Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you liked the TV mini-series, you'll love the tape!, 12 Jun 2000
By A Customer
The book is good fun with considerable bite. Even as an American, I could relate to the author's lampoon of English society and politics. I use this tape as accompaniment to exercise sessions and have listened to it some half dozen times without feeling bored or impatient. The reader, Paul Shelley, who also played Fred Simcox (the younger son) in the mini-series, obviously feels a good deal of affection for the characters, and manages to convey this affection to the listener. As always, his delivery is clear, nuanced, without annoying mannersims, and each character is endowed with his own voice and personality so that the listener can drop in at any point and identify the person on whose conversation he is eavesdropping without waiting for him to be identified by the author. I heartily recommend this audiobook to anyone who needs a tape that he can listen to multiple times.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
PUBLISHERS REVIEW [From The Dust Jacket Flaps]., 24 April 2009
FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, I HAVE SUPPLIED A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE BOOK, AND HERE IS WHAT IS ON THE DUST JACKET ['the blurb'] FLAPS :
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The Reverend Simeon Simcox, Rector of Rapstone Fanner, after a long life as Civil Rights campaigner and parish priest, dies quietly in his Rectory. Gathered at his funeral are his younger son, Fred, a doctor and part-time jazz drummer; his more volatile elder son, Henry, an angry young man turned crusty old blimb; their childhood friend Agnes and the devoted Lonnie; Simeon's wife, Dorothy; and the loyal villagers and gentry of Rapstone and surrounding parishes. These parishes have not been at ease with each other since the Civil War divided their inhabitants into Roundheads and Cavaliers. In 1984 old animosities survive: Hoooray Henries, new working-class Tories like the Rt Hon. Leslie Titmuss, M.P., rich Socialist idealists like Simeon Simcox and his family struggle on the battleground of a new and more brutal England.
A shock is delivered at an early stage in the shape of Simeon's will. In Henry's ambition to unravel the mystery and Fred's equal determination not to uncover it, we are treated to a large cast of gloriously comic characters. In their different ways they tell us how the New Jerusalem we were promised after the Second World War looked very much like the mixture as before.
John Mortimer's deft touch and sure control of his characters and their story will delight and amuse his readers. Against a backdrop of England in the last forty years he turns his not always gentle inquiry into "Paradise Postponed".
Writing at the height of his powers, the author adds to the stock of our pleasure. He has created characters and events that will live on high in the gallery of English comedy.
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FROM THE CREATOR OF THE HUGELY ENTERTAINING RUMPOLE NOVELS.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Gentle Lampoon on England, 6 Jun 2003
Very charming read. Mortimer's gentle lampoon on England and many of his classic characters (country doctor, Parish Rector, new Tory, landed gentry) is a brilliant satire and a hilarious read. Combined with a nice plot and great characters it is a very nice read indeed. Character are instantly recognisable.
All abbout the decline of one and the rise of another family, linked through the Simcox family. Lots of twisting and turning some tragedy and a lot of hilarious situations.
Well crafted novel in the British tradition of gentle, but biting satire of English country life 1945 - 1985. On par with some of Waugh/Wodehouse/Somerset Maugham in my view.
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by John Mortimer
by John Mortimer
by John Mortimer
by Kate Atkinson
by John Mortimer
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