inspires a literate mystery-comedy that begins superbly but soon becomes far too knotty and cutely frazzled. Waring Smith, a junior officer at the Museum and chum of ancient Sir William Simpson (who unearthed the Golden Child tomb in Africa decades ago but now just putters about the Museum), is sent to Russia when the Museum suspects that there may be fakes among its borrowed Golden Child treasures. Indeed, Smith sees all the real Golden goodies in the Kremlin (!) and returns - only to find that Sir Will has been murdered in the Museum library. The clues include lots of silly hieroglyphics, and Smith's assistant sleuths include a professor named Untermensch and a socialist dissident on the Museum staff. Several bright comic moments, a few nicely Wodehousian oddballs, and some museum satire directly relatable to Tut - but Fitzgerald's formula plot is only half hidden behind all those obvious red herrings and all those hard-working verbal grace notes. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Beautiful re-issue of this wonderful Fitzgerald backlist title -- her first novel The Golden Child, Penelope Fitzgerald's first work of fiction, is a classically plotted British mystery centred around the arrival of the 'Golden Child' at a London museum. Whilst the new exhibit lures thousands of curious spectators, it also becomes the sinister focus in a web of intrigue and murder. The Golden Child shows how Fitzgerald's distinctive wit and humour and her sense of the absurd were present at the very beginning of her career. It shows, as always, how acutely perceptive of human nature she is, how understanding and how forgiving. It is also, perhaps more than any other of her books, a minor comic masterpiece.
See all Product Description
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Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald
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