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Past Imperfect
Damian Baxter is very, very rich - and he's dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern: who should inherit his fortune...
PAST IMPERFECT is the story of a quest. Damian Barker wishes to know if he has a living heir. By the time he married in his late thirties he was sterile (the result of adult mumps), but what about before that unfortunate illness? He was not a virgin. Had he sired a child? A letter from a girlfriend from these times suggests he did. But the letter is anonymous.
Damian contacts someone he knew from their days at university. He gives him a list of girls he slept with and sets him a task: find his heir...
PAST IMPERFECT is the story of a quest. Damian Barker wishes to know if he has a living heir. By the time he married in his late thirties he was sterile (the result of adult mumps), but what about before that unfortunate illness? He was not a virgin. Had he sired a child? A letter from a girlfriend from these times suggests he did. But the letter is anonymous.
Damian contacts someone he knew from their days at university. He gives him a list of girls he slept with and sets him a task: find his heir...
528 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2008
589 people are currently reading
5092 people want to read
About the author
Julian Fellowes
62 books1,491 followersJulian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes (Baron Fellowes of West Stafford), DL. English actor, novelist, screenwriter, and director.
Fellowes is the youngest son of Peregrine Fellowes (a diplomat and Arabist who campaigned to have Haile Selassie restored to his throne during World War II). Julian inherited the title of Lord of the Manor of Tattershall from his father, making him the fourth Fellowes to hold it. He was educated at Ampleforth College, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
He played the part of Lord Kilwillie in the television series 'Monarch of the Glen.' Other notable acting roles included the part of Claud Seabrook in the acclaimed 1996 BBC drama serial 'Our Friends in the North.' He has twice notably portrayed George IV as the Prince Regent in the 1982 television version of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and the 1996 adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's novel 'Sharpe's Regiment.'
He wrote the screenplay for 'Gosford Park,' directed by Robert Altman, for which he won an Oscar for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 2002.
His novel 'Snobs' was published in 2004. It focused on the social nuances of the upper class. Fellowes has described himself as coming from the "rock bottom end of the top", and drew on his knowledge of Society to paint a detailed portrait of the behaviour and snobbery of the upper class. 'Snobs' was a Sunday Times Best Seller and has now been published in many countries.
In the 1970s he also wrote romantic novels, using the names Rebecca Greville and Alexander Morant.
He launched a new series on BBC One in 2004, 'Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder,' which he wrote and also introduced on screen.
He also penned the script to the current West End musical 'Mary Poppins,' produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, which opened on Broadway in December 2006.
In late 2005 Fellowes made his directorial debut with the film 'Separate Lies.'
He is the presenter of 'Never Mind the Full Stops,' a panel-based gameshow transmitted on BBC Four from mid-2006.
On 28 April 1990, he married Emma Joy Kitchener (a Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Michael of Kent, and great-great-niece of the 1st Earl Kitchener) and assumed the name Kitchener-Fellowes by deed enrolled with the College of Arms in 1998.
{Wikipedia}
Fellowes is the youngest son of Peregrine Fellowes (a diplomat and Arabist who campaigned to have Haile Selassie restored to his throne during World War II). Julian inherited the title of Lord of the Manor of Tattershall from his father, making him the fourth Fellowes to hold it. He was educated at Ampleforth College, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
He played the part of Lord Kilwillie in the television series 'Monarch of the Glen.' Other notable acting roles included the part of Claud Seabrook in the acclaimed 1996 BBC drama serial 'Our Friends in the North.' He has twice notably portrayed George IV as the Prince Regent in the 1982 television version of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and the 1996 adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's novel 'Sharpe's Regiment.'
He wrote the screenplay for 'Gosford Park,' directed by Robert Altman, for which he won an Oscar for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 2002.
His novel 'Snobs' was published in 2004. It focused on the social nuances of the upper class. Fellowes has described himself as coming from the "rock bottom end of the top", and drew on his knowledge of Society to paint a detailed portrait of the behaviour and snobbery of the upper class. 'Snobs' was a Sunday Times Best Seller and has now been published in many countries.
In the 1970s he also wrote romantic novels, using the names Rebecca Greville and Alexander Morant.
He launched a new series on BBC One in 2004, 'Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder,' which he wrote and also introduced on screen.
He also penned the script to the current West End musical 'Mary Poppins,' produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Disney, which opened on Broadway in December 2006.
In late 2005 Fellowes made his directorial debut with the film 'Separate Lies.'
He is the presenter of 'Never Mind the Full Stops,' a panel-based gameshow transmitted on BBC Four from mid-2006.
On 28 April 1990, he married Emma Joy Kitchener (a Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Michael of Kent, and great-great-niece of the 1st Earl Kitchener) and assumed the name Kitchener-Fellowes by deed enrolled with the College of Arms in 1998.
{Wikipedia}
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June 28, 2017
"Me aguarde lo que me aguarde, ya sea mucho o poco, eso queda por ver, pero he conocido de lo que hablan los poetas y esa es la razón de que me sienta agradecido".
Es curioso la manera en que un libro o un escritor entra en nuestras vidas. En este caso, y prefiero pensar que el azar en sí no existe sino como fuerza que te impulsa ha mirar hacia un lado en concreto, me llegó a modo de un simple mensaje de propaganda. Pues bien, abrí el mensaje y descubrí a este autor y su nueva obra Belgravia. Y, aunque quizá suene extraño, me bastó leer un capítulo de su nueva novela para querer comprarme cualquier otro libro que hubiera publicado.
Empecé a leer este libro sin muchas expectativas, sólo por el placer de la lectura, y es lo que he obtenido. Me encanta el toque de fina ironía que emplea el autor para retratarse y retratar un pasado imperfecto (Y digo 'retratarse' porque en toda la novela he tenido la sensación de que el personaje masculino era él; alguien de carne y huesos, tangible)
Es curioso la manera en que un libro o un escritor entra en nuestras vidas. En este caso, y prefiero pensar que el azar en sí no existe sino como fuerza que te impulsa ha mirar hacia un lado en concreto, me llegó a modo de un simple mensaje de propaganda. Pues bien, abrí el mensaje y descubrí a este autor y su nueva obra Belgravia. Y, aunque quizá suene extraño, me bastó leer un capítulo de su nueva novela para querer comprarme cualquier otro libro que hubiera publicado.
Empecé a leer este libro sin muchas expectativas, sólo por el placer de la lectura, y es lo que he obtenido. Me encanta el toque de fina ironía que emplea el autor para retratarse y retratar un pasado imperfecto (Y digo 'retratarse' porque en toda la novela he tenido la sensación de que el personaje masculino era él; alguien de carne y huesos, tangible)
February 9, 2017
Fellowes is amusing because he is keenly observant, advantageously placed, literate, and loquacious. He puts words together in a way that makes us smirk and smile and acknowledge to be largely truthful, if not entirely. He writes of a class of society most of us will never know personally: the rich, the famous, the titled. While we may not aspire to the life these people endure, there is something intrinsically interesting about a life without the more usual set of boring constraints most of us enjoy.
