Titmuss Regained (Penguin Modern Classics)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Titmuss Regained (Penguin Modern Classics) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
Beautifully written, witty and often very, very funny (Spectator )
Product Description
The Right Honourable Leslie Titmuss has clawed his way up the Tory government ranks and is now Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Ecological Affairs and Planning (H.E.A.P.), and in pursuit of beautiful widow Jenny Sidonia. But seismic changes are afoot in the beautiful countryside where a new town threatens to engulf his own back garden. Will Leslie bow to market forces? Or will he join the fight against the multi-storey car parks, shopping precincts and office blocks that could sweep away Rapstone Valley?
The sequel to John Mortimer's stunning novel Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained is a panoramic satire on the machinations of politics and an affectionate elegy to a disappearing world.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
The second time around
9 July 2011
Format:Paperback
In his second go at the inhabitants of his own "dear country," the fictional Rapstone Valley, John Mortimer shows his despicable antihero Leslie Titmuss having his own second go at courtship and marriage. The lovely widow Jenny Sidonia seems everything Titmuss missed in his first marriage to the neurotic Charlotte Fanner: physically lovely and sweet tempered, Jenny (formerly the wife of a liberal Oxbridge don) is also willing to overlook Leslie's politics and settle down with him in the former Fanner estate Rapstone Manor. But the planned invasion of a new township threatens to unsettle their happiness in the Rapstone Valley... and as a Tory cabinet minister, Leslie cannot risk blocking the new plans for his own domestic comfort...
Mortimer's 1990 sequel to PARADISE POSTPONED doesn't hit the manic comic highs of its predecessor, but its still a beautifully constructed novel that gives us again a good sense of everything Mortimer thinks is wrong with England, from the loathsome machinations of a Tory-controlled press to the self-serving and cruel rhetoric employed by Leslie himself, to the ineffectual protests and perceived kookiness of Leslie's enemies on the left. (The true hero of PARADISE POSTPONED, Dr. Fred Simcox, is back here, both as a potential rival for Jenny's affections and as an opponent to the Rapstone Valley development scheme.) If there is something a bit predictable about Mortimer's constant nostalgia for his own vanishing England (and weren't the Simcox brewery or the neighboring town's biscuit factory likely seen as blights on the landscape when they were built, despite Mortimer's mourning for them?), he does achieve something pretty near to first rate in his portrait of Titmuss's marriage to Jenny. In this Mortimer approximates something of what George Meredith did in THE EGOIST, in its unforgettable portrait of an intelligent and lovely young woman horrified to realize she's mistakenly tied herself to a monster.
Mortimer's 1990 sequel to PARADISE POSTPONED doesn't hit the manic comic highs of its predecessor, but its still a beautifully constructed novel that gives us again a good sense of everything Mortimer thinks is wrong with England, from the loathsome machinations of a Tory-controlled press to the self-serving and cruel rhetoric employed by Leslie himself, to the ineffectual protests and perceived kookiness of Leslie's enemies on the left. (The true hero of PARADISE POSTPONED, Dr. Fred Simcox, is back here, both as a potential rival for Jenny's affections and as an opponent to the Rapstone Valley development scheme.) If there is something a bit predictable about Mortimer's constant nostalgia for his own vanishing England (and weren't the Simcox brewery or the neighboring town's biscuit factory likely seen as blights on the landscape when they were built, despite Mortimer's mourning for them?), he does achieve something pretty near to first rate in his portrait of Titmuss's marriage to Jenny. In this Mortimer approximates something of what George Meredith did in THE EGOIST, in its unforgettable portrait of an intelligent and lovely young woman horrified to realize she's mistakenly tied herself to a monster.
Tightly written, not one spare word
26 Jan 2012
Format:Paperback
The surprising thing about Mr. Mortimer's book, as opposed to his Rumpole series (which are really fun reads) is his precisely perfect descriptions of emotions and the depth of his characters. They all live (and die) with grace and a certain dignity, even when naughty. This is a lively if not happy-ending book which is excellent from start to finish. Nobody is likely to be satisfied with the result, which is exactly as we live life. Sometimes I wanted to wring a few necks to get these folks to understand what was happening and make them change. Which is Mr. Mortimer's objective. He knows his stuff.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
