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A review by arirang
Last Friends by Jane Gardam
2.0
A welcome addition to the story of "Old Filth" and his compatriots.
The most impressive thing with the subsequent volumes (this, The Man in the Wooden Hat and the title story in The People on Privilege Hill) is how Gardam takes characters that were minor, if not to the plot then certainly in terms of character development, and fleshes them out, providing their back stories and perspectives. Last Friends focuses on the opportunistic friendship of the last of the characters to remain alive - the third of the main lawyers, Fiscal-Smith, and Dulcie, the wife of the judge "Pastry Willy" who played such a significant role in Old Filth's wedding in Hong Kong.
But the real value for readers is the insight into the background of Old Filth's rival, in love and business, Terry Veneering. In particular, we learn that the Veneering name - which we assumed was borrowed by the author from Charles Dickens nouveau-riche social-climbing couple of that name from Our Mutual Friends - isn't his real name at all but an Anglization of his original Russian name bestowed on him by a mentor as a form of prediction of his fate.
The writing is, as ever in Gardam's books, beautiful.
The one criticism is the overly-Dickensian connections between some of the characters - in particular the rather stereotyped country village where many of the characters seem to end up largely by coincidence.
And the worry for the reader is where does the story go from here - when we're left with only two remaining "Last Friends" from such a rich tapestry of characters.
The most impressive thing with the subsequent volumes (this, The Man in the Wooden Hat and the title story in The People on Privilege Hill) is how Gardam takes characters that were minor, if not to the plot then certainly in terms of character development, and fleshes them out, providing their back stories and perspectives. Last Friends focuses on the opportunistic friendship of the last of the characters to remain alive - the third of the main lawyers, Fiscal-Smith, and Dulcie, the wife of the judge "Pastry Willy" who played such a significant role in Old Filth's wedding in Hong Kong.
But the real value for readers is the insight into the background of Old Filth's rival, in love and business, Terry Veneering. In particular, we learn that the Veneering name - which we assumed was borrowed by the author from Charles Dickens nouveau-riche social-climbing couple of that name from Our Mutual Friends - isn't his real name at all but an Anglization of his original Russian name bestowed on him by a mentor as a form of prediction of his fate.
The writing is, as ever in Gardam's books, beautiful.
The one criticism is the overly-Dickensian connections between some of the characters - in particular the rather stereotyped country village where many of the characters seem to end up largely by coincidence.
And the worry for the reader is where does the story go from here - when we're left with only two remaining "Last Friends" from such a rich tapestry of characters.