The narrator, very like our author as described above, says plainly at the beginning of Chapter Two; "I've never been a good judge of character. My impressions at first meeting are almost invariably wrong." Why we then place ourselves in this unreliable narrator's hands has everything to do with the ultimate success of the book. We are always a little off-balance and unsure whether we should trust the narrator's observations. We must put our own considerable experience to work deciding the ultimate value of a piece of information. We discover the rich, the famous, and the titled have similar motivations to our own, and constraints almost entirely of their own construction.
Past Imperfect
The narrator, very like our author as described above, says plainly at the beginning of Chapter Two; "I've never been a good judge of character. My impressions at first meeting are almost invariably wrong." Why we then place ourselves in this unreliable narrator's hands has everything to do with the ultimate success of the book. We are always a little off-balance and unsure whether we should trust the narrator's observations. We must put our own considerable experience to work deciding the ultimate value of a piece of information. We discover the rich, the famous, and the titled have similar motivations to our own, and constraints almost entirely of their own construction.
Past Imperfect
April 16, 2013
Od autora D. Abbey :) Sjajan je!
January 22, 2012
Past Imperfect is set in 1968, where everybody in the upper classes is trying to pretend its the 20s, but thanks to the sepia-coloured narration we can tell that their days are numbered, and what a surprise, you can tell that they kind of know it too. The narrator, now a writer, was a peripheral part of the debutante set who introduced a charming, handsome, distinctly middle-class interloper Damien Baxter into their set. A natural social climber, Damien seems intent on penetrating the upper-class sanctum and soon has plenty of affluent debutantes falling at his feet, but which is put paid to by *something terrible* which happens one dinner while the whole jolly set vacation in Portugal. Something so terrible that conveniently nobody can speak of it directly, so we’re forced to hang on to the bitter end to find out what it is [spoiler alert: he doesn't go postal with a WWII service revolver OR reveal he's slept with everyone's parents OR take a dump on HRH Princess Dagmar of Moravia's bed in full view of the assembled company, as much as you wish he would by that stage].
Forty years later, Damien – now a millionaire tycoon – calls our narrator to his deathbed to announce that he thinks he’s fathered a child by one of six of these women, and wants to find out whose his rightful heir is so he can find some meaning in his depressingly affluent, empty life.
And so, this writer faithfully calls up each of these women in turn to solve the mystery, and revisits his memories of their relationship with him, and Damien, in the process. Despite being confessedly unremarkable and unattractive in his youth, he is inexplicably perfectly recalled by each and so amicable that over a lunch or a cup of tea each woman is only too eager to confide certain salient details that conveniently eliminate them from his enquiries. Their husbands don’t understand them, but our narrator does, so that’s okay. Each were so beautiful, and so full of promise, but are now washed up and miserable in their own ways. In fact, he manages to patronise pretty much every single character, doling out the elegies for the lost promise of the waning aristocracy and pity for their dashed hopes and dreams that lucky for him, only his nomadic existance as a writer seems to escape.
Don’t worry though, the lower classes get their spot in the sun too – for example, when he visits a village fete after visiting Damien:
Naturally, it was very old-fashioned, and I am sure that if a New Labour minister could be offended by the Last Night of the Proms, she would be rendered suicidal by the sight of this comic, uniquely English event, but there was goodness here. These people had worked hard at what I would once have judged as such a little thing, yet their efforts were not wasted on me; in fact they almost made me cry.
Well you can fuck off from my tombola stall, Julian Fellowes, that’s for damn sure.
When he’s not making snide asides at the ‘Health and Safety Stasi’ and New Labour of the present day, there are actually some interesting digressions into upper class traditions, although the way that they are condensed into mini-essays suggests a quick shoehorning in of research. But equally, you get doozies like this:
To employ a phrase not actually in use for twenty years after this, I decided to cut to the chase.
…where a diligent proofreader seems to have questioned his choice of cliche, only for him to spectacularly miss the point. Is that more charitable than suggesting someone wrote that first time round? I don’t even know anymore.
Anyway, you’ll be forced to trudge on through this mire of condescension to the bitter end because, I’ll hand it to him, the man makes you want to know whose the bloody baby is, and what happened that night in Portugal. So maybe it is a great novel after all.
Forty years later, Damien – now a millionaire tycoon – calls our narrator to his deathbed to announce that he thinks he’s fathered a child by one of six of these women, and wants to find out whose his rightful heir is so he can find some meaning in his depressingly affluent, empty life.
And so, this writer faithfully calls up each of these women in turn to solve the mystery, and revisits his memories of their relationship with him, and Damien, in the process. Despite being confessedly unremarkable and unattractive in his youth, he is inexplicably perfectly recalled by each and so amicable that over a lunch or a cup of tea each woman is only too eager to confide certain salient details that conveniently eliminate them from his enquiries. Their husbands don’t understand them, but our narrator does, so that’s okay. Each were so beautiful, and so full of promise, but are now washed up and miserable in their own ways. In fact, he manages to patronise pretty much every single character, doling out the elegies for the lost promise of the waning aristocracy and pity for their dashed hopes and dreams that lucky for him, only his nomadic existance as a writer seems to escape.
Don’t worry though, the lower classes get their spot in the sun too – for example, when he visits a village fete after visiting Damien:
Naturally, it was very old-fashioned, and I am sure that if a New Labour minister could be offended by the Last Night of the Proms, she would be rendered suicidal by the sight of this comic, uniquely English event, but there was goodness here. These people had worked hard at what I would once have judged as such a little thing, yet their efforts were not wasted on me; in fact they almost made me cry.
Well you can fuck off from my tombola stall, Julian Fellowes, that’s for damn sure.
When he’s not making snide asides at the ‘Health and Safety Stasi’ and New Labour of the present day, there are actually some interesting digressions into upper class traditions, although the way that they are condensed into mini-essays suggests a quick shoehorning in of research. But equally, you get doozies like this:
To employ a phrase not actually in use for twenty years after this, I decided to cut to the chase.
…where a diligent proofreader seems to have questioned his choice of cliche, only for him to spectacularly miss the point. Is that more charitable than suggesting someone wrote that first time round? I don’t even know anymore.
Anyway, you’ll be forced to trudge on through this mire of condescension to the bitter end because, I’ll hand it to him, the man makes you want to know whose the bloody baby is, and what happened that night in Portugal. So maybe it is a great novel after all.
March 5, 2010
Wish Goodreads had a 'an a half' star system... I actually felt 'pain' when giving this novel 2 stars instead of, at least, 3!! Just finished reading it last night and still cant shake off the sense that i ought to have enjoyed it more, that within this long, deeply textured novel should have been better epiphanies and richer discoveries, none which I experienced. I really liked Gosford Park and I absolutely loved 'Snobs', so I was totally ready to enjoy this second novel, too, and yet, for me, it mostly failed--sometimes, of course, this happens with sophomore efforts even to the best of writers. I confess that though I tried not to, I couldn't help reading many of the critiques (in The Guardian, etc) on 'Past Imperfect' and I have to say I agree with most of them.
