Customer Reviews

Gilbert: A Comedy of Manners

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

 

 

"Gilbert" is the charming, moralistic tale of a
young man who wants to climb the ladder of political success without having to to deal with all the pesky politicians and citizens. Martin's use of pleasant sarcasm and a straightforward moral make this book a nice, amusing read.

Judith Martin a.k.a. Miss Manners, through her protagonist Gilbert, displays all sorts of bad manners. Gilbert is charming but uses his uncanny ability to know what others are thinking for evil. This novel shows how Gilbert gets successfully through a top college and then manages to gain a sinecure through the use of cunning. He works and plays with power players and socialites.

In her columns and non-fiction books, she stresses that acquiring good manners is a reward in itself and should not be practiced just as a means to success.

I am a big fan of Miss Manners, and I think it's for that reason I found this novel so distressing. It's full of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other. There's lots of explicit, tawdry sex, and all the characters are repulsive and loathsome. I found myself wishing it would transform into a Shakespearean tragedy where everybody kills each other violently in the end--but no such luck.

I give it two stars rather than one because the writing is competent, although the story is deliberately and unceasingly vulgar. Ms. Martin is a talented craftsman and I can only assume that she did what she set out to do with this book. I only wonder why she set her aspirations so low.