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Old Filth #2
The Man in the Wooden Hat
The New York Times called Sir Edward Feathers one of the most memorable characters in modern literature. A lyrical novel that recalls his fully lived life, Old Filth has been acclaimed as Jane Gardam's masterpiece, a book where life and art merge. And now that beautiful, haunting novel has been joined by a companion that also bursts with humor and wisdom: The Man in the Wooden Hat.
Old Filth was Eddie's story. The Man in the Wooden Hat is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself.
They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister, handsome, fast becoming rich, in need of a wife but unaccustomed to romance. A perfect English couple of the late 1940s.
As a portrait of a marriage, with all the bittersweet secrets and surprising fulfillment of the 50-year union of two remarkable people, the novel is a triumph. The Man in the Wooden Hat is fiction of a very high order from a great novelist working at the pinnacle of her considerable power. It will be read and loved and recommended by all the many thousands of readers who found its predecessor, Old Filth, so compelling and so thoroughly satisfying.
Old Filth was Eddie's story. The Man in the Wooden Hat is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself.
They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister, handsome, fast becoming rich, in need of a wife but unaccustomed to romance. A perfect English couple of the late 1940s.
As a portrait of a marriage, with all the bittersweet secrets and surprising fulfillment of the 50-year union of two remarkable people, the novel is a triumph. The Man in the Wooden Hat is fiction of a very high order from a great novelist working at the pinnacle of her considerable power. It will be read and loved and recommended by all the many thousands of readers who found its predecessor, Old Filth, so compelling and so thoroughly satisfying.
233 pages, Paperback
Published October 27, 2009
About the author
Jane Gardam
59 books510 followersJane Mary Gardam OBE is a British author of children's and adult fiction. She also reviews for the Spectator and the Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards including the Whitbread Award, twice. She is mother of Tim Gardam, Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford. Jane has been awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize for a lifetime’s contribution to the enjoyment of literature and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Her first book for adults, Black Faces, White Faces (1975), a collection of linked short stories about Jamaica, won both the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Subsequent collections of short stories include The Pangs of Love and Other Stories (1983), winner of the Katherine Mansfield Award; Going into a Dark House (1994), which was awarded the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award (1995); and Missing the Midnight: Hauntings & Grotesques (1997).
Jane Gardam's first novel for adults, God on the Rocks (1978), a coming-of-age novel set in the 1930s, was adapted for television in 1992. It won the Prix Baudelaire (France) in 1989 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Her other novels include The Queen of the Tambourine (1991), a haunting tale about a woman's fascination with a mysterious stranger, which won the Whitbread Novel Award; Faith Fox (1996), a portrait of England in the 1990s; and The Flight of the Maidens (2000), set just after the Second World War, which narrates the story of three Yorkshire schoolgirls on the brink of university and adult life. This book was adapted for BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. In 1999 Jane Gardam was awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize in recognition of a distinguished literary career.
Her non-fiction includes a book about the Yorkshire of her childhood in The Iron Coast (1994), published with photographs by Peter Burton and Harland Walshaw.
She also writes for children and young adults. Her novel Bilgewater (1977), originally written for children, has now been re-classified as adult fiction. She was awarded the Whitbread Children's Book Award for The Hollow Land (1981) and is the author of A Few Fair Days (1971), a collection of short stories for children set on a Cumberland farm, and two novels for teenagers, A Long Way From Verona (1971), which explores a wartime childhood in Yorkshire, and The Summer After the Funeral (1973), a story about a loss of innocence after the death of a father.
Jane Gardam is a member of PEN and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is married with three children and divides her time between East Kent and Yorkshire.
Her first book for adults, Black Faces, White Faces (1975), a collection of linked short stories about Jamaica, won both the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Subsequent collections of short stories include The Pangs of Love and Other Stories (1983), winner of the Katherine Mansfield Award; Going into a Dark House (1994), which was awarded the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award (1995); and Missing the Midnight: Hauntings & Grotesques (1997).
Jane Gardam's first novel for adults, God on the Rocks (1978), a coming-of-age novel set in the 1930s, was adapted for television in 1992. It won the Prix Baudelaire (France) in 1989 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Her other novels include The Queen of the Tambourine (1991), a haunting tale about a woman's fascination with a mysterious stranger, which won the Whitbread Novel Award; Faith Fox (1996), a portrait of England in the 1990s; and The Flight of the Maidens (2000), set just after the Second World War, which narrates the story of three Yorkshire schoolgirls on the brink of university and adult life. This book was adapted for BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. In 1999 Jane Gardam was awarded the Heywood Hill Literary Prize in recognition of a distinguished literary career.
Her non-fiction includes a book about the Yorkshire of her childhood in The Iron Coast (1994), published with photographs by Peter Burton and Harland Walshaw.
She also writes for children and young adults. Her novel Bilgewater (1977), originally written for children, has now been re-classified as adult fiction. She was awarded the Whitbread Children's Book Award for The Hollow Land (1981) and is the author of A Few Fair Days (1971), a collection of short stories for children set on a Cumberland farm, and two novels for teenagers, A Long Way From Verona (1971), which explores a wartime childhood in Yorkshire, and The Summer After the Funeral (1973), a story about a loss of innocence after the death of a father.
Jane Gardam is a member of PEN and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is married with three children and divides her time between East Kent and Yorkshire.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 963 reviews
August 14, 2016
Jane Gardam is just an incredible author. I have read several of her books and loved them all. This book is the second in the Old Filth trilogy, and I finished it reluctantly. I can't be too sad because there is another one waiting in the wings. This is a love/hate triangle between Edward Feathers (Old Filth), his wife Betty, and Teddy Veneering, a rival attorney in Feather's world of Hong Kong and London. Gardam is a master of understatement, and can tell more in describing a glance or a raised eyebrow that others can say in a long paragraph.
The way she tied these two books together, secrets revealed, characters coming and going, truths finally told; it's just brilliant.
I'll read the third one, Veneering's tale, then read all 3 of them again. It really is that good.
The way she tied these two books together, secrets revealed, characters coming and going, truths finally told; it's just brilliant.
I'll read the third one, Veneering's tale, then read all 3 of them again. It really is that good.
May 1, 2012
Just so you know where my prejudices lie: I read Old Filth then Man in the Wooden Hat and fell in love with Jane Gardam. So I am astonished to read negative reviews of Wooden Hat. In it, Gardam goes where so very few writers do.
Perhaps because I am no longer young, this book spoke clearly to me of the compromises, the subtle adjustments, the losses and the satisfactions of the flexible definition of 'love' over a lifetime. Because the characters are English and of a class and time where outbursts and emotional explosions are simply not done, it is all understated. Because Jane Gardam wrote it, it is beautifully written, evocative, immensely sensitive and (almost always)wonderfully controlled.
Filth is Eddie Feathers' story, and Wooden Hat is his wife's. Their love story is complex and nuanced: they don't love one another when they marry and never achieve the soaring romance both wanted when they were young. Each goes elsewhere for satisfaction of the passions (not simply erotic passions) they yearn for. They maintain secrets from one another that are eventually revealed, but never acknowledged, to one another. They build a love story from what life offers. They each maintain their own identity. Love does not conquer all but, eventually, it makes the rest of life possible and acceptable and satisfying enough. [In that sense, it is nearly an Anti-Romance: Lord Bryon and authors of paperback Romances would never write this book.] I am convinced by both the book and by having a few years under my belt, the story reflects some home truths about love mutates and matures to be something that sustains in a way that the wild yearnings of youth never anticipate.
I would have given it one more star because the book's theme is so rare and so very well done, it deserves to be shouted from the handy rooftop. I take away a half star because there there is a slight choppiness that is occasionally disconcerting. But that is a faint criticism. I love Jane Gardam.
