"Old Filth"; "The Man in the Wooden Hat"

Jane Gardam, the terrific English writer, has only recently been "discovered" in the United States, precipitated by the publication of her two most recent novels, "Old Filth" (Europa, 2006) and "The Man in the Wooden Hat" (Europa, 2009). These two novels are complementary; the first focuses on a husband and the second on his wife. We hear the same story from their two different viewpoints; each novel reveals new information. Sir Edward Feathers, nicknamed "Filth" for "Failed in London, try Hong Kong," has made his way in the still colonial Hong Kong of the post-World War II years, eventually rising to the position of a successful judge who is knighted, and retiring to the Dorset countryside at the end of his long career. He is an example of the effects of the British Empire on its children, having had a sad, almost parentless childhood in Malaysia and then Wales. Although he is somewhat emotionally stunted by this childhood, and has great trouble communicating his feelings, Gardam also shows his essential decency and humanity. His wife, Betty, has a very difficult childhood as well, having been starved in a Japanese internment camp in Shanghai during the war. This couple, each somewhat at sea in life, and needing some stability and human connection, stumbles into marriage. Gardam's depiction of their long, complicated marriage of almost 50 years is a masterpiece, as she portrays its constantly shifting landscape of happiness, unhappiness, secrets, and compromises. Jane Gardam is an astonishingly good writer; as soon as you begin reading either of these novels (and I strongly recommend you read both), you know you are in the hands of a master who is in complete control of her material. She has been called "mordantly funny" and"acerbic," both true, but she also shows us the underlying humanity of her characters, in all their complexity. So I recommend these books for their insider portrayal of British colonialism (a topic that has fascinated me since my childhood in India), for their startlingly original yet recognizable characters, and for the portrayal of Filth's and Betty's marriage. I also recommend Gardam's other novels; some that I have relished (and they are so good that you do "relish" them!) include "The People on Privilege Hill," "The Flight of the Maidens," and "The Queen of the Tambourine."