- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Chatto & Windus; First Edition, First Impression edition (5 Feb 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0701176202
- ISBN-13: 978-0701176204
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 10,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
These Foolish Things, a kind of less savage version of Kingsley Amis's unbearably funny novel Ending Up. Moggach's prose is markedly more graceful than Agatha Christie's, her moral world is not dissimilar', The Times .'It is characterisation at which Moggach excels. Her gift is to perceive and describe our confusions about life-and to write with feeling about the continual quest for love and happiness that is part of the human condition', Sunday Times
Book Description
Now a major motion picture - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - starring Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench, Penelope Wilton and Celia Imrie
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An affectionate view of the elderly,
By
This review is from: These Foolish Things: Filmtitel: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Paperback)
There have been other novels set in old age homes - Muriel Spark's Memento Mori, Alan Isler's The Hamlet of Fifth Avenue - and there is a certain formula about them. But Deborah Moggach's is the most kindly of these novels and, unusually, envisages the possibility that the elderly might actually get a new lease of life under such circumstances. Not possible, it is suggested, in cash-strapped Britain; but why not outsource the care for the elderly to Bangalore in India, where a little money goes a long way, where the climate is better, and where, above all, a former British hotel converted into a somewhat run-down retirement home (called Dunroamin) can create a little island of Old England in the midst of a throbbing Indian city. One has to suspend one's disbelief that elderly folk would really be happy in such a setting, but, it is suggested, there is something about the atmosphere of India which makes possible some kind of renewal of the spirit which gives new insights and meaning to what had been lonely lives in England. For much of the book the stories of each of these elderly folk seems episodic and disconnected, and there seems to be no particular plot; but in due course a plot does emerge in which coincidences - somewhat forced in my view - connect many of these lives together in unexpected ways. It is a kindly book, both about the elderly and about India and Indians, and that makes it an attractive book.
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant satire on England and India,
By A. Craig "Amanda Craig" (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: These Foolish Things (Hardcover)
Her best novel since Tulip Fever, this is a brilliantly funny book about how to the elderly Britain has become a foreign country. An overworked India doctor sets up a retirement home in India, and a group of quirky pensioners make what is probably their last journey to where the Empire's sun never sets. The young Indians they meet are as clean and respectful as young British people are not - fascinated by details of their mundane lives which could make them convincing telesales workers. Yet there are complicated connections with the past which gradually emerge, and an unexpected romance. A wonderful, stylish, touching and bitter-sweet story about what Kingsley Amis called Ending Up.
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
These Foolish Things,
By Rachael (Brighthampton, Oxon United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: These Foolish Things: Filmtitel: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Paperback)
My first encounter with the writer and what great introduction. Beautifully written, comical, touching and thought provoking. The story unfolds and just as you think you know what is coming up it takes another turn. The characters are so well thought through and developed that you are desperate to read more about them. The writing style and language are very accessible and so funny in places. This would make a great book club read. The topic on first inspection is very unusual, I couldn't see how the book would work but it really does. From Norman to Evelyn, The call centre staff to the Doctor who thought up the idea up in the first place this really is a lovely lovely read
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