Perhaps because I am no longer young, this book spoke clearly to me of the compromises, the subtle adjustments, the losses and the satisfactions of the flexible definition of 'love' over a lifetime. Because the characters are English and of a class and time where outbursts and emotional explosions are simply not done, it is all understated. Because Jane Gardam wrote it, it is beautifully written, evocative, immensely sensitive and (almost always)wonderfully controlled.
Filth is Eddie Feathers' story, and Wooden Hat is his wife's. Their love story is complex and nuanced: they don't love one another when they marry and never achieve the soaring romance both wanted when they were young. Each goes elsewhere for satisfaction of the passions (not simply erotic passions) they yearn for. They maintain secrets from one another that are eventually revealed, but never acknowledged, to one another. They build a love story from what life offers. They each maintain their own identity. Love does not conquer all but, eventually, it makes the rest of life possible and acceptable and satisfying enough. [In that sense, it is nearly an Anti-Romance: Lord Bryon and authors of paperback Romances would never write this book.] I am convinced by both the book and by having a few years under my belt, the story reflects some home truths about love mutates and matures to be something that sustains in a way that the wild yearnings of youth never anticipate.
I would have given it one more star because the book's theme is so rare and so very well done, it deserves to be shouted from the handy rooftop. I take away a half star because there there is a slight choppiness that is occasionally disconcerting. But that is a faint criticism. I love Jane Gardam.
March 7, 2022
This is the second book in Jane Gardam's trilogy about Edward feathers, A.K.A. Old Filth, and his wife Betty Feathers, nee Macintosh. Book one, Old Filth, centered on the life of Edward, his unhappy childhood, career as a brilliant judge in Hong Kong, and marriage to Betty. This novel is through Betty's eyes. What a different story they tell, what different people they are.
Gardam reveals early on in both books that this marriage lasts fifty years. From the time they met it is obvious how different the two are and what different expectations they have for the marriage. Their union is void of passion, something Betty knew from the beginning, but something she felt children would compensate for. After an early miscarriage, she knew this was not to be. But Filth was like a child, so accomplished in his profession but childlike in many ways: socially clueless and deeply fearful of being abandoned as he had been in childhood.
Through the perceptive touch of Ms. Gardam, the success, or at least the longevity, of this union is finely detailed. With a sharp British wit and no judgmental slant, the personalities, faults and needs of this couple become evident. From their many years in Hong Kong beginning in post WWII to a quiet retirement in Dorset, England their marriage survived. What might have been a mundane story of a less than perfect marriage is skillfully transformed into a masterpiece by the talents of this wonderful author.
It is not necessary to read the first book in the trilogy to enjoy this novel, but many holes are filled in and the relationship is enhanced by doing so. I am anxious to read book three and further my involvement in the lives of these fascinating characters.
Gardam reveals early on in both books that this marriage lasts fifty years. From the time they met it is obvious how different the two are and what different expectations they have for the marriage. Their union is void of passion, something Betty knew from the beginning, but something she felt children would compensate for. After an early miscarriage, she knew this was not to be. But Filth was like a child, so accomplished in his profession but childlike in many ways: socially clueless and deeply fearful of being abandoned as he had been in childhood.
Through the perceptive touch of Ms. Gardam, the success, or at least the longevity, of this union is finely detailed. With a sharp British wit and no judgmental slant, the personalities, faults and needs of this couple become evident. From their many years in Hong Kong beginning in post WWII to a quiet retirement in Dorset, England their marriage survived. What might have been a mundane story of a less than perfect marriage is skillfully transformed into a masterpiece by the talents of this wonderful author.
It is not necessary to read the first book in the trilogy to enjoy this novel, but many holes are filled in and the relationship is enhanced by doing so. I am anxious to read book three and further my involvement in the lives of these fascinating characters.
March 31, 2019
What a marvellous writer Jane Gardam is! ‘The Man in the Wooden Hat’ is the 2nd novel in the Old Filth trilogy, telling the story from his wife Betty’s perspective. The quiet desperation of Betty’s voice was at times hard to bear for me, yet at the same time she expresses a love of life that never diminishes. I can’t express how very sensitve and moving Jane Gardam told her side of the story. Highly recommended!
August 14, 2023
My eyes are still wide with wonder and surprise with how Gardam’s second book about Edward Feathers has exceeded my expectations.
This could have been another cozy tale about English ex-pats marrying for unexpressed reasons and then striving for an equilibrium – but it is not! Gardam plays with this trope and her Elisabeth Macintosh is a masterful creation. Here are some of her words:
“She’s going to be my icon. I shall grow old like her, commanding people and being a perfick lady, opening bazaars. I’ll live in the past and try to improve it.”
And ---
“The car stopped, the driver’s door flew open and Edward stood in the middle of the road. Wet to the skin, enclosed in his long arms, Elisabeth began to cry and Edward to set up the curious roaring noises that had overtaken him since his stammering childhood but now only when he was on the point of tears.
She said, “Oh, Eddie! Oh, Filth!” her wet face against his clean, warm shirt.
She thought: I love him.
He said, “I thought you’d left me.”
The book is Gardam’s riff on domesticity. The focus on the marriage and relationship between the two is both the same and different than in Old Filth https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
More time is spent in Wooden Hat on their early period both before and after their wedding. We have the descriptions of married life from Eddie's and Betsy’s perspectives but neither had a model of a married when they were growing up that proved of any use to them in either grounding their relationship or showing them how the principals of a marriage make it work. But work it does, sort of, in a whirl of expectations that are provided by Hong Kong society, Inns of Court, old friends ---class consciousness for a particular kind of “English person” who was fading from the world at this point in British history. The arc of their relationship is told with sensitivity and understanding.
You may have to read this book yourself to know the significance of the “wooden hat.”
This could have been another cozy tale about English ex-pats marrying for unexpressed reasons and then striving for an equilibrium – but it is not! Gardam plays with this trope and her Elisabeth Macintosh is a masterful creation. Here are some of her words:
“She’s going to be my icon. I shall grow old like her, commanding people and being a perfick lady, opening bazaars. I’ll live in the past and try to improve it.”
And ---
“The car stopped, the driver’s door flew open and Edward stood in the middle of the road. Wet to the skin, enclosed in his long arms, Elisabeth began to cry and Edward to set up the curious roaring noises that had overtaken him since his stammering childhood but now only when he was on the point of tears.
She said, “Oh, Eddie! Oh, Filth!” her wet face against his clean, warm shirt.
She thought: I love him.
He said, “I thought you’d left me.”
The book is Gardam’s riff on domesticity. The focus on the marriage and relationship between the two is both the same and different than in Old Filth https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
More time is spent in Wooden Hat on their early period both before and after their wedding. We have the descriptions of married life from Eddie's and Betsy’s perspectives but neither had a model of a married when they were growing up that proved of any use to them in either grounding their relationship or showing them how the principals of a marriage make it work. But work it does, sort of, in a whirl of expectations that are provided by Hong Kong society, Inns of Court, old friends ---class consciousness for a particular kind of “English person” who was fading from the world at this point in British history. The arc of their relationship is told with sensitivity and understanding.
You may have to read this book yourself to know the significance of the “wooden hat.”
July 25, 2018
I read Old Filth about a decade ago.
1. You absolutely don't need to read Old Filth before this one.
2. I LOVED this book.
3. Gardam is one of those writers who can be wry and funny and penetrating all at the same time and showing very little effort.
4. I have no idea why I waited so long to follow up OF with this one even though I have owned it forever.
5. I love this book so much I want to marry it.
6. It was sweet and sad and really, really hit the spot.
1. You absolutely don't need to read Old Filth before this one.
2. I LOVED this book.
3. Gardam is one of those writers who can be wry and funny and penetrating all at the same time and showing very little effort.
