This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
To get the free app, enter your e-mail address or mobile phone number.
Duncan Purcell is a career bureaucrat; an ordinary Joe with an extraordinary occupation: he is a film censor. At parties, people who once listened in polite indifference as he talked about his job at the Department of Education, now listened in rapt attention as he told them of his unusual work. As a film fan, he thought it would be a great way to make his living; what better way could there be of earning a full-time wage for a part-time job?
Paul Hoffman's novel is in many ways a plodding affair. Purcell relates events with a minute attention to detail, describing scenes in which he does not appear in a godlike third person narrative. At times, dialogue is reported in the manner of a play script without the stage directions. Letters and memos are sprayed fastidiously about the novel as the British Film Secretariat (the fictional name here for the British Board of Film Classification, formerly the British Board of Film Censors) goes about its business. This detailed exposition takes precedence over characterization. This may have been deliberate: censors are a faceless breed. Unfortunately, this means that the novel's characters are not very memorable.
However, the novel does score highly with its retelling of real-life events that mark out the modern history of film censorship in the U.K. In particular, the hysterical witterings of certain sections of the press over so-called video nasties in the early 1980s, resulting in the Video Recordings Act, and the vindictive nonsense spouted about the film `Child's Play 3' in the early 1990s, are compellingly related from the censors' point of view. I'm no fan of film censorship, but even I had some sympathy with the B.B.F.C. who seemed to be under pressure to cut or ban almost everything that came under their scrutiny.Read more ›
Comment
One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Anyone expecting the multi-facted brilliance of The Wisdom of Crocodiles might well be a little disappointed, but that was a hard act to follow, and this one is still gripping, thought provoking, and very enjoyable. The problem is that it's enjoyable because of what it has to say about censorship rather than because it's a great novel. The narrator is hard to sympathise with, many of the other characters are not drawn that fully, there are a few unresolved and rather irrelevant themes, and the plot revolves, in the end, around some petty squabbling. An interesting examination of ethics, and a great book, but not really much of a storyline. Still gets four stars from me, though!
Comment
5 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
This offering from Hoffman displays an interesting glimpse into the workings of the world of the film censor but alas offers nothing in terms of narrative - the plot is patchy & underwhelming - or characters who are sketchily brought to life & uninteresting. Maybe the author would have been better writing a non-fiction account of the BBFC rather than this lacklustre attempt to dress it up as a fictional novel.
Comment
4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518zwWCrUWL._SX321_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[323,499],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518zwWCrUWL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[224,346]})
