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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
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The enormous building waited as though braced to defend itself, standing back resolutely from its great courtyard under a frozen January sky, colourless, cloudless, leafless and pigeonless. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
"The Bookshop" was quite serious, "The Blue Flower", a wonderful historically set piece during the period of Goethe's Germany, and now this work which demonstrates her unconstrained wit. She still includes subtle bits of humor, but much is laugh out loud funny. Granted some is a bit dark, but as another reviewer mentioned, it is very "English" as in, "oh...that, well yes, bullet wound you see, no bother, terribly sorry about the carpet". That line is not specifically in the book, but I hope it gives an idea of the fun within "The Golden Child".
The story is populated with great characters; including two of the best curmudgeons I have enjoyed reading. At one point she goes well out on to a limb with a performance by one of the Museum's top executives, who is called upon to "lecture" about that which he knows little of. The performance approaches Monty Python lke humor.
A third book, and a third great read. I look forward to seeing how many other genres she must have handled so well.
Suddenly, the museum seems primed for scorn as if they hung a Pollack upside down. The director sends Waring Smith to Moscow to have Professor Semyonov authenticate the showcase item. In Russia, he observes long lines waiting for the unveiling of a mummified Lenin that leaves Waring wary about his fellow man.
THE GOLDEN CHILD is a reprint of Penelope Fitzgerald's satirical look at the world of art and people in general. Though in many ways the story line is a typical British mystery, the plot contains much more humor as it laughs at institutions including the typical British mystery. Fans who relish gentle ripping at the guts of the sanctimonious pillars of society will fully enjoy this novel. Houghton Mifflin in their Mariner line is reprinting many of Ms. Fitgerald's other books.
"The Bookshop" was quite serious, "The Blue Flower" a wonderful historic piece during the period of Goethe's Germany, and now this work which demonstrates her unconstrained wit. She still includes subtle bits of humor, but much is laugh out loud funny. Granted some is a bit dark, but as another reviewer mentioned, it is very "English" as in, "oh...that, well yes, bullet wound you see, no bother, terribly sorry about the carpet". That line is not specifically in the book, but I hope it gives an idea of the fun within "The Golden Child".
The story is populated with great characters; including two of the best curmudgeons I have enjoyed reading. At one point she goes well onto a limb with a performance by one of the Museum's top executives, who is called upon to "lecture" about that which he knows little of. The performance approaches Monty Python humor.
A third book, and a third great read. I look forward to seeing how many other genres she must have handled so well.
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