First off, Gosford Park was clever, tight, and slight, so the writer's true intentions--his almost desperate obsession with the Brit upper classes--largely went unnoticed. Then, Snobs was such a better literary exercise in all its facets--it just worked so much better as a piece of fiction--containing a bit of this and that, some Vanity Fair 'Becky Sharp' elements, for eg, that the reader is again submerged in the authentic world of those people and that society, without authorial intrusions. The same cannot be said for Past Imperfect, where Fellowes-as-unnamed-narrator intrudes so often and so salaciously with tidbits on this or that, with what ultimately become boring and/or annoying discourses on anything from the use of tophats to manor house hallway decorations that you start to doubt it IS the narrator and instead take it, as face value, for Fellowes himself. Not a delight, either, since the voice in this narrative, be it Fellowes or not, is by the middle of the book smug, pompous and irritating. Further, in part due to all these sideline discussions that seem to obsess Fellowes--and that, though he mentions him far too often, actually owe nothing to Proust--nearly all the characters are thinly and narrowly drawn, more caricatures than true people. Fellowes even, as some Guardian writer commented, shows an unlikeable mysognism in his description of most of the women (other than the 'lovely Serena', who you want to throttle by the book's end), most of whom he describes so facetiously, even maliciously, that you really start to wonder what Fellowes' own problem, as a man, may be.
For part of my life I grew up with the modern variation of these sorts of people (in the UK) and my brother-in-law is actually married to one of these aristocrats, descended from the Royals etc, whose family even today live this life. So I've had the chance to observe them, as well. And, though on some accounts Fellowe's commentary is dead-on (he himself is, after all, one 'of them') for the most part he fails to really make them human, to penetrate their core for anything other than caricature.
And finally, the end was obvious to me far earlier than it should have been and did nothing to justify the secrecy or tension throughout. All I thought was, "Oh, really?"
First off, Gosford Park was clever, tight, and slight, so the writer's true intentions--his almost desperate obsession with the Brit upper classes--largely went unnoticed. Then, Snobs was such a better literary exercise in all its facets--it just worked so much better as a piece of fiction--containing a bit of this and that, some Vanity Fair 'Becky Sharp' elements, for eg, that the reader is again submerged in the authentic world of those people and that society, without authorial intrusions. The same cannot be said for Past Imperfect, where Fellowes-as-unnamed-narrator intrudes so often and so salaciously with tidbits on this or that, with what ultimately become boring and/or annoying discourses on anything from the use of tophats to manor house hallway decorations that you start to doubt it IS the narrator and instead take it, as face value, for Fellowes himself. Not a delight, either, since the voice in this narrative, be it Fellowes or not, is by the middle of the book smug, pompous and irritating. Further, in part due to all these sideline discussions that seem to obsess Fellowes--and that, though he mentions him far too often, actually owe nothing to Proust--nearly all the characters are thinly and narrowly drawn, more caricatures than true people. Fellowes even, as some Guardian writer commented, shows an unlikeable mysognism in his description of most of the women (other than the 'lovely Serena', who you want to throttle by the book's end), most of whom he describes so facetiously, even maliciously, that you really start to wonder what Fellowes' own problem, as a man, may be.
For part of my life I grew up with the modern variation of these sorts of people (in the UK) and my brother-in-law is actually married to one of these aristocrats, descended from the Royals etc, whose family even today live this life. So I've had the chance to observe them, as well. And, though on some accounts Fellowe's commentary is dead-on (he himself is, after all, one 'of them') for the most part he fails to really make them human, to penetrate their core for anything other than caricature.
And finally, the end was obvious to me far earlier than it should have been and did nothing to justify the secrecy or tension throughout. All I thought was, "Oh, really?"
June 11, 2010
Fellowes is undoubtedly good at what he does. The book is very readable and I didn't even notice until almost the end of the book that I didn't know the narrator's name, which means that the not naming of the narrator was not a pretentious literary move, but the best way to tell the story. So good job with that, Fellowes. He also had a lot of interesting cultural observations many of which I agree with.
However there are two things which made it so I couldn't give this book a better rating, one is Fellowes fault, one is mine. The first is that the climactic scene was totally anti-climactic. I was like, "Really? THIS is what we've been building up to?" It doesn't even have any internal logic. So, bummer Fellowes.
The second is that I don't have the appropriate moral code to see anything good with the narrator sleeping with the woman he "loves" when a.) she's married and b.) she doesn't love him. There is no way that this would make the narrator as happy as Fellowes claims he is. The morality messages that so many modern authors send in their work is just appalling to me.
However there are two things which made it so I couldn't give this book a better rating, one is Fellowes fault, one is mine. The first is that the climactic scene was totally anti-climactic. I was like, "Really? THIS is what we've been building up to?" It doesn't even have any internal logic. So, bummer Fellowes.
The second is that I don't have the appropriate moral code to see anything good with the narrator sleeping with the woman he "loves" when a.) she's married and b.) she doesn't love him. There is no way that this would make the narrator as happy as Fellowes claims he is. The morality messages that so many modern authors send in their work is just appalling to me.
May 12, 2016
This is an extraordinarily evocative book and I truly relished reading it. It's so descriptive that you almost feel as if you're part of the events taking place, and the many switches between the narrator's youth in the late 1960s and the present day are deftly handled. The characters are frequently somewhat grotesque, but this serves to make them both intriguing and eay to distinguish from each other - useful since there are a lot of people in this story. The narrator also provides a commentary on the nature and idiosyncracies of the upper-class world he inhabits, which is helpful if (like me) you're not familiar with the ins and outs of aristocratic life. Sometimes, however, these monologues are too lengthy and you can't help but feel Fellowes is using the book as a platform for his own views about the decline of British society and what he perceives as excessive interference in individuals' lives by the state, not all of which I agreed with. I also thought there was a downbeat, occasionally even depressing, underlying tone to the story; every old friend or acquaintance the narrator visits has either lost their fortune, lost their looks or wasted the best part of their life in the wrong marriage or the wrong career - in some cases, all of the above. On the other hand, I really liked the narrative structure; in my experience, attempts to set up a final twist in a novel like this are rarely successful, since it's usually easy to guess what it might be once you're familiar with the characters. In the case of Past Imperfect, I genuinely hadn't figured out what had happened on the mysterious and apparently catastrophic holiday referred to throughout the story, with the unusual result that the climactic scene was truly exciting and revelatory despite the fact that it was really just an account of a past event. The book certainly wasn't flawless, but it really got under my skin and has made me very curious to check out Fellowes' previous novel, Snobs.
November 14, 2017
1 1/2 tristes y confusas estrellas.
Julian Fellowes es el autor del guión de Gosford Park (una película increíble) y el creador de Downtown Abbey (una serie que, aunque al final dejé de verla, me resultaba fascinante). Es evidente que el señor sabe escribir y que lo hace muy bien, increíblemente bien, por eso me ha costado tanto asumir que "Pasado imperfecto" no me ha gustado.
