The Sweets of Pimlico [Mass Market Paperback]

Whenever I have heard him on the airwaves, A N Wilson has always adopted a rather lofty and superior tone. I was therefore curious to see whether he had anything to be superior about in his own work, and I have to concede that to some extent he has. This is his first novel, set mainly in London but partly in Brighton during the height of the IRA bombings in the late 70's. For anyone unfamiliar with London, Pimlico is an upmarket region on the north bank of the Thames, and the `Fish Square' where much of the action takes place is obviously Dolphin Square, an expensive condominium of which I have some small experience as a visitor.

It would be impossible to reproach The Sweets of Pimlico for predictability. The story centres round a young woman teacher of mathematics, the daughter of a retired diplomat. What changes her life is a chance encounter with an elderly German aristocrat who is, it turns out, known to the rest of her family for a variety of reasons. The story that develops from there on has real originality. How `realistic' the scenarios are was not something that I asked myself to any great extent as I read, because the considerations that arise are not the sole property of the named players. Love receives a very cold-eyed appraisal, in particular where money comes into the matter. You would not expect to find many novels these days that lacked sexual themes nor is this any such novel, but the interesting aspect to me was how uncertain, indeed possibly non-existent, was the sexual dimension to the lives of some of the most important characters. One would also have expected a nonchalant and you-can't-shock-me treatment from Wilson of the varied sexual proclivities of those of his characters who have any ascertained sexual proclivities at all. This expectation is fulfilled, but while the general tone does not resemble, say, Simon Raven, I was still startled by the offhanded casualness of the incest theme, something I had always thought of as one of the great remaining taboos.

There is a good deal of high-quality humour, and the condescending tone that Wilson carries around with him makes this more and not less effective, I seemed to find. Sometimes the snobbery is quite explicit, as in the revelation that the despised vicar had come from Southend. At other times it is more subtle, as in the episode of the misaddressed letters and the way the heroine's genteel parents react to what they have just read. Best of all, perhaps, is the unmistakable parody of a Whitehall farce when the heroine's flat is visited fortuitously and all together by a string of parties who have been carefully trying to avoid one another.

The great leveller is of course death, and here Wilson rises to real dignity and gravity in his tale, without however losing grip on his cynicism. Love or death, they happen to human beings, and human beings do not stop being the way the Creator made them, whatever happens. The whole tale is a fine harlequinade, acted out on a stage of comparative wealth by a cast of the moderately privileged. The ironic and perhaps unworthy question occurred to me - in this context of Lady Tradescant, Baron Dietrich Gormann and a few others, how did the author feel about being born into this cruel world as Andrew Wilson? It seems to me that we should probably think of him as really a Wylson.

There is a brilliant light charm to this novel which makes its undercurrent of something else entirely all the more effective. Within the opening pages there are a jocular reference to the Bee Gees and a sexual image that in Henry Miller, for example, would be merely crude.

I am surprised that this novel is out of print, and urge any reader to seek out its sort of sequel Who Was Oswald Fish? whose dizzying farce structure makes me wonder why A N Wilson has not written for the stage. He could ceate a rival to Joe Orton's What The Butler Saw.

This book begins with a curious meeting in a London Park. Evelyn Tradescant has immersed herself in the solitary study of beetles, finding herself isolated after a failed affair with her bland boyfriend Geoffrey. Mr Gormann, an old gentleman with a faintly distinguished manner, becomes aquainted with Evelyn after she runs for a letter of his that gets carried away by the wind. As she returns with the letter, puffing and panting, she notices the old man gazing at her legs. Yet he seems an enigma to her with his air of wealth and the mystery surrounding him. And besides, she is at a loose end and bored. The very next day they go for lunch in a hotel and from then on Evelyn becomes more and more entranced with the "Baron Dietrich Gorman", as he uses little ploys to keep her hooked upon him... It is not long before their friendship develops faintly more sexual overtones...as each one of them becomes more and more involved and sucked in... The ending to this book is a great surprise, and serves to show us clearly that behind the wealthy and glittering facades of the very Rich there is too often nothing but meaninglessness. The author perfectly highlights the boredom of the social whirl, the endless lunches, by showing us Evelyn and Mr Gormann who are outside of this whirl, and find a solace in eachother. When the author cruelly pokes fun at the eccentricities and the shallowness of the very wealthy in this book you will find yourself laughing out loud. This award-winning first novel positively shimmers as we go from one colourful scene to the next, each one full of wit and fun.