4. I have no idea why I waited so long to follow up OF with this one even though I have owned it forever.
5. I love this book so much I want to marry it.
6. It was sweet and sad and really, really hit the spot.
August 11, 2016
4.5/5
The Man in the Wooden Hat is the companion piece to Jane Gardam’s wonderful novel Old Filth, about Sir Edward Feathers, a Raj orphan who becomes first a highly regarded barrister in Hong Kong and then an important judge at Home (England). This second book is from the perspective of Sir Edward’s wife, Betty (Elisabeth Macintosh). These two books fit together most perfectly, and they remind me somewhat of Alan Ayckbourn’s famous trilogy, The Norman Conquests, which I was lucky enough to see on television in the late 70’s. (The plays were presented live on stage in London and then New York before they were put on television. They are available now on DVD.) The three plays, which all share the same six characters and take place over the course of a weekend, are titled Table Manners, which is set in the dining room; Living Together, which is set in the living room; and Round and Round the Garden, which is set in the garden. The three plays were shown on different nights and the action of each play remained in its own room as Ayckbourn moved his characters from one room to the next. So on any given evening, the audience would witness parts of the conversations. If one could cut and paste all three plays, one could see that each character’s conversations fit together perfectly, even as they moved from place to place and talked with different characters. Yet at the same time the dialogue and action of each play works brilliantly as a complete play. An amazing accomplishment by Ayckbourn and great fun to watch.
Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat fit together somewhat like that. Each book makes total sense separately, but what you know after having read both of them is more than doubled. Before writing this review, I went back and reread my own review of Old Filth, and I discovered that some things I wrote there as facts about Sir Edward’s life and character that turned out to be wrong. Not that I would go back and make a change because what I wrote then is what I knew then. What we see from Sir Edward’s perspective in Old Filth leaves out many things that are included in The Man in the Wooden Hat. Most, of course, are things Betty knows, but there are some things we learn that Sir Edward knows that are new to us. Gardam is simply a genius here; we were not ready to know those things earlier. As for Betty, we get to learn more about who she was before she met her husband to be. We meet many of her friends, most of whom are pretty much ignored in Old Filth. We also see her marriage from her perspective. Both of these novels present complex views of a long marriage; we see the struggles in a radically different way from how we understood them from Old Filth. Yet despite those struggles and despite the very different sorts of people that Betty and Eddie are, there is a real marriage here. I won’t say more; instead, I leave it to you to discover all these ins-and-outs on your own should you choose to read these books.
So often a second book does not measure up to the first but that is not the case here. This book is as good as the first. All that is due to the extraordinary gifts of Jane Gardam, who draws you into the lives of her characters, even if you thought you would never be interested in these people. With her magnificent prose and great story-telling ability, you can and you will be. And now I am going to get my hands on her Last Friends, the third volume in the series.
The Man in the Wooden Hat is the companion piece to Jane Gardam’s wonderful novel Old Filth, about Sir Edward Feathers, a Raj orphan who becomes first a highly regarded barrister in Hong Kong and then an important judge at Home (England). This second book is from the perspective of Sir Edward’s wife, Betty (Elisabeth Macintosh). These two books fit together most perfectly, and they remind me somewhat of Alan Ayckbourn’s famous trilogy, The Norman Conquests, which I was lucky enough to see on television in the late 70’s. (The plays were presented live on stage in London and then New York before they were put on television. They are available now on DVD.) The three plays, which all share the same six characters and take place over the course of a weekend, are titled Table Manners, which is set in the dining room; Living Together, which is set in the living room; and Round and Round the Garden, which is set in the garden. The three plays were shown on different nights and the action of each play remained in its own room as Ayckbourn moved his characters from one room to the next. So on any given evening, the audience would witness parts of the conversations. If one could cut and paste all three plays, one could see that each character’s conversations fit together perfectly, even as they moved from place to place and talked with different characters. Yet at the same time the dialogue and action of each play works brilliantly as a complete play. An amazing accomplishment by Ayckbourn and great fun to watch.
Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat fit together somewhat like that. Each book makes total sense separately, but what you know after having read both of them is more than doubled. Before writing this review, I went back and reread my own review of Old Filth, and I discovered that some things I wrote there as facts about Sir Edward’s life and character that turned out to be wrong. Not that I would go back and make a change because what I wrote then is what I knew then. What we see from Sir Edward’s perspective in Old Filth leaves out many things that are included in The Man in the Wooden Hat. Most, of course, are things Betty knows, but there are some things we learn that Sir Edward knows that are new to us. Gardam is simply a genius here; we were not ready to know those things earlier. As for Betty, we get to learn more about who she was before she met her husband to be. We meet many of her friends, most of whom are pretty much ignored in Old Filth. We also see her marriage from her perspective. Both of these novels present complex views of a long marriage; we see the struggles in a radically different way from how we understood them from Old Filth. Yet despite those struggles and despite the very different sorts of people that Betty and Eddie are, there is a real marriage here. I won’t say more; instead, I leave it to you to discover all these ins-and-outs on your own should you choose to read these books.
So often a second book does not measure up to the first but that is not the case here. This book is as good as the first. All that is due to the extraordinary gifts of Jane Gardam, who draws you into the lives of her characters, even if you thought you would never be interested in these people. With her magnificent prose and great story-telling ability, you can and you will be. And now I am going to get my hands on her Last Friends, the third volume in the series.
July 31, 2016
From the blurb:
The new perspective on this marriage and the surprises this book held, filling up the gaps in the previous book, was worth the read. Detailed, intense, profound, emotionally challenging. The story is just so captivating and well presented. It felt like being there every step of the way, inhaling, tasting, absorbing a time in British history that could have been forgotten if it was not captured in historical fiction like this.
Apart from dissecting a love triangle to the bones, it also commemorates the values of the characters who survived a war in all its ugliness. Another aspect of the book is the world of elderly people and how they deal with their situations. It brought so much insight into a world awaiting us all.
A non-GR friend recommended this trilogy to me and I will forever be grateful to have friends who share the passion for excellent stories and prevent them from getting lost in a much bigger world of mediocrity and formulaic smoke. This trilogy is for the connoisseur, the serious reader, the seeker of true excellence.
RECOMMENDED
Old Filth was Eddie's story. The Man in the Wooden Hat is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself.
They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister, handsome, fast becoming rich, in need of a wife but unaccustomed to romance. A perfect English couple of the late 1940s.
... a portrait of a marriage, with all the bittersweet secrets and surprising fulfillment of the 50-year union of two remarkable people
The new perspective on this marriage and the surprises this book held, filling up the gaps in the previous book, was worth the read. Detailed, intense, profound, emotionally challenging. The story is just so captivating and well presented. It felt like being there every step of the way, inhaling, tasting, absorbing a time in British history that could have been forgotten if it was not captured in historical fiction like this.
Apart from dissecting a love triangle to the bones, it also commemorates the values of the characters who survived a war in all its ugliness. Another aspect of the book is the world of elderly people and how they deal with their situations. It brought so much insight into a world awaiting us all.
A non-GR friend recommended this trilogy to me and I will forever be grateful to have friends who share the passion for excellent stories and prevent them from getting lost in a much bigger world of mediocrity and formulaic smoke. This trilogy is for the connoisseur, the serious reader, the seeker of true excellence.
RECOMMENDED
July 19, 2010
In The Man in the Wooden Hat, Gardam returns to the story of Eddie and Betty Feathers's lives and marriage as English expats in Hong Kong introduced in Old Filth. I expected the story to shine a whole new light on the events of the first novel, creating a more complex whole. Perhaps expectations were a bit high, and there is less new information here than one might hope. This is meant to be Betty's story, but for that it talks very little about her life before meeting Feathers. Her relationship with his professional rival Veneering, circumscribed with hints in Old Filth, is more fleshed out but not necessarily more explicable; the reader is presented with a portrait of enduring unrealizable love, but it seems like they must barely know each other.
The last 15 pages or so, however, become very interesting, and partially succeed in casting some of the events in a new light or at least making the characters more complex. Still, we never really feel like we get to see what drives or motivates Betty. Her story hasn't been told in the sense that Eddie's was, and as beautiful and subtle as The Man in the Wooden Hat is, it's hard not to wish it were more.
