Reviews

Another example of the new, mellower Amis, who wrote the bestselling (in Britain) The Old Devils , this is a pleasant, rambling, sometimes touching tale of Harry Caldecote, a retired library executive, and the assorted people in his life. These include Fiona, a self-destructive alcoholic related to one of his former wives; Bunty, the daughter of another, who is in an unhappy lesbian relationship; his ineffectual brother Freddie, married to a termagant; Clare, his capable but unambitious sister; and Piers, his son, a witty, elusive cadger. In his bemused way Harry worries about all of them, does his best for them and only very occasionally succeeds in bettering their lot. The character sketches are sharp, Amis's habitual misogyny is very muted, and there are even a couple of sympathetic and sophisticated Asian shopkeepers. A much kinder book than most of his work, then, but with the same sense of muddle and pitifully limited horizons we have come to associate with the Amis world. And the oddities of his style increasingly are coming to seem as carefully stylized, and classic in their way, as those of P. G. Wodehouse. (June)

``We're a dime breed,'' laments a pub keeper in Amis's new novel. ``Dine out like the dinosaurs.'' Amis's ear for the delightful shortcuts of spoken English has never been keener, nor his sense of social comedy more perceptive. What prevents Folks from being one of his best works is the colorlessness of its protagonist, Harry Caldecote. A retired librarian described as (get this!) ``soft, self-indulgent, languid, but alert against any threat of exertion,'' Harry is a bore. The eccentric doings of his extended family (scapegrace son, relentlessly henpecked brother, ill-assorted hangers-on by marriage) propel the novel, but Harry and his sense of guilt over his kin slow it down. For collections where Amis is popular. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/90.-- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.