La novela gira entorno a un supuesto misterio: Damian Baxter un multimillonario inglés pide ayuda a un amigo (en realidad némesis) de su juventud para que averigüe quién es la madre de su supuesto hijo -alguien le ha escrito una carta anónima diciéndole que tiene un hijo que él desconoce-. El motivo de la investigación es que Damian se está muriendo y quiere encontrar a su heredero. Entonces el narrador -está escrita en primera persona- nos cuenta cómo conoció a Damian en la década de los 60 y 70 y cómo fue su juventud en medio de lo que quedaba de la nobleza británica y avanza hasta la actualidad para resolver dicho misterio. Mi problema con la historia, que en principio tiene todos los elementos para gustarme, es cómo está desarrollada y principalmente el trato que el narrador da a las seis mujeres "candidatas" a ser la madre de este supuesto hijo de Damian. No voy a entrar en detalles por si os apetece leer la novela, a pesar de que a mí no me ha llegado os recomiendo que le deis una oportunidad si os interesa el tema, pero diré que el narrador y, por tanto, el tono de la historia me ha resultado misógino, machista y condescendiente y ese es el motivo sin trampa ni cartón de mi puntuación.
Estoy dispuesta a reconocer que tal vez no he leído la novela en el mejor momento, siempre he creído que esto puede influir a que una obra te guste más o menos, y estoy casi segura de que haré una segunda lectura en el futuro y de que los otros libros del autor que tengo en casa ("Snobs" y "Bellgravia" ) llegarán algún día a lo alto de mi pila de lecturas pendientes.
Julian Fellowes es el autor del guión de Gosford Park (una película increíble) y el creador de Downtown Abbey (una serie que, aunque al final dejé de verla, me resultaba fascinante). Es evidente que el señor sabe escribir y que lo hace muy bien, increíblemente bien, por eso me ha costado tanto asumir que "Pasado imperfecto" no me ha gustado.
La novela gira entorno a un supuesto misterio: Damian Baxter un multimillonario inglés pide ayuda a un amigo (en realidad némesis) de su juventud para que averigüe quién es la madre de su supuesto hijo -alguien le ha escrito una carta anónima diciéndole que tiene un hijo que él desconoce-. El motivo de la investigación es que Damian se está muriendo y quiere encontrar a su heredero. Entonces el narrador -está escrita en primera persona- nos cuenta cómo conoció a Damian en la década de los 60 y 70 y cómo fue su juventud en medio de lo que quedaba de la nobleza británica y avanza hasta la actualidad para resolver dicho misterio. Mi problema con la historia, que en principio tiene todos los elementos para gustarme, es cómo está desarrollada y principalmente el trato que el narrador da a las seis mujeres "candidatas" a ser la madre de este supuesto hijo de Damian. No voy a entrar en detalles por si os apetece leer la novela, a pesar de que a mí no me ha llegado os recomiendo que le deis una oportunidad si os interesa el tema, pero diré que el narrador y, por tanto, el tono de la historia me ha resultado misógino, machista y condescendiente y ese es el motivo sin trampa ni cartón de mi puntuación.
Estoy dispuesta a reconocer que tal vez no he leído la novela en el mejor momento, siempre he creído que esto puede influir a que una obra te guste más o menos, y estoy casi segura de que haré una segunda lectura en el futuro y de que los otros libros del autor que tengo en casa ("Snobs" y "Bellgravia" ) llegarán algún día a lo alto de mi pila de lecturas pendientes.
September 5, 2022
3,5 ⭐️ ale podciągam pod 4, bo jest dużo lepsza, niż „Belgravia”. Trochę przegadana, ale autor ciekawie omawia zachowanie i grzeszki angielskiej klasy wyższej poprzez fabułę kręcącą się wokół tzw sezonu.
January 3, 2016
Peguei neste livro numa feira de velharias porque o nome do autor me invocou uma série que gosto muito - ele é o criador de Downton Abbey. Quiz ver o que ele conseguia fazer numa nota um pouco mais contemporânea.
E gostei! O livro é denso do ponto de vista psocilógico e social,já que retrata uma sociedade em decadência de valores pós-II Guerra, um mundo que desapareceu no dealbar dos anos 70.
Uma coisa curiosa: o nosso narrador nunca é nomeado. O nome dele nunca é citado uma unica vez que seja. Mas não estraga a fluidez da narrativa.
O livro começa com a premissa de um milionário, a morrer, procurar um amigo (ex-amigo, para ser exacta) para que descubra se uma das antigas namoradas teve um filho dele, uma vez que ele, no entretanto e devido a uma doença, ficou estéril. Dá-lhe uma lista com os casos prováveis de serem a mãe do seu filho e o narrador começa a busca. A causa de estes 2 personagens se terem desentendido está enterrada em acontecimentos de há 40 anos atrás, numa Londres ainda com bailes de debutantes, jantares e cocktails de apresentação á sociedade entre a classe alta e aristocrática. Tudo isto no começo de mudança de valores dos anos 60.
O nosso narrador faz parte dessa classe aristocrática e leva um amigo "plebeu" este Damian Baxter para algumas dessas festas e as coisas acabam mal....muito mal até, pois Damian, tal como o narrador o apelida, foi um cuco, ou seja, entrou no ninho e puxou-o para o lado, fazendo-o a ele (o amigo) desaparecer. Por ultimo, houve um grande acontecimento negativo, numas férias em Portugal, que ditou o afastamento entre todos os membros desse chamado grupo.
A narrativa é feita entre o presente, com o narrador a tentar desvendar a verdade, as suas tentativas e visitas a antigos amigos e amigascom quem praticamente não tinha uma conversa há 40 anos e os relatos do passado envolvendo-os a todos, para que consigamos perceber o contexto.
Esta alternancia entre o presente e o passado é muito bem feita,não é massuda nem confusa e dá-nos uma imagem vivida do que é o começo da mudança de valores numa sociedade ainda muito rigida de maneiras e costumes. Muitas vezes é reafirmado ou simplesmente dado a entender que aquilo era a sociedade em decadencia, que "aquele" mundo iria cessar de existir para que outros valores - nem melhores nem piores - viessem a se afirmar.
Gostei da complexidade de carácteres e das personagens escritas. Gostei do tom geral do livro, embora um pouco nostálgico, mas completamente actual e sem grandes lamechices. As personagens são todas tridimensionais e humanas, o que me agrada sobremaneira. Julian Felowes é um contador de historias nato.
E gostei! O livro é denso do ponto de vista psocilógico e social,já que retrata uma sociedade em decadência de valores pós-II Guerra, um mundo que desapareceu no dealbar dos anos 70.
Uma coisa curiosa: o nosso narrador nunca é nomeado. O nome dele nunca é citado uma unica vez que seja. Mas não estraga a fluidez da narrativa.
O livro começa com a premissa de um milionário, a morrer, procurar um amigo (ex-amigo, para ser exacta) para que descubra se uma das antigas namoradas teve um filho dele, uma vez que ele, no entretanto e devido a uma doença, ficou estéril. Dá-lhe uma lista com os casos prováveis de serem a mãe do seu filho e o narrador começa a busca. A causa de estes 2 personagens se terem desentendido está enterrada em acontecimentos de há 40 anos atrás, numa Londres ainda com bailes de debutantes, jantares e cocktails de apresentação á sociedade entre a classe alta e aristocrática. Tudo isto no começo de mudança de valores dos anos 60.