The last 15 pages or so, however, become very interesting, and partially succeed in casting some of the events in a new light or at least making the characters more complex. Still, we never really feel like we get to see what drives or motivates Betty. Her story hasn't been told in the sense that Eddie's was, and as beautiful and subtle as The Man in the Wooden Hat is, it's hard not to wish it were more.
June 4, 2021
A love story. The second novel in Gardam's Old Filth trilogy. Old Filth (Failed in London try Hong Kong) is a QC. The first novel is his story, but this is his wife, Betty's. Her indecision over his proposal, a secret love (for two men) that she keeps for all of her life, her tragedies, and her simple joys from caring for her beloved Dorset garden. There is is nothing startling here, instead a beautifully written story of a woman's life. I adored it. (I think it helps if you have read Old Filth first.)
July 26, 2022
This is the second of three books that make up the Old Filth trilogy. I liked the first book, Old Filth, more than this one. This book was still good, and I look forward to finishing the trilogy off with ‘Last Friends'.
I guess one problem I had with the book is that it was not clear why Betty, after having told Old Filth that she would marry him, The timing couldn’t have been more worse, and made no sense to me (I guess love at first sight taken to the extreme). And so that affected me for the rest of the reading of the novel. Also, Betty spent part of her early life in a Japanese prison (internment) camp, and we are not given any details on that. In the first book, we are given a fair amount of information about Old Filth’s childhood (expect for his life in Wales with Ma Didds, which was only revealed at the end of that book) ...next-to-nothing in this second book on Betty’s early life.
Reviews
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... (from reading this review I am now aware that shortly before this novel came out, a collection of short stories by Gardam was published (The People on Privilege Hill, 2007) and one of the stories is about Old Filth, Betty, and I am guessing Old Filth’s nemesis and Betty’s former lover, Terry Veneering)
• https://www.complete-review.com/revie...
• https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/...
I guess one problem I had with the book is that it was not clear why Betty, after having told Old Filth that she would marry him, The timing couldn’t have been more worse, and made no sense to me (I guess love at first sight taken to the extreme). And so that affected me for the rest of the reading of the novel. Also, Betty spent part of her early life in a Japanese prison (internment) camp, and we are not given any details on that. In the first book, we are given a fair amount of information about Old Filth’s childhood (expect for his life in Wales with Ma Didds, which was only revealed at the end of that book) ...next-to-nothing in this second book on Betty’s early life.
Reviews
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... (from reading this review I am now aware that shortly before this novel came out, a collection of short stories by Gardam was published (The People on Privilege Hill, 2007) and one of the stories is about Old Filth, Betty, and I am guessing Old Filth’s nemesis and Betty’s former lover, Terry Veneering)
• https://www.complete-review.com/revie...
• https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/...
March 30, 2013
I don’t know how to properly explain about this book. I KNOW I really, really liked it. Why? Well because it spoke to my heart about marital relationships. The problems everyone has, even if you love each other! You don’t have to be a person like either Betty or Eddie to still recognize yourself or your spouse through their relationship. It is about balancing two people’s personalities because there are always differences. The book shows you a long marriage and how it changes with time….and in some ways things never changes! Even if you would never make the same choices that either Betty or Eddie make, you will relate to their choices. Were you a little worried when you decided to get married if you had made the right choice? Have you never been attracted to anyone else since then? After years and years together do there still remain secrets? And are they secrets? Does the other one know? Don’t all of us get stuck in our ways? Isn’t there always one who needs to communicate more than the other? How do other interests (work, hobbies) play in? When one person does something, this leads the other to do something and down the line it goes.
So often, one sentence in the book sums up years and years of experiences. There are so many marvelous sentences, but I believe each one of us will pick different lines that are important to just them. These are a few I liked:
“My work was too important to me.”
“Aren’t you over-doing it?”
“The smiles in his eyes were as they had always been.”
“Just as she had re-arranged herself into a copy of her dead mother…”
“When would I have been told?”
This book is all about relationships. Even if we love our husband or wife we never will be exactly the same. We never get everything we want. We all have to make compromises. We all are so sure that our way of looking at “what happened “ is obvious, but then we can come to see that there is another totally different way of seeing these same events. In real life we are so obstinately fighting for our own beliefs that we rarely even want to see the whole picture. In Old Filth we got Eddie’s view, here we get Betty’s and here we learn that there was so much more to the story than what we first understood. Along the way we have a chance to observe out own lives. Two people’s views do overlap, but they are never identical. It is not a matter of deciding whose view is correct, but simply seeing the other point of view. As you look at this couple’s life you will think about your own life, and I bet you will chuckle along the way.
Graeme Malcolm’s narration was fine throughout the entire audiobook.
I have heard that the author has written a third book. If this is true, I will definitely be reading it soon! Will it be more about Albert Ross or about Terry or maybe even Lizzie?
Yay, Last Friends will come out on Kindle on April 2nd. It is about Terry! Can it be as good? I didn't really like Terry Veneering; look at his last name.... Thank you Diane for telling me!
*****************************
Through Chapter 22: I was shocked by the first chapters. I didn't even tell you about those. Then I was very happy, but now I am stricken with grief over what is happening. Seriously, why do I get so upset about books? Why do I care so about these fictitious characters? I do have a low threshold for medical calamities, but.... Is this exceptional writing or is it just me?!
**********************
Through Chapter 16: Everybody says Old Filth should be read before this book, The Man in the Wooden Hat, although both work as stand-alones. I have read "Old Filth", although quite a while ago, I think I remember enough. What hits me now is the humor in Jane Gardam's lines! I don't recall such humor, and I am loving it. I think this is wonderful, hearing Betty's side of their marriage! THIS is much better than Eddie's! They are newlywed in bombed-out London. It is the 50s and Eddie, he is always gone, in "Chambers"! Eddie is a Barrister workaholic, and my husband is a workaholic and has always been, so this book speaks to me! Do you remember how you felt as a newlywed? Do you remember how happy you were? Do you remember having no money and not caring at all, not in the least?! Betty has just cooked "coq-au-vin" and she is not sure if she should have left the feet in...... I can't cook either, by the way! Eddie remarks: "Do you know what your are? You're happy!" And she thinks: "She knew she looked beautiful. Happiness makes you look beautiful." Doesn't it?! Gardam has a delightful way of describing Eddie's old bachelor flat, which when they return from their honeymoon in the Far East, is filthy. It even has a rat! They escape to a hotel for one night, and the next morning, with dawn and sparkling light and full of energy, it all looks so different. Oh to be young and newly married! I love this. It is even better than "Old Filth"....Or have I forgotten how good that was?
The audiobook narration by Graeme Malcolm is fast, but still good. I haven't had to re-listen to sections, not yet at least.
So often, one sentence in the book sums up years and years of experiences. There are so many marvelous sentences, but I believe each one of us will pick different lines that are important to just them. These are a few I liked:
“My work was too important to me.”
“Aren’t you over-doing it?”
“The smiles in his eyes were as they had always been.”
“Just as she had re-arranged herself into a copy of her dead mother…”
“When would I have been told?”
This book is all about relationships. Even if we love our husband or wife we never will be exactly the same. We never get everything we want. We all have to make compromises. We all are so sure that our way of looking at “what happened “ is obvious, but then we can come to see that there is another totally different way of seeing these same events. In real life we are so obstinately fighting for our own beliefs that we rarely even want to see the whole picture. In Old Filth we got Eddie’s view, here we get Betty’s and here we learn that there was so much more to the story than what we first understood. Along the way we have a chance to observe out own lives. Two people’s views do overlap, but they are never identical. It is not a matter of deciding whose view is correct, but simply seeing the other point of view. As you look at this couple’s life you will think about your own life, and I bet you will chuckle along the way.
Graeme Malcolm’s narration was fine throughout the entire audiobook.
I have heard that the author has written a third book. If this is true, I will definitely be reading it soon! Will it be more about Albert Ross or about Terry or maybe even Lizzie?
