Old Filth [Kindle Edition] Author: Jane Gardam | Language: English | ISBN:
B0049U4NN2 | Format: PDF, EPUB
Old Filth Epub Free
You can download Old Filth [Kindle Edition] Epub Free from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link "Jane Gardam's beautiful, vivid and defiantly funny novel is a must." The Times
"Gardam's superb new novel is surely her masterpiece . . . one of the most moving fictions I have read in years . . . This is the rare novel that drives its readers forward while persistently waylaying and detaining by the sheer beauty and inventiveness of it style." The Guardian
"The Whitbread winner scores again with a compelling novel based, in part, on the early life of Rudyard Kipling." Time Out
Sir Edward Feathers has progressed from struggling young barrister to wealthy expatriate lawyer to distinguished retired judge, living out his last days in comfortable seclusion in Dorset. The engrossing and moving account of his life, from birth in colonial Malaya, to Wales, where he is sent as a "Raj orphan," to Oxford, his career and marriage, parallels much of the 20th century's torrid and twisted history.
Old Filth was nominated for the 2005 Orange Prize.
Books with free ebook downloads available Old Filth Epub Free
- File Size: 458 KB
- Print Length: 289 pages
- Publisher: Europa; 1st edition (June 1, 2006)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0049U4NN2
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,858 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
A wonderful novel! However, I should say right away that my enthusiasm for the book is probably enhanced by its personal resonances; more about that in a moment.
Only the title is awkward. "Filth" stands for "Failed in London, try Hong Kong," which is a misleading soubriquet for the central character, Sir Edward Feathers, a distinguished advocate and judge, and a man of the utmost probity. Born in the Far East, he was educated in England, spent most of his brilliant professional career in Hong Kong, and has now as returned to England in retirement. He is shown as a lonely old man, unable to make close personal connections, even with his wife of over fifty years. One of the book's many beauties is the way in which Feathers reaches out in old age to repair at least a few of these missed connections.
The book takes the central portion of Sir Edward's career mainly for granted, concentrating instead upon the way memories of his first quarter-century come back to haunt him as he enters his last. Born in Malaya of a mother who died in childbirth and a half-mad father who never spoke to him, he was shipped off to Britain as a young child, spending his formative years with an abusive foster-mother in Wales, and then at various boarding schools. The book describes his dysfunctional relationship with various distant relatives and close friendships with a family who are not relatives at all, his sexual education, and his wartime service guarding the Queen Mother -- all experiences that turn out to have shaped his life. The warmest contacts seem to be the most transient, and he almost entirely lacks the strong family structure that would have given him stability.
Sir Edward Feathers, known as "Old Filth," is, ironically, "spectacularly...ostentatiously clean." His nickname derives from the fact that as a lawyer, he "Failed In London, Tried Hongkong." A "Raj Orphan," Filth is a child of British civil servants of the Empire in Malaya. Like other Raj children, he is sent back to England, alone, at the age of five , to begin school in a country he's never seen among people he does not know. For Filth, the alienation is tripled--his mother died when he was born; his father, suffering from shellshock and alcoholism, always ignored him; and, living in the Malayan longhouse with the servants, he saw himself as Malay, more comfortable with that language and culture than "his own."
Gardam writes a powerful character study of this intriguing character whose fate it was "always to be left and forgotten." Now in his early eighties and living in Dorset, his wife dead, he reminisces about the past and hints at some terrible event that took place when he was eight, living in Wales with Ma Dibbs, who took care of him and two young cousins.
The narrative moves gracefully between present and past, following the life of Filth as he attends school in England, becomes part of his best friend's family, gets caught between cultures when World War II breaks out, begins his London law career, and, eventually, "tries Hongkong." Now, at the end of his life, he is in Dorset, aware that he has never really known love and has never had a home, and equally aware that he must now reach out, deal with his memories, and take control of his life if he is ever to find peace.
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