O nosso narrador faz parte dessa classe aristocrática e leva um amigo "plebeu" este Damian Baxter para algumas dessas festas e as coisas acabam mal....muito mal até, pois Damian, tal como o narrador o apelida, foi um cuco, ou seja, entrou no ninho e puxou-o para o lado, fazendo-o a ele (o amigo) desaparecer. Por ultimo, houve um grande acontecimento negativo, numas férias em Portugal, que ditou o afastamento entre todos os membros desse chamado grupo.
A narrativa é feita entre o presente, com o narrador a tentar desvendar a verdade, as suas tentativas e visitas a antigos amigos e amigascom quem praticamente não tinha uma conversa há 40 anos e os relatos do passado envolvendo-os a todos, para que consigamos perceber o contexto.
Esta alternancia entre o presente e o passado é muito bem feita,não é massuda nem confusa e dá-nos uma imagem vivida do que é o começo da mudança de valores numa sociedade ainda muito rigida de maneiras e costumes. Muitas vezes é reafirmado ou simplesmente dado a entender que aquilo era a sociedade em decadencia, que "aquele" mundo iria cessar de existir para que outros valores - nem melhores nem piores - viessem a se afirmar.
Gostei da complexidade de carácteres e das personagens escritas. Gostei do tom geral do livro, embora um pouco nostálgico, mas completamente actual e sem grandes lamechices. As personagens são todas tridimensionais e humanas, o que me agrada sobremaneira. Julian Felowes é um contador de historias nato.
December 31, 2009
I expected this book to be a fun, insubstantial bit of fluff. Boy, was I surprised.
Mr. Fellowes wrote the screenplay for Gosford Park and is the author of another novel that I haven't read, but now will. He's working in P.G. Wodehouse/Evelyn Waugh territory - an English novel of manners - a mix of novel and ethnography of the upper crust with plenty of humor thrown in.
The premise is a lovely one. The narrator's decidedly former friend, Damien, is dying. The quest: to find Damien's hitherto unknown and unidentified illegitimate child. The prize: a life-changing inheritance for the to be designated heir.
It would have been easy to write something bitchy and erudite about this journey into the end of the sixties - the Season of 1968 - and the various where are they now stories this journey naturally elicits and that would have been a fine book. Instead, Fellowes has painstakingly and rather beautifully described a world in transition and captured the tension and ambiguity of the time. These are not rebellious flower children heading for Carnaby Street to smoke dope with the Beatles. These are debutantes and their escorts, still in thrall to their parents, and with relatively few options. The novel is rich in period detail and observation, sumptuous in language, and strangely kind in its judgments of its characters.
I liked almost everyone in this novel and even the characters that I didn't like were worth reading. I appreciate that Fellowes manages to avoid most stereotypes and to make even the worst sort of gorgon a human being. This was a lovely read and a nice way to end the year.
Mr. Fellowes wrote the screenplay for Gosford Park and is the author of another novel that I haven't read, but now will. He's working in P.G. Wodehouse/Evelyn Waugh territory - an English novel of manners - a mix of novel and ethnography of the upper crust with plenty of humor thrown in.
The premise is a lovely one. The narrator's decidedly former friend, Damien, is dying. The quest: to find Damien's hitherto unknown and unidentified illegitimate child. The prize: a life-changing inheritance for the to be designated heir.
It would have been easy to write something bitchy and erudite about this journey into the end of the sixties - the Season of 1968 - and the various where are they now stories this journey naturally elicits and that would have been a fine book. Instead, Fellowes has painstakingly and rather beautifully described a world in transition and captured the tension and ambiguity of the time. These are not rebellious flower children heading for Carnaby Street to smoke dope with the Beatles. These are debutantes and their escorts, still in thrall to their parents, and with relatively few options. The novel is rich in period detail and observation, sumptuous in language, and strangely kind in its judgments of its characters.
I liked almost everyone in this novel and even the characters that I didn't like were worth reading. I appreciate that Fellowes manages to avoid most stereotypes and to make even the worst sort of gorgon a human being. This was a lovely read and a nice way to end the year.
dnf
September 19, 2019DNF at page 75.
I really wanted to like this. I am a rabid fan of Downtown Abbey, and this book came highly recommended from a friend, but viewing a period piece about English high society on TV and reading one are two completely different things. I found this dreadfully slow and written in painful detail. I found the core of the story interesting, but it was embedded much too deeply within endless exposition that I just wasn't interested enough to slog through.
I really wanted to like this. I am a rabid fan of Downtown Abbey, and this book came highly recommended from a friend, but viewing a period piece about English high society on TV and reading one are two completely different things. I found this dreadfully slow and written in painful detail. I found the core of the story interesting, but it was embedded much too deeply within endless exposition that I just wasn't interested enough to slog through.
April 25, 2024
Accadde in Portogallo
Siamo in Inghilterra, nei primi anni duemila. La voce narrante, il cui nome non sarà mai reso noto, riceve una strana telefonata da Damian Baxter, un vecchio amico con il quale ha interrotto i rapporti da molti anni dopo un burrascoso episodio accaduto in Portogallo durante una vacanza. Sconcertato, accetta di incontrarlo controvoglia, per curiosità. Scopre così che Damian è diventato ricchissimo, ma sta per morire, e prima di tirare le cuoia ha bisogno del suo aiuto per rintracciare un bambino che pensa di aver avuto 40 anni prima con una ragazza.
Nel 1968, durante la Stagione, Damian sfrutta la sua conoscenza con la voce narrante per intrufolarsi nel bel mondo ed entrare a far parte di un gruppo di giovani aristocratici. Bello e sfacciato, intreccia diverse liaisons appena prima che una malattia improvvisa lo renda sterile. È proprio in questo passato che il suo vecchio amico deve scavare, in una sorta di caccia al tesoro per individuare l'erede dell'immensa fortuna di Damian Baxter. Mentre passa da una donna all'altra, frugando nelle loro vite alla ricerca della verità, il passato torna prepotente a bussare alla porta, con i suoi dolci ricordi e i gli amari rimpianti, e tutto sembra sempre rinviare all'episodio portoghese, come se fosse il centro di ogni cosa. È lì che si nasconde l'agognato Santo Graal di Damian Baxter?
Julian Fellowes da il meglio di sé nel rappresentare gli ultimi fuochi dell'aristocrazia inglese e il periodo di passaggio verso la sua inevitabile decadenza. È un argomento che esplora più volte, attraverso varie prospettive e da vari punti di vista temporali (l'età edoardiana in Downton Abbey, gli anni Novanta in Snob) e gli anni Sessanta sono l'ultimissima occasione per questa classe sociale di brillare prima di essere definitivamente travolta dai tempi moderni, che avranno molta meno considerazione per il sangue blu, l'etichetta e i titoli di precedenza. Questo futuro, tanto imminente quanto spaventoso, è incarnato da Damian, l'outsider borghese che da un lato è attratto da quel mondo chiuso e dorato al quale vuole dare una sbirciata, dall'altro è abbastanza intelligente da rendersi conto che questo mondo sta morendo e che legarvisi significa svanire con lui. E Damian intende fare della propria vita un successo tutt'altro che evanescente.
