132,566
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchCorduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith (view source)
Revision as of 10:11, 9 August 2020
, 10:11, 9 August 2020no edit summary
}}
Alexander McCall Smith, clearly encouraged by the success of his Edinburgh episodic novel ''44 Scotland Street'' has now - quite fittingly, considering the Dickensian origins of the whole daily novel exercise - moved down South to London. ''Corduroy Mansions'', set in London's Pimlico, has been serialised on-line online on the ''the Daily Telegraph's'' website (in written as well as audio format) and is now available as a solid book.
''Corduroy Mansions'', just like [[The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street) by Alexander McCall Smith|44 Scotland Street]] did, follows the lives of a group of disparate characters living in the apartment block of the title as well as others connected to them.
We have a widowed wine merchant and his wastrel of a grown -up son; a health shop assistant with a an unshakeable belief in iridology and colonic irrigation; a very serious PR girl to an MP; the MP himself (possibly the only truly nasty LibDem MP, called Oedipus Snark); his psychoanalyst mother, who's writing his unflattering biography; the mother's brother who lives in Cheltenham and communes with higher beings via dancing; MP's lover and literary agent on the trial of Yeti; an art history student who though thought he was gay but is having second thoughts; and a dog.
''Corduroy Mansions'' consists of a hundred short chapters, some even readable by themselves. It's a chatty, sweet, meandering book, infused with intelligent humour and amiable humanity. McCall Smith knows what his fans love him for and continues to deliver the goods.
Some scenes are supremely funny, most are pleasantly amusing – and 'pleasantly amusing' is what could be the shortest review of '' Corduroy Mansions '', and possibly even the whole fiction oeuvre of Alexander McCall Smith as well.
'Gentle' is another adjective often applied to McCall Smith's fiction, and gentle it is, but it's also very much genteel. It seems to me that in British fiction – apart from the special case of chick/lad-lit - people living in flats are either sink-estate desperates or decidedly middle/upper -middle class; and this is true in the case of ''Corduroy Mansions''. In some eerie way (and with nothing to do with the mood or even type of the story) I was reminded of Anita Brookner and [[:Category:P D James|P D James]].
It's not a very memorable book, and it's not likely to leave a lasting impression or change the way anyone looks at the world, but then it doesn't attempt to. While it's there, being read, it's rather lovely without being mawkish: an effortlessly pleasant read which leaves one with a warm fuzzy feeling that things are - essentially - right with humanity.
If you like that, you will like [[The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street) by Alexander McCall Smith|The Unbearable Lightness of Scones]]. We also think you'll enjoy [[Summer on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber]] and might want to consider [[The Road Home by Rose Tremain]].
[[Alexander McCall Smith's Corduroy Mansions Series in Chronological Order]]
{{amazontext|amazon=0349122393}}