Yay, Last Friends will come out on Kindle on April 2nd. It is about Terry! Can it be as good? I didn't really like Terry Veneering; look at his last name.... Thank you Diane for telling me!
*****************************
Through Chapter 22: I was shocked by the first chapters. I didn't even tell you about those. Then I was very happy, but now I am stricken with grief over what is happening. Seriously, why do I get so upset about books? Why do I care so about these fictitious characters? I do have a low threshold for medical calamities, but.... Is this exceptional writing or is it just me?!
**********************
Through Chapter 16: Everybody says Old Filth should be read before this book, The Man in the Wooden Hat, although both work as stand-alones. I have read "Old Filth", although quite a while ago, I think I remember enough. What hits me now is the humor in Jane Gardam's lines! I don't recall such humor, and I am loving it. I think this is wonderful, hearing Betty's side of their marriage! THIS is much better than Eddie's! They are newlywed in bombed-out London. It is the 50s and Eddie, he is always gone, in "Chambers"! Eddie is a Barrister workaholic, and my husband is a workaholic and has always been, so this book speaks to me! Do you remember how you felt as a newlywed? Do you remember how happy you were? Do you remember having no money and not caring at all, not in the least?! Betty has just cooked "coq-au-vin" and she is not sure if she should have left the feet in...... I can't cook either, by the way! Eddie remarks: "Do you know what your are? You're happy!" And she thinks: "She knew she looked beautiful. Happiness makes you look beautiful." Doesn't it?! Gardam has a delightful way of describing Eddie's old bachelor flat, which when they return from their honeymoon in the Far East, is filthy. It even has a rat! They escape to a hotel for one night, and the next morning, with dawn and sparkling light and full of energy, it all looks so different. Oh to be young and newly married! I love this. It is even better than "Old Filth"....Or have I forgotten how good that was?
The audiobook narration by Graeme Malcolm is fast, but still good. I haven't had to re-listen to sections, not yet at least.
June 15, 2011
If I am limited to recommend only one book, I urge you to read these two books. Jane Gardem writes prose that begins gently, invitingly, leading you to the next page and the next, never permitting you to notice that you have been drawn in to her story because all the while you read a part of your mind is asking whether ‘that could have been me….’
Old Filth has almost nothing to do with filth but, rather, is the life revisited of a British attorney who Failed in London, Tried Hong Kong. Sir Edward Feathers’ history begins the day his soul dies, not in a courtroom, not in his childhood as an orphan of English empire, but on the day he and his wife Betty fail to execute their wills. Their own lawyer having missed the appointment, he and Betty return to their retirement cottage in the country, each with his and her own thoughts, unfortunately dwelling on slights received from the other, when – Betty dies in her garden. For the first time in his life, Feathers must consider what Betty has been to him in their long and childless marriage. He begins by blaming her for dying and thereby leaving him to cope on his own with the remainder of his life. An orphan whose own parents had more or less abandoned him to English boarding schools from their post as administrators in Malaysia, Feathers reminisces about his own life, his primary school, friends lost in the war, a narrow escape, a life that no matter how fortunate he was, he views as a series of abandonments. And, at the end, he cannot understand why Betty had been so unhappy over the news that the son of his bitterest, most longstanding adversary, had died.
Standing alone, Old Filth was a finalist for the Orange Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in literature. However, Ms. Gardem goes beyond permitting Edward Feathers to live and die alone. She returns to the scene in The Man in the Wooden Hat, and the scene to which she returns is not Betty’s death, but her marriage – to Old Filth. In this parallel-quel, Ms. Gardem recalls through Betty’s eyes every stage of Feathers’ life, events and people only hinted at and histories left unexplained by Old Filth. And, even though they knew each other briefly before wedding, their lives often had intersected beforehand and the intersections would continue to map their lives afterward. With counsel from her friend Isobel, a warning from Feathers’ oddly invisible colleague Albert Ross, and an inexplicable fascination with the very young son of Feathers’ adversary, Betty sets aside her doubts and proceeds to marry a man who, in the event, becomes her partner in life but, rarely, her lover, or rarer still, her intimate, and, never, the father of the children she had wanted. To say more would be to say too much.
His story. Her story. And, before you have realized it, impressions of our own stories, not our marriages or love affairs or biographies, but of lives’ paths and decisions made young. Almost never do we perform the parts of the plays we have written for ourselves. These novels remind us that in all of our roles, the value of the play will not be revealed until the end. And, through her elegant skill, Jane Gardem graces every reader with literature that before one’s eyes has progressed from slender and gentle vignettes to reveal a magnificent, gripping, and rewarding story told in two novels.
Old Filth has almost nothing to do with filth but, rather, is the life revisited of a British attorney who Failed in London, Tried Hong Kong. Sir Edward Feathers’ history begins the day his soul dies, not in a courtroom, not in his childhood as an orphan of English empire, but on the day he and his wife Betty fail to execute their wills. Their own lawyer having missed the appointment, he and Betty return to their retirement cottage in the country, each with his and her own thoughts, unfortunately dwelling on slights received from the other, when – Betty dies in her garden. For the first time in his life, Feathers must consider what Betty has been to him in their long and childless marriage. He begins by blaming her for dying and thereby leaving him to cope on his own with the remainder of his life. An orphan whose own parents had more or less abandoned him to English boarding schools from their post as administrators in Malaysia, Feathers reminisces about his own life, his primary school, friends lost in the war, a narrow escape, a life that no matter how fortunate he was, he views as a series of abandonments. And, at the end, he cannot understand why Betty had been so unhappy over the news that the son of his bitterest, most longstanding adversary, had died.
Standing alone, Old Filth was a finalist for the Orange Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in literature. However, Ms. Gardem goes beyond permitting Edward Feathers to live and die alone. She returns to the scene in The Man in the Wooden Hat, and the scene to which she returns is not Betty’s death, but her marriage – to Old Filth. In this parallel-quel, Ms. Gardem recalls through Betty’s eyes every stage of Feathers’ life, events and people only hinted at and histories left unexplained by Old Filth. And, even though they knew each other briefly before wedding, their lives often had intersected beforehand and the intersections would continue to map their lives afterward. With counsel from her friend Isobel, a warning from Feathers’ oddly invisible colleague Albert Ross, and an inexplicable fascination with the very young son of Feathers’ adversary, Betty sets aside her doubts and proceeds to marry a man who, in the event, becomes her partner in life but, rarely, her lover, or rarer still, her intimate, and, never, the father of the children she had wanted. To say more would be to say too much.
His story. Her story. And, before you have realized it, impressions of our own stories, not our marriages or love affairs or biographies, but of lives’ paths and decisions made young. Almost never do we perform the parts of the plays we have written for ourselves. These novels remind us that in all of our roles, the value of the play will not be revealed until the end. And, through her elegant skill, Jane Gardem graces every reader with literature that before one’s eyes has progressed from slender and gentle vignettes to reveal a magnificent, gripping, and rewarding story told in two novels.
July 13, 2023
The Story Of Betty Feathers
Jane Gardam's 2009 novel "The man in the wooden hat" tells the story of Elizabeth Macintosh and her long marriage to Sir Edward Feathers, who is commonly known as "Old Filth". The name is off-putting in approaching the book. The novel is set in the years after WW II in Hong Kong and England, with important scenes in villages and rural areas known as the Donheads, and in London. Betty has had a difficult early life through lack of close family, being interned during the War and, working as a code-breaker. At the age of 28 she receives and accepts a marriage proposal from Edward Feathers, also of poor background, and lonely childhood but a rising, hard-working young lawyer in Hong Kong. His rise to success has been assisted by a mysterious, sinister dwarf, Albert Loss. Feathers has difficulty expressing feelings and the upcoming marriage promises to be passionless without a strong component of sexual desire. The novel traces the course of the marriage and threads the story of Betty and Edward in with the fate of Britain after the War, as it loses Hong Kong, its other overseas possessions, and must retrench in its place in the world.
