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57 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
engaging fiction!, January 12, 2006
First of all, for the cricket-ignorant, up until WW II in
English first-class cricket, the people who played the game
were classified as "gentlemen"--those who played the game
without pay--and "players"--the paid professionals. In the
box-score, a gentleman would appear as Mr Smith, and a
professional would appear as Jones. Separate dessing-rooms
were provided for the two groups. There was an annual match
Gentlemen vs Players. It was very rare that a team captain
would be a player: there was a significant gulf between the
leisure class and the working class.
The novel is about the child of the working-class man who did
the janitorial chores at St Oswald's School, an expensive
day school for sons of privilege. The child, now grown up,
forges documents to join the school as a new faculty member,
with the intention of destroying the institution from within.
So small unpleasant things begin to happen--and things get
worse with thefts and scandals. It's a game--but only the
player knows it--the gentlemen (which includes female faculty)
are puzzled and disconcerted. The other central figure is Roy
Straitley, classics master, now in his 34th year at St Oswald's.
Straitley is Old School, computer-ignorant, but shrewd enough
to finally realize that there is a game going on. The gentlemen
are accustomed to interacting with gentlemen (faculty and
students) at the school--they are at a great disadvantage
against a working-class person who doesn't play by the rules.
The sense of dichotomy is wonderfully drawn here--those of
privilege, and those who are not. There are fine lines of
snobbery. Gentlemen & Players has similar layers--depths and
nuances. An excellent read!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good enough to buy, February 6, 2007
I mostly read library books. This one, however, once I return to the library, I'm heading out to buy. Both for my husband to read and to keep on hand for myself. Will be reading it again in a few years. It's that good.
Well written and enjoyable, you'll be reading merrily along and you'll reach a point where a good read becomes the BEST read ever. You've been duped and tricked, but will love every moment of it. Delightfully twisty ending. Now I'll be going back the first 300 pages to see how the author pulled it off without any red flags being sent up (plenty of red herrings, however). Granted, there was times when I realized a couple things didn't add up, but I chalked it up to lack of attention on my part (fast reader). Now I know that the way it was written would bring that result, no real fault of my own. Harris purposely tries to shift your attention elsewhere, all the time performing an illusion right before your eyes. Perhaps I said too much? Hmmm...maybe not. Go on, get it. I promise you'll love it.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A cleverly written suspense novel., January 29, 2006
"If there's one thing I've learned in the past fifteen years, it's this: that murder is really no big deal." So speaks the "pawn" in the opening sentence of Gentlemen & Players, a brilliant and suspenseful literary novel that reminds one of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose.
On page 333 of the novel, the pawn speaks again: "Just the place for a quiet murder, don't you think? The dark; the crowds; the confusion. So easy here to apply Poe's law--stating that the object that is hidden in plain sight remains unseen longest--and to simply walk away, leaving the body for some poor baffled soul to discover, or even to discover it myself, with a cry of alarm, relying upon the inevitable crowd to shield me from sight. . . . One more murder. I owe it to myself. Or maybe two."
St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys in northern England is a posh institution that caters to the scions of the wealthy. With a long tradition of academic excellence, elitism, and snobbery, its stately campus looms as a forbidden zone for the underprivileged and poor: "No Trespassers. No Unauthorized Entry Beyond This Point." Trespassers will be prosecuted.
Laws are made to be broken. Every rule, order, and command gives birth to rebels who challenge the authoritative edicts of the status quo, to misfits who gleefully throw monkey wrenches into the machine. The "pawn" is one such outsider, who, fuming at the arbitrary line drawn between the haves and the have-not's, is determined to bring down this pretentious institution.
"These people are so easily blinded," muses the pawn. "Even greater than their stupidity, there's the arrogance, the certainty that no one would cross the line."
Don't be misled by the illustration on the book's cover, that of a king and a pawn. This novel is not about chess per se, but Joanne Harris sustains the chess analogy throughout the book's chapters: Pawn, King, Knight, En Passant, Check, Bishop, Queen, and Mate.
The "king" in Roy Hubert Straitley, 65, an eccentric professor of classical languages (Latin and Greek) who has given St. Oswald's 33 years of loyal service--three forms per year, and who, unless he is forced into retirement (or killed), seeks to become a "Centurion," one who has taught a hundred forms,
Straitley teaches "my boys" (as he calls them) the subtleties of Horace, the perils of the ablative absolute, and the meaning of phrases such as "Audere, agere, auferre" (To dare, to strive, to conquer), which is the school's motto, and which becomes the battle cry of both the king and the pawn, who soon become locked in mortal combat.
The pawn, self-proclaimed "Lord of Misrule," also embraces another Latin motto: "Illegitimi non carborundum" (Don't let the bastards grind you down).
The pawn, an intelligent but hitherto invisible sociopath, looks in the mirror and sees the reflection of a talented artist, someone who wants to be seen, noted, and appreciated: "A talent like mine begs to be acknowledged." And like all artists, the pawn likes to provoke.
True, the pawn begins the game as a weak player, but ambitiously seeks promotion to a more powerful piece. It's David vs. Goliath, and a well-placed stone can bring down a giant.
Harris divides her novel into (more or less) alternating chapters, in which we see the pawn, a cunning enemy who sows tares among the wheat, intuitively concocting Machiavellian gambits, nice little pieces of antisocial engineering, to destroy St. Oswald's. Then, in turn we see the king, who laments, "O tempora! O mores! Horatio at the bridge, single handedly holding back the barbarian hordes. . . . There's a Jonah on board. If only I knew who it was."
Although the pawn despises St. Oswald's, Roy Straitley earns a grudging respect: "A slow mover, the king; but a powerful enemy. Even so, a well-placed pawn may bring him down."
Joanne Harris is the author of six other books: Chocolat; Blackberry Wine; Five Quarters of the Orange; Coastliners; Holy Fools; and Jigs & Reels. Half French half British, she lives in England.
Unless you are better skilled than I at solving whodunits, the revelation of the pawn's identity will come as a stunning surprise; it will knock your socks off. From the opening, to the middle game, to the endgame of Gentlemen & Players, one is impressed by the intelligenct and ingenious plot of Joanne Harris' totally engrossing story.
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