Nonostante la narrativa di Fellowes ruoti sempre, bene o male, intorno allo stesso nucleo tematico, la cosa sorprendente è che non annoia mai. Con il solito stile raffinato e tagliente, elegante e moderno al tempo stesso, ricco di british humour, ma anche di riflessioni storiche e sociali sorprendentemente profonde, Fellowes sa dare spazio a dettagli sempre nuovi. Sa scavare come pochi altri nelle pieghe più profonde dell'animo umano e dipingere un quadro sociale con l'abilità di un fiammingo del Seicento.
In Un passato imperfetto più che altrove il racconto si carica di nostalgia, poiché la gioventù ormai trascorsa di Damian, dell'io narrante e degli altri protagonisti e il tramonto dell'aristocrazia sono indissolubilmente intrecciati. Rintracciare le perdute amicizie di gioventù, scoprire cosa sono diventate e quanta distanza ci sia tra i sogni dei 18 anni e la vita banale, a volte amara, dei 60, è un'operazione dolorosa e straordinariamente poetica. Sta soprattutto in questo, oltre che nella costruzione efficace del mistero, molto difficile da intuire, il piacere squisito di leggere Un passato imperfetto.
Siamo in Inghilterra, nei primi anni duemila. La voce narrante, il cui nome non sarà mai reso noto, riceve una strana telefonata da Damian Baxter, un vecchio amico con il quale ha interrotto i rapporti da molti anni dopo un burrascoso episodio accaduto in Portogallo durante una vacanza. Sconcertato, accetta di incontrarlo controvoglia, per curiosità. Scopre così che Damian è diventato ricchissimo, ma sta per morire, e prima di tirare le cuoia ha bisogno del suo aiuto per rintracciare un bambino che pensa di aver avuto 40 anni prima con una ragazza.
Nel 1968, durante la Stagione, Damian sfrutta la sua conoscenza con la voce narrante per intrufolarsi nel bel mondo ed entrare a far parte di un gruppo di giovani aristocratici. Bello e sfacciato, intreccia diverse liaisons appena prima che una malattia improvvisa lo renda sterile. È proprio in questo passato che il suo vecchio amico deve scavare, in una sorta di caccia al tesoro per individuare l'erede dell'immensa fortuna di Damian Baxter. Mentre passa da una donna all'altra, frugando nelle loro vite alla ricerca della verità, il passato torna prepotente a bussare alla porta, con i suoi dolci ricordi e i gli amari rimpianti, e tutto sembra sempre rinviare all'episodio portoghese, come se fosse il centro di ogni cosa. È lì che si nasconde l'agognato Santo Graal di Damian Baxter?
Julian Fellowes da il meglio di sé nel rappresentare gli ultimi fuochi dell'aristocrazia inglese e il periodo di passaggio verso la sua inevitabile decadenza. È un argomento che esplora più volte, attraverso varie prospettive e da vari punti di vista temporali (l'età edoardiana in Downton Abbey, gli anni Novanta in Snob) e gli anni Sessanta sono l'ultimissima occasione per questa classe sociale di brillare prima di essere definitivamente travolta dai tempi moderni, che avranno molta meno considerazione per il sangue blu, l'etichetta e i titoli di precedenza. Questo futuro, tanto imminente quanto spaventoso, è incarnato da Damian, l'outsider borghese che da un lato è attratto da quel mondo chiuso e dorato al quale vuole dare una sbirciata, dall'altro è abbastanza intelligente da rendersi conto che questo mondo sta morendo e che legarvisi significa svanire con lui. E Damian intende fare della propria vita un successo tutt'altro che evanescente.
Nonostante la narrativa di Fellowes ruoti sempre, bene o male, intorno allo stesso nucleo tematico, la cosa sorprendente è che non annoia mai. Con il solito stile raffinato e tagliente, elegante e moderno al tempo stesso, ricco di british humour, ma anche di riflessioni storiche e sociali sorprendentemente profonde, Fellowes sa dare spazio a dettagli sempre nuovi. Sa scavare come pochi altri nelle pieghe più profonde dell'animo umano e dipingere un quadro sociale con l'abilità di un fiammingo del Seicento.
In Un passato imperfetto più che altrove il racconto si carica di nostalgia, poiché la gioventù ormai trascorsa di Damian, dell'io narrante e degli altri protagonisti e il tramonto dell'aristocrazia sono indissolubilmente intrecciati. Rintracciare le perdute amicizie di gioventù, scoprire cosa sono diventate e quanta distanza ci sia tra i sogni dei 18 anni e la vita banale, a volte amara, dei 60, è un'operazione dolorosa e straordinariamente poetica. Sta soprattutto in questo, oltre che nella costruzione efficace del mistero, molto difficile da intuire, il piacere squisito di leggere Un passato imperfetto.
April 20, 2025
Bravo, bravo, bravo! Naklon do poda. Nisam bila sigurna da li će me ova oveća knjiga (500. strana, malo li je u današnje vreme tiktokerske pažnje!!) zanimati posle nekog vremena, ali Džulijan Felouz mi je zgrabio pažnju i nije popustio ni sekund do samog kraja.
Malo više Gosford Park, malo manje Downton Abbey (i hvala mu na tome).
Malo više Gosford Park, malo manje Downton Abbey (i hvala mu na tome).
September 28, 2009
A big book of 500 pages. This makes it a bumper book af about 170,000 words. Now, some agents/publishers say that a book shouldn't exceed 80-100,000 words even if it is historical. Well perhaps they don't have quite the attention span of most enthusiasteic readers of today. For myself, I was totally absorbed throughout the span of the book.
The book is set in the present and periodically takes the main part of the story back to the London Season of 1968. This, for the narrator is a glittering time of lavish balls, parties, debutantes and eligible young men. For most people this period is now a past that has rapidly faded from our memories and so, this novel helps bring it all back to us with vivid colour and flavour.
Julian Fellowes is a writer, actor and film director and his own past world shows in the text as each page is savoured.
Past Imperfect is a classic piece of elegant satire, brilliantly portrayed with memorable characters. I found it funny at times, with some very moving poignant scenes interspersing with the more grittier part of the book.
I really liked this book and I certainly want to read more of what this author has written. It is one of the best reads I have had so far this year.
The book is set in the present and periodically takes the main part of the story back to the London Season of 1968. This, for the narrator is a glittering time of lavish balls, parties, debutantes and eligible young men. For most people this period is now a past that has rapidly faded from our memories and so, this novel helps bring it all back to us with vivid colour and flavour.
Julian Fellowes is a writer, actor and film director and his own past world shows in the text as each page is savoured.
Past Imperfect is a classic piece of elegant satire, brilliantly portrayed with memorable characters. I found it funny at times, with some very moving poignant scenes interspersing with the more grittier part of the book.