The book has many other characters, friends and romantic interests of the two primary characters. But the focus is on Betty and her husband and how they work to get along over a long marriage in the face of temptations, independent lives, and a shortage of physical desire for one another. In its style, restraint, and themes, "The man in the wooden hat" could only be an English novel. Gardam's writing is exquisite and understated with its descriptions of people and places and its dialogue. It is old-fashioned in the writing with little of the vulgarity or overt sexual references that characterize much modern writing. The book is a mixture of sadness and humor as Gardam shows the reader her characters and allows reflection on the nature of their lives, marriages, and careers.
This book is a follow-up to Gardam's novel "Old Filth" which focuses on Edward Feathers. The nickname is distracting but it comes from the acronym, "Failed in London, Try Hong Kong" which describes Feathers' early legal career and success. I haven't read "Old Filth" and thus tried to read "The Man in the Wooden Hat" for itself without reference to the earlier work. In many ways I loved the book, with its clear-sightedness, character development, and insight into its characters and into England. The book reflects on how the world has changed. While I, sometimes with difficulty, could follow the story, I thought that portions of the book were dependent of the prior novel, "Old Filth". I missed something in perspective and character in reading this book alone without seeing essentially the same history from Edward Feathers' perspective.
In sum, "The Man in the Wooden Hat" is a lovely book and effective as an independent work in many ways, but I suspect it is better read after and as a complement to the earlier book, "Old Filth".
Robin Friedman
Jane Gardam's 2009 novel "The man in the wooden hat" tells the story of Elizabeth Macintosh and her long marriage to Sir Edward Feathers, who is commonly known as "Old Filth". The name is off-putting in approaching the book. The novel is set in the years after WW II in Hong Kong and England, with important scenes in villages and rural areas known as the Donheads, and in London. Betty has had a difficult early life through lack of close family, being interned during the War and, working as a code-breaker. At the age of 28 she receives and accepts a marriage proposal from Edward Feathers, also of poor background, and lonely childhood but a rising, hard-working young lawyer in Hong Kong. His rise to success has been assisted by a mysterious, sinister dwarf, Albert Loss. Feathers has difficulty expressing feelings and the upcoming marriage promises to be passionless without a strong component of sexual desire. The novel traces the course of the marriage and threads the story of Betty and Edward in with the fate of Britain after the War, as it loses Hong Kong, its other overseas possessions, and must retrench in its place in the world.
The book has many other characters, friends and romantic interests of the two primary characters. But the focus is on Betty and her husband and how they work to get along over a long marriage in the face of temptations, independent lives, and a shortage of physical desire for one another. In its style, restraint, and themes, "The man in the wooden hat" could only be an English novel. Gardam's writing is exquisite and understated with its descriptions of people and places and its dialogue. It is old-fashioned in the writing with little of the vulgarity or overt sexual references that characterize much modern writing. The book is a mixture of sadness and humor as Gardam shows the reader her characters and allows reflection on the nature of their lives, marriages, and careers.
This book is a follow-up to Gardam's novel "Old Filth" which focuses on Edward Feathers. The nickname is distracting but it comes from the acronym, "Failed in London, Try Hong Kong" which describes Feathers' early legal career and success. I haven't read "Old Filth" and thus tried to read "The Man in the Wooden Hat" for itself without reference to the earlier work. In many ways I loved the book, with its clear-sightedness, character development, and insight into its characters and into England. The book reflects on how the world has changed. While I, sometimes with difficulty, could follow the story, I thought that portions of the book were dependent of the prior novel, "Old Filth". I missed something in perspective and character in reading this book alone without seeing essentially the same history from Edward Feathers' perspective.
In sum, "The Man in the Wooden Hat" is a lovely book and effective as an independent work in many ways, but I suspect it is better read after and as a complement to the earlier book, "Old Filth".
Robin Friedman
October 25, 2023
Rule, Britannia!
Il secondo romanzo di questa divertente trilogia non è un sequel nel vero senso della parola. Ripercorre, dopo “Figlio dell’Impero Britannico”, quasi i medesimi eventi e ne segue gli stessi personaggi con la particolarità che qui i fatti sono vissuti attraverso la figura di Betty, la moglie di Eddie Feathers protagonista assoluto del primo episodio; questo ci permette, disponendo di maggiori conoscenze, di illuminare situazioni rimaste oscure ed interpretare comportamenti che apparivano contraddittori, ma soprattutto offre una panoramica più completa dell’evolversi della storia.
La narrativa inglese non è nuova a questi ribaltamenti di prospettiva del plot, a partire dal classico “quartetto di Alessandria” di Lawrence Durrell, accomunato a questo romanzo anche dall’ambientazione esotica e coloniale, e pure Julian Barnes si è cimentato in questo esercizio addirittura all’interno dello stesso racconto.
Dopo la sorpresa iniziale, il gioco potrebbe risultare pretenzioso e un po’ stucchevole se non fosse sorretto dallo stile di Jane Gardam, brillante e carico di humour, che qui si giova di una protagonista ben più simpatica e piacevole dello scorbutico marito.
Anche “L’uomo col cappello di legno”, come il precedente, si avvale di svariate ed affascinanti “locations” novecentesche, da Hong Kong a Londra, a Malta, alle campagne del Dorset, il che contribuisce a rendere questo romanzo un romantico viaggio fra stazioni, camere d’albergo, musei, caffè, ammantato da una patina di malinconia per l’Impero Britannico che sente sfarinarsi il suo predominio culturale prima ancora che militare, un’atmosfera nostalgica che si riverbera sull’indole dei personaggi. Personaggi peraltro molto ben caratterizzati e che, grazie alla delicatezza della penna della Gardam, sono in grado di strappare un sorriso anche negli atteggiamenti più scopertamente viziati da venature di inconsapevole razzismo mentre, dietro una facciata di convenzionalità tipicamente british, celano segreti inconfessabili e profonde insicurezze.
Per esprimersi compiutamente sul significato dell’opera occorre attendere la lettura del terzo romanzo che preferisco citare col titolo originale “Last Friends” piuttosto che col banale italiano “L’eterno rivale”, dove so soltanto che il pallino passerà nelle mani del personaggio di Terry, il terzo vertice del triangolo e il cui punto di vista anch’io attendo di scoprire con curiosità, catturato dal talento di un’incantatrice che qualcuno ha voluto paragonare a una Jane Austen dei nostri giorni.
Il secondo romanzo di questa divertente trilogia non è un sequel nel vero senso della parola. Ripercorre, dopo “Figlio dell’Impero Britannico”, quasi i medesimi eventi e ne segue gli stessi personaggi con la particolarità che qui i fatti sono vissuti attraverso la figura di Betty, la moglie di Eddie Feathers protagonista assoluto del primo episodio; questo ci permette, disponendo di maggiori conoscenze, di illuminare situazioni rimaste oscure ed interpretare comportamenti che apparivano contraddittori, ma soprattutto offre una panoramica più completa dell’evolversi della storia.
La narrativa inglese non è nuova a questi ribaltamenti di prospettiva del plot, a partire dal classico “quartetto di Alessandria” di Lawrence Durrell, accomunato a questo romanzo anche dall’ambientazione esotica e coloniale, e pure Julian Barnes si è cimentato in questo esercizio addirittura all’interno dello stesso racconto.
Dopo la sorpresa iniziale, il gioco potrebbe risultare pretenzioso e un po’ stucchevole se non fosse sorretto dallo stile di Jane Gardam, brillante e carico di humour, che qui si giova di una protagonista ben più simpatica e piacevole dello scorbutico marito.
Anche “L’uomo col cappello di legno”, come il precedente, si avvale di svariate ed affascinanti “locations” novecentesche, da Hong Kong a Londra, a Malta, alle campagne del Dorset, il che contribuisce a rendere questo romanzo un romantico viaggio fra stazioni, camere d’albergo, musei, caffè, ammantato da una patina di malinconia per l’Impero Britannico che sente sfarinarsi il suo predominio culturale prima ancora che militare, un’atmosfera nostalgica che si riverbera sull’indole dei personaggi. Personaggi peraltro molto ben caratterizzati e che, grazie alla delicatezza della penna della Gardam, sono in grado di strappare un sorriso anche negli atteggiamenti più scopertamente viziati da venature di inconsapevole razzismo mentre, dietro una facciata di convenzionalità tipicamente british, celano segreti inconfessabili e profonde insicurezze.
