Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
A Novel
گزارش تخلف
کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
Life in the English village of Edgecombe St. Mary is predictably picturesque and provincial. Local resident Major Ernest Pettigrew is a man of conscience and strong opinions, a man whose good acts are born of good breeding and good manners. When his younger brother dies suddenly, 67-year-old widower Pettigrew's quiet country life is disrupted. Narrator Peter Altschuler is stuffy, gruff, and completely endearing as the Major wrestles with his grief over losing his brother, his conflicted responses to his clueless son, his covetousness for a pair of valuable guns, and his unexpected feelings for his neighbor, Mrs. Jasmina Ali. Helen Simonson's droll comments on family, religion, small-town small-mindedness, and intercultural romance combined with Altschuler's wry, amusing performance transports listeners directly into the English countryside. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
January 4, 2010
In her charming debut novel, Simonson tells the tale of Maj. Ernest Pettigrew, an honor-bound Englishman and widower, and the very embodiment of duty and pride. As the novel opens, the major is mourning the loss of his younger brother, Bertie, and attempting to get his hands on Bertie's antique Churchill shotgun—part of a set that the boys' father split between them, but which Bertie's widow doesn't want to hand over. While the major is eager to reunite the pair for tradition's sake, his son, Roger, has plans to sell the heirloom set to a collector for a tidy sum. As he frets over the guns, the major's friendship with Jasmina Ali—the Pakistani widow of the local food shop owner—takes a turn unexpected by the major (but not by readers). The author's dense, descriptive prose wraps around the reader like a comforting cloak, eventually taking on true page-turner urgency as Simonson nudges the major and Jasmina further along and dangles possibilities about the fate of the major's beloved firearms. This is a vastly enjoyable traipse through the English countryside and the long-held traditions of the British aristocracy.
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