I really liked this book and I certainly want to read more of what this author has written. It is one of the best reads I have had so far this year.
May 30, 2012
I'd like to give 3.5 stars, but can't figure that out. Sigh.
Anyway, this was MUCH better than Snobs, Fellowes' book I read before this one. The plot is nicely strategized around a simple dilemma of DNA of whose child is whose, and comically and melancholically moved through by a middle-aged man revisiting friends whom he hasn't seen or spoken to in 20-odd years, due to a Great-Event in Portugal that broke an old group of friends apart. This incident is referred to throughout the book, a bit too much, and finally described - and I won't say more except this is England, and what people say can be as disastrous as an American display of physical violence. I think Fellowes has a bit of overconfidence when he comes to leading his audience down a certain path - he tends to spill into overdramatizing bits that have no business being pushed on the reader/audience, as we are perfectly with him already. I've noticed this a lot in Downton Abbey as well.
But whatever, it was jolly and very human in reflecting on how people change over time for good and bad, and the love story within the rather circumspect narrator is very touching. That part is for all of us unrequited lovers everywhere, and that was well-done
Anyway, this was MUCH better than Snobs, Fellowes' book I read before this one. The plot is nicely strategized around a simple dilemma of DNA of whose child is whose, and comically and melancholically moved through by a middle-aged man revisiting friends whom he hasn't seen or spoken to in 20-odd years, due to a Great-Event in Portugal that broke an old group of friends apart. This incident is referred to throughout the book, a bit too much, and finally described - and I won't say more except this is England, and what people say can be as disastrous as an American display of physical violence. I think Fellowes has a bit of overconfidence when he comes to leading his audience down a certain path - he tends to spill into overdramatizing bits that have no business being pushed on the reader/audience, as we are perfectly with him already. I've noticed this a lot in Downton Abbey as well.
But whatever, it was jolly and very human in reflecting on how people change over time for good and bad, and the love story within the rather circumspect narrator is very touching. That part is for all of us unrequited lovers everywhere, and that was well-done
July 8, 2020
Imagine combining Jane Austen's social commentary on the British class system with Markus Zusak's deep dive into the raw nature of humanity and how it affects our daily goings on, and then add the overall vibe of Voltaire's Candide, and you get this book. It was a fascinating description of how Britain's society started moving away from aristocracy and titles in the late 20th century, and I could definitely see the similarities between it and Downton Abbey. Both were less the story of certain people, and more the story of British society as a whole. My favorite thing about it though, was that it felt more like a conversation than a book, even including little rabbit trails with side notes and back stories. Definitely a unique piece of literature!
April 2, 2014
Very long winded and repetitive. We aristocrats of the late 1960 saw things were changing but we didn't really appreciate it. We now know that things changed so much from that period to now but at the time we held on to our traditions. Not sure how many different ways he can say the same thing. The story of an author looking back on his past making annoying comments throughout. At one point someone's dad has since become gay and he says that in his day they would have just spent more time at the club and got on with it. Although he concedes that gay people are probably happier now (gee, you think) he doesn't want to hear so much about it. Well I don't want to spend 400 pages reading about how you loved a beautiful girl 40 years ago and she never returned the favor and you have never gotten over it. I think I mostly liked everyone other person in this book more than the author main character. The 2014 term for this guy would be douche.
June 5, 2009
This novel by the Academy Award winning scriptor of Godsford Park is one of my favorite types of books -- an English novel of manners, a little suspense, this is a portrait of Britain at the end of one era and the start of the next. As in the Jim Jarmish film Broken Flowers, a man's search for a child he fathered 40 years ago by revisiting the possible mothers sets the plot in motion. The purported parentage is only the device however, and each maternal possibility represents another aspect of British upper class. Godsford Park distilled the end of the Edwardian Era. Past Imperfect, as the unnamed narrator points out, takes place in the late 1960's, at a type when society was, like Janus. looking both ways. The plot is unflagging, the characters, memorable. Highly recommend.
January 17, 2016
A real page turner which could, perhaps, have been a little more vigorously edited. I only say that because the theme of the lost world of the English upper class, post-war, is driven home. There are some interesting comparisons made between generations as a result but the most satisfying aspect is the the opportunity taken to return to the previous social group members for in-depth discussions on their lives and loves over the intervening 40 year period. Narrator is self-deprecating and charming and sufficiently ruthless in his task. Whether it would be of interest to a person much younger than the narrator is a point. I liked the chatty style but would have brought it to heel at about 400 pages....
February 25, 2019
I can usually enjoy an unlikeable protagonist, but in this case I felt I was *supposed* to like him and I very much did not.
At every possible moment, the character/author stops to bemoan some societal change — people are drunk more often now! people are too open about being gay! plastic surgery is gross! He also spends an inordinate time describing how the years have changed his *female* acquaintances. Men get a brief description usually involving hair and weight; for a woman, every wrinkle and bit of “sagging flesh” is examined.
I felt I saw too much into Fellowes’ mind here.
At every possible moment, the character/author stops to bemoan some societal change — people are drunk more often now! people are too open about being gay! plastic surgery is gross! He also spends an inordinate time describing how the years have changed his *female* acquaintances. Men get a brief description usually involving hair and weight; for a woman, every wrinkle and bit of “sagging flesh” is examined.
I felt I saw too much into Fellowes’ mind here.
September 7, 2012
As a fan of "Downton Abbey" I pounced on Julian Fellowes novel Past Imperfect and a swell story it is. It is, first and foremost, not a novel of Edwardian manners and mores but, on the other hand, a modern novel which is set in 2008 and looks back to events in 1968. The story is narrated by a nameless narrator (unless I missed it, he is never named) who is a moderately successul London-based novelist. Out of the blue he receives a request from Damien Baxter, a person he knew from the London season of 1968 -- the season here being that reserved for the "coming out" of the Débutantes, daughters of the upper classes, leavened with daughters of rich merchants and even (gasp) an American or two. It is a strange time to look back on, as the narrator notes, "These parties were one of the early rituals of the Season, even if, when recording it, one feels like an obscure archivist preserving for posterity the lost traditions of the Inuits." The request involves attending to the dying wish of his former friend, now one of the richest men in Britain, to search among his female conquests of 1968 for evidence of a child. Despite the narrator's antipathy to Damien --they had violently quarelled in `68 and never spoken again -- curiosity impells to look up these women and with this process he relives the events of 40 years previously.
Past Imperfect is most essentially imagined by Fellowes as a device by which he can compare the past, however "imperfect" to the present and Fellowes employs a delightful style in presenting this story. The narrative begins with the narrator remembering people and events from that season and describing various parties, lunches, dinners, dances and country weekends during that time. This is most certainly a reflection on manners and mores and, like Downton Abbey, on class. Only now many of the aristocrats are barely surviving, occasionally renting out their great houses and living in smaller quarters, even working at jobs they obviously despise all the while surrounded by the parvenus that make up 1968 society. Not all the upper class in this novel are mired in penury, one family, that of the beautiful Serena Gresham, still live in an hazy approximation of the world of Downton Abbey.