Per esprimersi compiutamente sul significato dell’opera occorre attendere la lettura del terzo romanzo che preferisco citare col titolo originale “Last Friends” piuttosto che col banale italiano “L’eterno rivale”, dove so soltanto che il pallino passerà nelle mani del personaggio di Terry, il terzo vertice del triangolo e il cui punto di vista anch’io attendo di scoprire con curiosità, catturato dal talento di un’incantatrice che qualcuno ha voluto paragonare a una Jane Austen dei nostri giorni.
October 28, 2022
Vijf sterren: alleen al voor het leesplezier.
Het moet niet altijd 'moeilijk' zijn.
Fijne schrijfstijl.
Het moet niet altijd 'moeilijk' zijn.
Fijne schrijfstijl.
November 8, 2009
This book is a companion to "Old Filth," just as "Man in the Wooden Hat" protagonist Betty Feathers is a companion to the central character of the other novel, Edward Feathers.
It starts with Betty's decision to marry Edward, a charming man she hardly knows. She is 28, a virgin, an orphan, with few marital options and no money (well, until she turns 30 and her inheritance is unleashed). Edward, she can tell, is a good, caring man who will provide for her, even if he is deeply private and unlikely to ever fully open up.
We also get to know Albert Ross - also known as Coleridge, also as the Albatross - a strange, short Chinese solicitor who made a deep impression on Eddie Feathers when they were both youths, and who became his business partner and best friend in adulthood. Ross knows Betty's darkest secret, a pre-marital betrayal of her husband.
The plot of this book barely exists. Betty marries Edward, they live together many years, then she dies, and all of this is sketched out at the beginning.
It's made more interesting by its exploration of British colonialism and its decline through the eyes of the colonials. Edward, as we learned in "Old Filth," was born in Malaysia - then Malaya - and raised in England and Wales as a Raj Orphan. Betty was born and raised in Hong Kong, spent late childhood in a Japanese camp during World War II where both her parents die. They spend much of their adult lives together in Hong Kong, retiring, and retreating, to Britain's Donheads on the eve of Hong Kong's handover to China. It's a bittersweet handover for two souls who feel themselves more Asian than English.
The beauty of this book is in its careful study of character and in author Jane Gardam's careful understanding of unspoken and conflicting emotions. There are a few surprising revelations about Betty's choices, her marriage and her love, which may feel more meaningful if the reader has already completed "Old Filth." I'm not convinced that this book stands on its own as well as its predecessor, however. It's beautiful, but it falls just short of profound.
It starts with Betty's decision to marry Edward, a charming man she hardly knows. She is 28, a virgin, an orphan, with few marital options and no money (well, until she turns 30 and her inheritance is unleashed). Edward, she can tell, is a good, caring man who will provide for her, even if he is deeply private and unlikely to ever fully open up.
We also get to know Albert Ross - also known as Coleridge, also as the Albatross - a strange, short Chinese solicitor who made a deep impression on Eddie Feathers when they were both youths, and who became his business partner and best friend in adulthood. Ross knows Betty's darkest secret, a pre-marital betrayal of her husband.
The plot of this book barely exists. Betty marries Edward, they live together many years, then she dies, and all of this is sketched out at the beginning.
It's made more interesting by its exploration of British colonialism and its decline through the eyes of the colonials. Edward, as we learned in "Old Filth," was born in Malaysia - then Malaya - and raised in England and Wales as a Raj Orphan. Betty was born and raised in Hong Kong, spent late childhood in a Japanese camp during World War II where both her parents die. They spend much of their adult lives together in Hong Kong, retiring, and retreating, to Britain's Donheads on the eve of Hong Kong's handover to China. It's a bittersweet handover for two souls who feel themselves more Asian than English.
The beauty of this book is in its careful study of character and in author Jane Gardam's careful understanding of unspoken and conflicting emotions. There are a few surprising revelations about Betty's choices, her marriage and her love, which may feel more meaningful if the reader has already completed "Old Filth." I'm not convinced that this book stands on its own as well as its predecessor, however. It's beautiful, but it falls just short of profound.
November 7, 2017
I really liked the "other half" of this story, Jane Gardam's earlier novel, "Old Filth". But I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what this book was all about.
Jane Gardam writes with intelligence and authority, therefore some people (including her publishers) must have felt that there was some deep literary merit to this diatribe. It's a novel by Jane Gardam, she's won all sorts of awards, therefore by definition this will be a worthy tome...
Well, this wasn't. I could give a dozen different theories as to what was actually going on here. The most salient explanation is that our main protagonist, "Old Filth's" wife Betty, suffered a traumatic event early in her life - and she admits to being in a bit of netherworld as a result. I suspect "she" wrote most of this book whilst she was in that perplexed state.
Some sentences simply don't make any sort of sense - there is no context to them, and there is barely any syntax to them. Other passages seem like unconnected streams of consciousness (or sub-consciousness) which just peter out into nothingness. Momentous events go unexplained - not just unexplained, but half introduced and then abandoned without any reflection or analysis at all. And then there is analysis and reflection un-connected to any events whatsoever.
Only the last chapter or so, after Betty's death, seem to make any narrative sense whatsoever. Maybe there's a message in there somewhere, maybe I'm just too simple to see it. But I do feel that this whole novel was akin to staring hard at the Emperor's new clothes. I'm afraid for me it really all was a load of "old filth". Sorry.
Jane Gardam writes with intelligence and authority, therefore some people (including her publishers) must have felt that there was some deep literary merit to this diatribe. It's a novel by Jane Gardam, she's won all sorts of awards, therefore by definition this will be a worthy tome...
Well, this wasn't. I could give a dozen different theories as to what was actually going on here. The most salient explanation is that our main protagonist, "Old Filth's" wife Betty, suffered a traumatic event early in her life - and she admits to being in a bit of netherworld as a result. I suspect "she" wrote most of this book whilst she was in that perplexed state.
Some sentences simply don't make any sort of sense - there is no context to them, and there is barely any syntax to them. Other passages seem like unconnected streams of consciousness (or sub-consciousness) which just peter out into nothingness. Momentous events go unexplained - not just unexplained, but half introduced and then abandoned without any reflection or analysis at all. And then there is analysis and reflection un-connected to any events whatsoever.
Only the last chapter or so, after Betty's death, seem to make any narrative sense whatsoever. Maybe there's a message in there somewhere, maybe I'm just too simple to see it. But I do feel that this whole novel was akin to staring hard at the Emperor's new clothes. I'm afraid for me it really all was a load of "old filth". Sorry.
January 1, 2012
Wonderful companion piece to Old Filth, providing Betty's view of their shared history and some new information on the later days of Edward Feathers' existence after Betty's death. To say much is probably to say too much but the English pre and post-war character as presented here appears to have many issues with belonging, trust, love, family. Betty and Eddie were both children of loss who found each other for better or worse and had their own style of love-filled marriage.
This is a must read for anyone who has read Old Filth. 4.5 stars.
This is a must read for anyone who has read Old Filth. 4.5 stars.
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March 7, 2021I just don’t know what to say.
THE DAY AFTER
i will not read volume 3. jane gardam is a genius as far as i am concerned. she writes spectacular literature that is beautiful and smart and i am unworthy of it.
but this is a paean to the british empire and the good ole golden times. you can easily get an idea of the pain and damage the british empire inflicted upon the world by reading novels by authors who live in or come from areas that were once british empire. what i mean is, you don't need to immerse yourself in history, there are nice novels you can read instead. Michael Ondaatje is one. Amitav Gosh is another. devastating stuff.
this is what gardam writes in the last paragraph of the acknowledgments:
"Most of all, thanks to my husband David Gardam, especially for memories of our travels to places where the English Law continues to be heard."
you see? i just can't.
