Customer Reviews

Old Men in Love: John Tunnock's Posthumous Papers

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How many tens of thousands of us want to have written a book? Notice I did not say anything about going through all the work necessary to actually write one. John Tunnock, our stereotypical never married, ex-teacher, ex-schoolmaster hero, has made a post-retirement second career of not getting that often promised book written. But, he is working on it.

Ancient Greece seems to be the desired starting point of the unwritten book, with Socrates our main character. Since we meet Socrates late in his life, we know from our own school days that this portion of the book isn't going to last for too many pages.

Tunnock's story makes a stop in 15th century Italy to visit Brother Filippo before deeply immersing us in the story of Henry James Prince and his Agapemonites in 19th century England. We are led to believe the Prince part is a different story. We do get back to Socrates before it's too late.

Interspersed with the attempts to have written a book we are treated to the story of The Life of John Tunnock. While he was pretty much a jerk, as a jerk with money he was pretty well liked (even if he never seems to finish that book).

Compared with Gray's Lanark, it's doubtful this book will be a conversation piece at the cocktail party. I can imagine many claiming to have read Lanark but few bothering to mention Old Men in Love. To those, like me, who like to read those books that are difficult to classify (much less review), this will be enjoyable. Those who don't like to wander too far afield from books with beginnings, middles and ends, should avoid this one.

I do wonder - if a book is about the writing of a book by someone with no writing skills, is it still meta-fiction? Or is it meta-folly? Perhaps Old Men in Love qualifies as both.

There is often more than meets the eye with Alasdairs novels, hidden meanings and obscure references, so its very possible/likely I missed something when reading this, but I don't think its his best work. Its a quick read and felt like it had been written quickly (maybe Alasdair thinks he doesnt have another 20 years left to rewrite Lanark?)

In terms of asthetics, OMIL has a few nice chapter headings etc, but nothing like Lanark or Pretty things, if I was buying again I would be tempted to save a few quid and make do with the paperback. You could get some tunnocks caramel wafers with the change.