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Title: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson ISBN: 0-436-57500-0 Publisher: Secker & Warburg Pub. Date: December, 1956 Format: Hardcover

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: They SURE do have attitudes all right!
Comment: Hmm...Interesting. This phrase was one I pronounced manytimes as I read this novel. Excluding of course the period duringwhich I was reading the first chapter and a half. I think the first hundred pages or so of this novel moved slower than a fat guy on a hot day. I mean come on, could we pick it up a little please! I understand now that all the information we learned about the characters in that first section was helpful, if not necessary, in better making sense of the novels events. But I don't think it needed to be that boring. It is however quite possible that there was a fair amount of luster that I missed in the first 100 pages or so pages because of the cultural, and language differences between my American understanding of language and humor, and that of the British. Which if the case I apologize to Mr. Wilson. Even if it is the cause though that I missed out on some pieces of the 1st sections puzzle, I think it was slow and could have used a bit more spice (maybe some explosions, some gratuitous sex and/or violence, even some drug abuse would have livened up the tone to an acceptable level).

But despite my feelings towards the first section I did find the rest of the book fairly interesting. I thought that Wilson did a spectacular job of giving insight into Gerald Middleton's depression and submissiveness through his daydreams during the Christmas visit with his family. But during my reading of their conversations during the Christmas diner I found myself making judgements about the characters which I had previously not felt comfortable making due to a lack of knowledge about them. I realized that I didn't really like them very much. I didn't like how Gerald dealt with his family. He was and a******! No wonder his kids grew up to be so pompous and condescending (excluding john who was pompous to but he did seem to have a good heart). Gerald never loved them, he treated them like they were his students; He didn't enjoy seeing them or talking to them, he was cold and unaffectionate, it was as if he treated being a father like a job. But this view I acquired of Gerald through his interactions between him and his children conflicted with the one I had previously held, one of sympathy.

Overall I thought this novel was interesting, but a bit misleading. I initially thought the novel was going to be a sad, morbid novel by the way it was introduced (in the middle of Gerald's depressed state). But by the way the characters are all connected, a fun, silly tone seems to be coming to the foreground.

I would recommend reading this novel, but only if you read it twice because now as I am writing a review of the novel I feel all of my thoughts about it changing. Which I think is the by-product of the novels fairly complex structure, but a structure which is definitely worth getting a little confused about in order to eventually find it's heart and soul.

1-Love

Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful. A first rate book. An archaeological mystery.
Comment: Odd that this is the first review. Angus Wilson and this book are not exactly literary unknowns. Kate Winslet (yes, Titanic's Kate Winslet) appeared in the 1993 TV version of Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.

But back to the book. Prof Gerald Middleton world is re-built by confronting and uncovering certain truths - which he has evaded for forty years. Like the historian he is, Middleton re-constructs his past and in doing so really does re-enter the present. It really is a bit of a morality play but wonderfully funny with a perfect sense of closure at the end. Like Dickens or Tolstoy, there are innumerable characters.

The essential story line was formed around the Piltdown forgery. Piltdown man had just been declared a hoax in the early '50s. But for forty years those who knew or suspected kept quiet. Likewise, Prof Middleton suspects an archaeological hoax of a similar kind committed forty years ago by friends and colleages. But he says nothing. Until ... well, that is essentially the beginning of Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.