Customer Reviews

Fielding Gray: A novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Alms for Oblivion series is incredibly readable. The characters are entertaining and could as easily be from Oxbridge in the 90s as from the 40s and 50s. I was quite in love with Fielding Gray and appalled when he was disfigured. Shame that the publishers made such a hash of re-issuing the series. I waited 11 months between the first and second volumes, and as far as I know the third volume has yet to be published. The novels are not in chronological order - is this the order in which they were written?

Similar I suppose in style to Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, Raven's Alms series is a lighter and more devious, and is devilishly funny. Highly recommended - all volumes have now been re-released, and are worth picking up. I would say worth reading in the order they were written, rather than in chronological order, as this method was surely Raven's intention? Buy NOW!

The opening page of my hard cover copy of 'Fielding Gray' indicates it was the fourth book written in the Alms for Oblivion sequence, however, cronologically, it is the first. It is actually the last book I read in this sequence - I searched high and low for it for almost ten years, until I found two copies within weeks of each other, one in a charity shop in my old home town, where I hadn't lived for 20 years!

Fielding Gray, priviliged, handsome, charming, talented, manipulative, debauched, corrupt and a corrupter, emerged as the central and pivotal of the ten main characters in the sequence, even though he didn't appear at all in the first written book 'The Rich Pay Late' (cronologically fourth). He made a memorable but minor appearance in the second written, 'Friends in Low Places' (cronologically fifth), but became the undeniable star of the sequence in the third written, 'Sabre Squadron' (cronologically third).

'Fielding Gray' takes us back to where it all began - the summer term in 1945 at his public (in the UK, that means private) school begins with a thanksgiving service after the war in Europe. The acknowledged Golden Boy, destined for a glittering academic career, Fielding Gray gradually loses his innocence (via increasingly seedy sexual encounters) and is ultimately responsible for a devestating sexual tragedy, as his originally projected future slips away. However, some of his schoolday liaisons and friendships stay with him all his life.

The ten independent novels of the Alms for Oblivion sequence take a ironically cynical poke at the English upper-middle-class, involving academia, politics, journalism, the aristocracy, the army, etc. Disguised as bawdy tales of strange, often indecent passions, populated by a curiously likable contingent of debauched and corrupt characters, their associates and their victims, Simon Raven writes the most deliciously enjoyable, stylish, funny and clever social satire you will find (excepting, perhaps, Robertson Davis). Many of these characters crop up in his non-sequence novels, 'The Roses of Picardie', 'September Castle', etc., and they raise the second generation in a further sequence 'The First-born of Eqypt' (only seven novels this time!)

While many of Simon Raven's most memorable characters are people you would probably avoid having in your life, their tales provide vicarious enjoyment, an addiction that once started must continue until the very last word.

Even though I rarely re-read books, while researching this review I've come to realise I must read them all again, starting tonight!

Delighted to find other Simon Raven fans do actually exist!He's been a seriously neglected novelist because most of his novelshave been out of print for over twenty years. A revival is long overdue, particularly before the old boy drops off the twig...Fantastically well-written novels and sublimely well-chosen language. END

I discovered Simon Raven in an essay in the quarterly Slightly Foxed,a British publication. Each issue contains about eighteen essays, usually about a writer, and all well done. The piece about Raven, called "He Stayed the Course", appeared in the Winter 2005 issue [these are available from S.F. on-line] and was by an admirer of Raven's, Andreas Campomara, a publisher.

According to Campomara, Raven, already a successful novelist, wrote "Fielding Gray" before any of the other novels in the series, but was told by his publisher to keep it back until more novels in the series had built up interest in the character. That may have been true at the time -- perhaps there were too many novels set in public schools -- but it would be too bad to leave "Fielding Gray" until third or fourth, as it is clearly seminal. Its theme of corruption and betrayal, very well developed, is carried out, in varying degrees, in the whole series.

For anyone reading this who wants to know the order of the novels in terms of the time in which each is set, here it is, with the setting in time in parentheses: Fielding Gray (1945); Sound the Retreat (1945-6); The Sabre Squadron (1952); The Rich Pay Late (1955-6); Friends in Low Places (1959); The Judas Boy (1962); Places Where They Sing (1967); Come Like Shadows (1970); Bring Forth the Body (1972) and The Survivors (1973).

Vintage Press has fairly recently reissued the entire series in three big paperbacks, but the novels are presented in the order, not of setting, but of copyright date. These can be ordered from England, if not at Amazon, then at ABE.

I rated "Fielding Gray" with only four stars because although, as I said, it is well developed, its overall view is a bit unbalanced, too skewed toward the negative -- as is the entire series. I have read seven of the novels so far and have liked almost all of them, but the cynicism, while sort of fascinating, is over the top. Luckily there are a few likable characters -- one of whom is Fielding Gray.