Customer Reviews

Old Filth

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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. As the story progresses, dodging backwards and forwards in time, the reader begins to understand how the man could have become so aloof and afraid of emotion. More importantly, Feathers begins to understand a little in himself also.

Gardam uses a term that I had not heard before, "Raj Orphan." It refers to the children of British colonial administrators sent Home in early childhood, often not seeing their parents again for many years. My father had such a childhood, and I believe was seared by it; his two brothers, like Sir Edward Feathers, both went into the law; and all of us, including myself, underwent a similarly spartan education. At times, I felt I was reading a family biography!

But I think it would work for other readers also, especially if they have an interest in a vanished past or of an age when it is more fascinating to look back than to peer forward. I am not convinced that it all quite hangs together as a unified narrative; there is an encounter with two distant cousins of the next generation that seems a little out of place, and I find myself wanting to know more about Old Filth's adult years than I do, but that would have made a much longer book. Gardam's style is lucid and sometimes luminous, her comparison of lives and attitudes over a sixty-year span rings entirely true, and -- even though writing about a man who cannot easily feel emotion -- her own power to evoke feeling is quite remarkable.

I also want to say that the Europa paperback edition is a real joy: flexible yet solid, with distinguished typesetting on quality paper with lots of space.

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.

Gardam's supplementary characters appear and reappear throughout Filth's reminiscences--his wife Betty, more a friend than a lover; his best friend Pat Ingoldby, whose family "adopted" him; his two cousins, who survived Ma Dibbs with him; his golf-obsessed aunts who ignore him; and Veneering, a man he and Betty knew in Malaya, who becomes his neighbor in Dorset. Gradually, Filth reveals his secrets and his fears, while maintaining his elegant outward reserve, and the reader empathizes with this man, a product of his culture forced to fend for himself from the age of five.

Subtle and elegantly written, this novel, shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2005, is also compulsively readable with its poignant scenes and ironic humor. Filth, for all his class-consciousness, is likeable and often earnest, and he engages the reader's emotions from the outset. His late-in-life questions about whether his life has had meaning resonate with the reader. n Mary Whipple

What a wonderful book - the writing is exquisite. I loved Faith Fox and Queen of the Tambourine also, and can't wait to read more of Jane Gardam. She has such insight and empathy for her characters, and is also wickedly funny.
Sir Edward Feathers, a retired and elderly judge, is from all appearances a man who has lived an uneventful life and been smiled on by fortune - or so his colleagues apparently believe. We are taken back to his earliest days in Malaysia, where we look in at a little boy happily playing in the mud, not knowing the English language, and living an uncomplicated life. He is soon wrenched away, sent to a foster family in England and we then peek in on his life at various stages.
It's heart-wrenching to see the pain inflicted on the little boy in his new circumstances, all the more painful as we have seen his innocence and delight in his former life. We witness the effect this pain - as well as the casual indifference of other adults who should have cared for him - had on his sense of self. He is shown kindness by his headmaster, "Sir", and I believe he would have been lost if not for it. We end up with a rich portrait of Edward Feathers - with each glimpse into his life another nuance is added. The story of his journey from childhood into old age is powerful and moving, and the juxtaposition of the small boy playing in the Malaysian mud, innocent of the hurt that people can inflict, and the "spectacularly clean" and proper judge soldiering on into old age will stay with you.

Gardam, Jane, Old Filth

I found this cradle-to-grave fictional biography fascinating for several reasons. One is the portrayal of infancy of an English child in India under the Raj and the sudden transportation of that child to an unforgiving foster parent in Wales, in the footsteps of Rudyard Kipling's "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep." The characters of Filth's relatives come through clearly and stay with the reader throughout the rest of the book. The other reason is the description of Filth in his old age, nearing 80, and then moving on to his death at almost 90. The author has a peculiar sensitivity to this period in a person's life, when friends and spouses die off and one loses one's independence and faculties gradually, with occasional bright intervals. Another striking feature of the novel is the description of Britain's decay, not only as it lost its empire but as it is today, boiled down to crowds, cell phones and a Ferris wheel. Certain passages are poetic and memorable: "Garbutt found Filth, looped up to drips and scans, trying to shut out the quack of the television sets and the clatter of the public ward where male and female lay alongside each other in various stages of ill health, like Pompeii." I can't describe the novel as comic or inspiring, but it lays out things we would rather not think about, and does so masterfully. Kudos to the author.

This is a book by an old author about an old lawyer looking back over a long and very British life and in large part about a world that no longer exists, the British Empire in the far East. It is full of strange, wonderful and unlikely things and people. People think the protaganist was an old stick. Well, yes he was but oh the things that happened to him. And less of a stick than people thought., The book is about being old, the end of empire, the oddnesses of life and the elusiveness of happiness. It is likehaving a meal from an exotic cuisine--Malaysian perhaps?--in the middle of ordinaary days and an ordinary diet. You might not want it for your daily diet but it's quite wonderful. It takes a certain amount of age and experience to enjoy the book properly but if you have them you will have the time of your life. Is it "relevant". Yes really. I'm an old lawyer myself and the newspapers are warning about the end of our empire.

