'You did brilliantly in the written papers, I have to tell you, but the interviews let you down.'
'Why?'
'Chip on your shoulder a yard high and ridiculous left-wing fancies sprouting out all over you.'[loc. 317]
It is not to my credit that it took me about half the book to work out that I'd read it before, albeit under a different title: Losing Larry. Yep, pretty much everything I wrote back then still stands. I liked Larry a bit more this time around (possibly because I'm six years further removed from my own youthful idealism?), and I still think Edmondson is* a warm and witty writer. The ending of Fencing with Death is not wholly satisfactory, but it does grant a kind of freedom to the novel's protagonist.
* or was: I was sad to read of her death in 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment