Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

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After a while, I'd get brave and pick it up, and sure enough soon I'd be chuckling or saying, "Oh, that's nice!

Plans are, or at least were, afoot for a television production of the novel, but at present, it listed in IMDB. I don't believe the greatest views in the world are great because they are vast or exotic," she(Jamina) said. I enjoyed much of this book: there’s a hilarious golf club celebration, the ineptness of people consoling a bereaved man with an illustrated tin of assorted biscuits, a shooting party that encounters children who have escaped from a school bus for a pee, and other humorous observations on everyday life.Simonson's descriptions reveal that she possesses a good thesaurus: nary a noun can seemingly exist without a modifier. The plot follows an elderly English widower, retired from a military career, who is very concerned about doing things in the proper way. But when a couple meets and they are instantly struck with the world-stopping, earth-shaking, (insert mushy love related cliche here), knowledge that they will be together until the end of time.

Mary into a sort of Olde England-style theme park (complete with McManors for sale) and a local club dance (where the theme is, thoughtlessly, the glories of the British presence in India). If Masterpiece Theatre doesn't make this book into a movie starring Derek Jacobi, it will be a crime. A melee between families and the local snob society break out at a Club sponsored dance where feelings were hurt and romances ebbed.

Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?

Everything fits together – traditions, values, rebellion, challenges – and creates a story that is both timely and very real.His other activities include shooting events where he uses 1 of a matched pair of Churchill shotguns which together in a sale can bring huge sums of money. I recognised the title and remembered reading it, but until I read your review I had no memory of the plot.

Helen Simonson nicely captures the patronising views of the villagers, especially as Mr and Mrs Ali were born in the North of England. Some start off as stereotypes, but few of them remain that way -- and you don't have to wait for the end of the book to discover their layers. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson’s wondrous debut. The author observes with humor and tact that in any culture the young dismiss the old, the old roll their eyes at the young, and local traditions are sometimes beautiful and sometimes ridiculous wherever you happen to come from. So his preference in party style is for black tie and Champagne, though he has to explain to the book’s clichéd, birdbrained club wives that this is not meant as an hommage to Noël Coward.It's admirable that they yearn to follow their hearts despite the adversity shown by the townsfolk and of course their younger relatives who feel it's their duty to intervene. It is pretty much love at first sight, though it takes the major a while to realize it, and the length of a novel to act on it. Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.