I was not previously familiar with Gardam but I now see that that was a significant omission. She is equally capable of depicting the broad, sweeping story of the decline of the British Empire and of writing beautifully conceived miniature scenes of human joy and desperation.

This book contains a secret that is masterfully hinted at by the author, and when it is finally told, it falls perfectly into place and it makes the rest of the narrative that much stronger. Altogether an enjoyable read. To an American, the description of daily British life and institutions (the food, the flowers, the roads) is quaint and fascinating in a way that Gardam may not have intended, but that only adds to this book's charm.

Don't be put off by the horrid title or by the fact that the main character, whose real name is Sir Edward Feathers, is frequently referred to as Filth, even by his loving wife: the nickname of this distinguished lawyer who had made his career in the Far East, stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Otherwise no name could be less appropriate for this old man who is described as "spectacularly clean" and whose kaleidoscopic life story, in England and the Far East, this is. It would be a spoiler if I described it or the gaps in the story which the author leaves to our imagination to fill in.

The book and the characters in it are quirky, funny, sad, and touching; the touches of period flavour (ca. 1923 to 2002 - though there seems to be an error on the very last page) are spot-on; and Jane Gardam' style is idiosyncratic, often staccato, but a pleasure to read. Her similes or descriptions are never hackneyed, never forced, but always fresh and arresting. I found the novel a real treat.

The best part of this book, imho, is the way the author weaves the storyline, jumping from past to present to future, and from fantasy to reality to the ambiguous frail human memory, and all without losing the reader. Very well done.

I felt that I had lost an interesting friend when the book ended so I wish the book had been double the length. The only reason I don't give 5 full stars is that I didn't feel any closeness to Old Filth despite his travails (and I'm not an unsympathetic person). I felt detached, but that is exactly how he felt too, half living inside his own memory. I wish there was an entire series about him.

The history of the Raj Orphans and that plot device in the book was extremely interesting. I did have a tiny bit of trouble in the beginning with British terminology but after 2-3 google searches for definitions, I didn't have any problems.

I think one of the reviews says that this book is truly "adult" and I completely agree in many ways. You rarely get to tie up loose ends neatly in the real world and as you age, the loose ends just pile up like a mountain of dirty laundry on the bedroom floor. Suddenly you lose the ability to tie up loose ends because people die, countries change, and so forth. All the while, the meaning of everything you've experienced keeps shifting. Old memories and emotions are replaced with your new understanding of what really happened. It's difficult to grasp onto something while everything around you is shifting, including your own self, and you try to relive your life experiences from the beginning, this time with a more accurate understanding of what actually happened to you.

The most interesting theme in this book is the history of the raj orphans. I was not aware that these children had a name and were sent away from their parents with regularity. Dumping off one's children is the basis of the plot. Our main character, Old Filth, an esteemed judge who presided in Hong Kong seemed to live his life through abandonment. His mother left him by dying in childbirth and his wife left him by dying during their retirement. In between, he experienced loneliness and often destructive relationships. His most positive influence was Sir, the headmaster of his school when he was a very young man.
He was blessed with an excellent intellect which enabled him to do well in school and beyond. The author takes the reader back and forth through his history which I found confusing and not at all compelling. It is no surprise that he would have difficulty with relationships based on his childhood and elusive father. But he was also lucky in his career when teaming up with Loess, another orphan, he met up with on one of his journeys during the war. Old Filth amassed a fortune and a solid reputation but I found his story predictable and rather boring.

What a marvelously entertaining book! Next time you meet a charmimg, intelligent older person who seems to embody all that is seemingly prosaic, a person of some obvious merit, who having accumulated some wealth and station, but at first glance seems stuffy and unimpassioned, keep your mouth shut, and pay close attention. There are often such wonderful stories of character forged at an early age by the cruelest of circumstances. Old Filth seems to all the world a man who earned his reputation for being a good lawyer, a well respected judge, without breaking a sweat, as though he had more than a fair hand of luck.His peers reflect upon his life as somewhat unimginative, and though he was graceful and handsome, assured and friendly, they seem remember him chiefly as a modest man who never put a foot wrong. And yet, like all lawyers, he was a child once, and what a teeming childhood!

I have never read Gardam's work before, but this feels like it is the product of a first rate observer who uses more than a bit of care in her styling and phrasing. It feels like she has spent a good deal of time researching her chronicle of events, and knew her subject intimately.Her descriptions of the Raj empire in Malay were lovely, her rendering of the scarred and often hardened children who were Raj orphans was handled without sentimentality, but with great tenderness nonetheless. The story itself is a page turner. It is impossible not to love Filth, but the writing is a prize too. The structure of the book, and the richness of the prose are so like the jade stones his wife, Betty, had a knack for finding in the Hong Kong markets after the war: Rare. Possessing great character and heft. They aren't easy to find anymore.