THE DAY AFTER
i will not read volume 3. jane gardam is a genius as far as i am concerned. she writes spectacular literature that is beautiful and smart and i am unworthy of it.
but this is a paean to the british empire and the good ole golden times. you can easily get an idea of the pain and damage the british empire inflicted upon the world by reading novels by authors who live in or come from areas that were once british empire. what i mean is, you don't need to immerse yourself in history, there are nice novels you can read instead. Michael Ondaatje is one. Amitav Gosh is another. devastating stuff.
this is what gardam writes in the last paragraph of the acknowledgments:
"Most of all, thanks to my husband David Gardam, especially for memories of our travels to places where the English Law continues to be heard."
you see? i just can't.
September 15, 2017
It's not often that I close a book with an audible sigh. This is Betty's story, but it is also the culmination of the story of Edward Feathers as told in Old Filth. If you haven't read that wonderful book yet, read it first before this one. Like the Alexandria Quartet, like Roshomon, both novels should be taken as a whole to give the entire satisfying picture. Threaded through this narrative are snapshots into a future readers of Old Filth will recognize, but which are completed and given the entire history. It's impossible to give a synopsis without ruining the story -- recaps have been provided in book descriptions and other reviews. Quality fiction rooted in the history of the last half of the 20th century doesn't get any better than this.
May 11, 2019
This sequel was even better than the first book. The events and story-telling is stunning. I found myself jumping out of my seat in surprise once in a while. In the second part of the book I was about to get disappointed but the ending was so over the top that the book deserves five stars.
Albert Ross is a peculiar fairy-God-mother (like in Cinderella) for Filth in a life that seems like a fair-tale.
Albert Ross is a peculiar fairy-God-mother (like in Cinderella) for Filth in a life that seems like a fair-tale.
January 17, 2018
This is the second novel in the 'filth' (fail in London, try Hong Kong) trilogy. This volume is another look on the same life stories that were described from the point of view of old 'filth' himself. This time the viewpoint is his wife's. Combined with the sparse but effective writing style, this makes for an interesting and enjoyable reading experience, filled with discoveries that change your understanding of the various characters. Another attraction of the series, for me, is that it's set in the
declining period of the British Empire, adding a touch of nostalgia for what probably never existed, as it is described here.
declining period of the British Empire, adding a touch of nostalgia for what probably never existed, as it is described here.
November 24, 2015
The second in the "old filth" trilogy. In the man with the wooden hat the story of the wealthy barrister and his charming wife is told from the perspective of the wife. It's funny, poignant and very well written with the words easing by smoothly as one plows through page after page. Somehow though it lacked the bravura punch of the first book. I will of course be reading the last of the trilogy though and there is plenty to savor in this book as well.
May 23, 2016
I really enjoyed the follow-up to Old Filth. It may not have hit the highs of the first book but this one had plenty to admire. It is mostly told from Betty's POV. She is Edward's wife. Looking forward to Last Friends, the final book in the trilogy.
June 11, 2018
A quiet examination of a complex marriage. It had its moments but nothing mind-blowing.
April 25, 2014
In an excellent follow-up to Old Filth, Jane Gardam retells the story from the perspective of Filth's wife, Betty. I enjoyed Mrs. Bridge and was told not to bother with Mr Bridge; in this case, though, I actually enjoyed the follow-up-from-the-spouse's-perspective more than the original. This may be because The Man in the Wooden Hat was more linear and easier for me to follow than Old Filth was. That being said, I think it's worthwhile to read both. While The Man in the Wooden Hat would probably work as a stand-alone book (and in fact I enjoyed it even though my memories of Old Filth are pretty fuzzy at this point), I think reading them together gives you the full effect. Great writing and characterization; an interesting story.
September 9, 2016
The Man in the Wooden Hat is a companion novel to Gardam’s novel Old Filth and it is told from the perspective of the wife of the protagonist of Old Filth, Elizabeth (Betty) Feathers, nee Macintosh. I expected this book to go more into Betty’s past, but other than brief mentions of her Shanghai childhood, her time in an Japanese internment camp and her Bletchley park days , it really doesn’t; its main focus would appear to be her marriage with Sir Edward. So at first, I was fairly disappointed because I didn’t feel that this book really added anything to the first book; I thought it was a re-hash. And while I love Gardam’s writing style generally, I found the jumpy almost stream of consciousness style and occasional magical elements slightly disorienting. But then I read the last line and burst into tears. Gardam waylaid me again. She is like a magician, misdirecting the reader so that when the story’s true aim is revealed, one is stunned.
That said, unlike Old Filth, I don’t think this book can stand on its own. The reader needs to be acquainted with the first book in order for the full import of The Man in the Wooden Hatto be felt in my opinion. I fully plan on reading the third book in this series, however and will see if that holds true for it as well.
That said, unlike Old Filth, I don’t think this book can stand on its own. The reader needs to be acquainted with the first book in order for the full import of The Man in the Wooden Hatto be felt in my opinion. I fully plan on reading the third book in this series, however and will see if that holds true for it as well.
March 3, 2012
Never heard of this author, but it was recommended by Bas Bleu and I bit...God, what a leap of literate faith...and it turned out so well....Ms. Gardam wrote a book - literature, mind you, no murder mysteries, no bodies floating in the river, no graphic sex, literature - about a young man in post WW II who took the bar in England, but never really "made it"...just wasn't cut out for the big trials of London, so became "Old Filth" an acronmyn for Failed In London, Try HongKong......and his story is very much a tale of British expat life in a Colony, making his way ever upward, becoming somebody, and needing a wife, so he marries the nearest female expat he can find...and they live their life together now, and finally retire back in England, until one day she dies, and the book ends with him pondering his life.....and then you pick up the book titled "The Man in the Wooden Hat"....which is the same story, the same exact story only told by her...the wife...and it's a DIFFERENT STORY !!!! 'cause, you see, husbands and wives, especially this husband and wife, don't live the same life...and the first book is very good, and the second book is very good, but together they are superb....really a great read...but don't the read the second one first!
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August 1, 2011Jane Gardam’s Man in the Wooden Hat (2009) is a sequel to Old Filfth (2006), though both novels can be read independently. The Man…is written from the perspective of Betty, married to Sir Edward Feathers, while Old Filth (Filth being an acronym for “Failed in London, Try Hong Kong”) is told from Filth’s point of view.
The Man in the Wooden Hat is one of those novels that are hard to summarize because what “happens” resides mostly in the interaction between characters—a character-driven story, as they say. The chapters’ titles themselves are emblematic: “Happiness,” “Marriage,” “Life…” Indeed, the only “events” in the novel are the marriage of Eddie and Betty—preceded by her one-night adventure with Eddie’s professional rival (also a lawyer, like Eddie), and in the end, Betty’s death. Yet, this is a very captivating book, and once you begin to read it, is hard to put down. Moving between London, Hong Kong and an idyllic location in the Doneheads, the texture of the novel borrows something from the atmosphere of all these places, so the reading experience translates for the reader into the sensuous feeling of being enveloped in an alien, fascinating fabric.
The Man in the Wooden Hat is one of those novels that are hard to summarize because what “happens” resides mostly in the interaction between characters—a character-driven story, as they say. The chapters’ titles themselves are emblematic: “Happiness,” “Marriage,” “Life…” Indeed, the only “events” in the novel are the marriage of Eddie and Betty—preceded by her one-night adventure with Eddie’s professional rival (also a lawyer, like Eddie), and in the end, Betty’s death. Yet, this is a very captivating book, and once you begin to read it, is hard to put down. Moving between London, Hong Kong and an idyllic location in the Doneheads, the texture of the novel borrows something from the atmosphere of all these places, so the reading experience translates for the reader into the sensuous feeling of being enveloped in an alien, fascinating fabric.
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