Fellowes's story moves along and is filled with many bon mots that sum up the losses and gains of time. His characters are the full panoply of English (and some American!) eccentrics. His power of description is often hilarious:
What makes the book so much more than merely entertaining is that after a spell of dialogue fuelled narration Fellowes will begin to reflect on the situation then and now, often at some length. There's a great section where he wonders just exactly what happened to white tie and tails or when attending the races at Ascot became so vulgar; however, lest one consider him just a nostalgic crank bemoaning the good old days he will produce a thoughtful and moving section on other deeper changes. I ended up with pages and pages of quotes but time is precious so here's just a few to round this out:
On the past when compared to the present:
On the conventional wisdom regarding the 1960s:
On class and it's political exploitation:
Some general truths that often need repeating:
One might read this novel as an indicator of where Downton Abbey might go should the show press on to the end of the 20th century. It is also useful as, I think, an indication of how Mr Fellowes really thinks about certain aspects of society, aspects that are seemingly softened in this novel.
Past Imperfect is most essentially imagined by Fellowes as a device by which he can compare the past, however "imperfect" to the present and Fellowes employs a delightful style in presenting this story. The narrative begins with the narrator remembering people and events from that season and describing various parties, lunches, dinners, dances and country weekends during that time. This is most certainly a reflection on manners and mores and, like Downton Abbey, on class. Only now many of the aristocrats are barely surviving, occasionally renting out their great houses and living in smaller quarters, even working at jobs they obviously despise all the while surrounded by the parvenus that make up 1968 society. Not all the upper class in this novel are mired in penury, one family, that of the beautiful Serena Gresham, still live in an hazy approximation of the world of Downton Abbey.
Fellowes's story moves along and is filled with many bon mots that sum up the losses and gains of time. His characters are the full panoply of English (and some American!) eccentrics. His power of description is often hilarious:
He was born unsatisfactory. He had one of those flat faces, like a carnival mask that had been dropped in the road and run over by a heavy lorry. His skin was sallow, verging on olive, but this did not, as it might have, give him an exotic quality. Rather, he resembled an ailing Mediterranean lift attendant, with round, moist eyes resting in a pool of wrinkles, two fried eggs in fat.
What makes the book so much more than merely entertaining is that after a spell of dialogue fuelled narration Fellowes will begin to reflect on the situation then and now, often at some length. There's a great section where he wonders just exactly what happened to white tie and tails or when attending the races at Ascot became so vulgar; however, lest one consider him just a nostalgic crank bemoaning the good old days he will produce a thoughtful and moving section on other deeper changes. I ended up with pages and pages of quotes but time is precious so here's just a few to round this out:
On the past when compared to the present:
There’s danger in it, obviously, but I no longer fight the sad realisation that the setting for my growing years seems sweeter to me than the one I now inhabit. Today’s young, in righteous, understandable defence of their own time, generally reject our reminiscences about a golden age when the customer was always right, when AA men saluted the badge on your car and policemen touched their helmet in greeting. Thank heaven for the end of deference, they say, but deference is part of an ordered, certain world and, in retrospect at least, that can feel warming and even kind. I suppose what I miss above all things is the kindness of the England of half a century ago. But then again, is it the kindness I regret, or my own youth?
On the conventional wisdom regarding the 1960s:
In the forty years that followed, that decade has been hijacked by the voice of the Liberal Tyranny. Theirs is the Woodstock version of the period – ‘if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t really there,’ run the smug and self-regarding phrases – and they have no conscience in holding up the values of the pop revolution as the whole truth, but they are either deceiving or deceived. What was genuinely unusual about the era for those of us who were around at the time was not a bunch of guitar players smoking dope and wearing embarrassing hats with feathers, and leather singlets lined with sheepskin. What marked it apart from the other periods I have lived through was that, like Janus, it faced both ways.
On class and it's political exploitation:
Various politicians of every hue saw class warfare as so important a weapon in manipulating public opinion that they could not resist inflaming it. Even today, we are constantly encouraged to believe in a capitalist economy, but to despise and revile those who profit from it. It is an odd philosophical position, to say the least, a dysfunctional theory that has contributed to a largely dysfunctional society, but as I say, in the 1960s it was only just starting. Breaking down class barriers was still seen as a happy thing then, so the jokes at one’s expense were, on the whole, good-natured.
Some general truths that often need repeating:
The young are often told, or were in the days when I was a child, that parvenus and other rank outsiders may on occasion be rude, but real ladies and gentlemen are never anything but perfectly polite. This is, of course, complete rubbish. The rude, like the polite, may be found at every level of society, but there is a particular kind of rudeness, when it rests on empty snobbery, on an assumption of superiority made by people who have nothing superior about them, who have nothing about them at all, in fact, that is unique to the upper classes and very hard to swallow.
Not for the first time I wondered at how, among the upper classes particularly but perhaps in every section of society, extremely clever women live with very, very stupid men with without the husbands’ ever apparently becoming aware of the sacrifice their wives are making daily.
One might read this novel as an indicator of where Downton Abbey might go should the show press on to the end of the 20th century. It is also useful as, I think, an indication of how Mr Fellowes really thinks about certain aspects of society, aspects that are seemingly softened in this novel.
March 10, 2024
Ha nem lett volna a nyomozás, és nem lettem volna kiváncsi a nyomozás eredményére, valószínűleg félbe hagyom a könyvet… A 60-as évek Angliájának korrajza érdekes volt ugyan, de kissé hosszúra nyúlt…
Ha lehetne, 2.5 csillagot adtam volna.
Ha lehetne, 2.5 csillagot adtam volna.
August 19, 2017
A modern novel of manners by Downton Abbey/Gosford Park creator Julian Fellowes. I first fell in love with Fellowes when he played Killwillie on Monarch of the Glen. Plotwise this novel is just so-so, but as a vehicle for social commentary, it is excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the narrator's (Fellowes?) opinions on social change from the late 1960s to the present day.
I read this as an audio book and the narration felt natural.
Warning: Increasing gratuitous sex and profanity towards the end of the novel, not overwhelming but be aware.
I read this as an audio book and the narration felt natural.
Warning: Increasing gratuitous sex and profanity towards the end of the novel, not overwhelming but be aware.
August 4, 2017
No matter his astute criticism of the aristocracy and its snobbery, Julian Fellowes is himself also a colossal snob. That's the one downside to what is otherwise a really fun pseudo-mystery about the paternity of a child sired during the coming out season of 1968. I enjoyed pretty much every page, even though the writing is just a wee bit overwrought when it came to the protagonist and Serena. Great fun!
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March 8, 2018Bien écrit mais je n’ai pas réussi à rentrer dedans, j’ai arrêté au milieu.
Read
August 7, 2021Puoliväliin jäi. Yläluokan teinien elämän kuvailu 60-luvulla vaikutti asiantuntevalta ja oli kiinnostavaa, kun kyseistä aikaa kuvataan jonakin muuna kuin ikuisena Woodstockina. Juonen perusrakenteessa oli kuitenkin ihan liian voimakas "valkoinen rikas setämies muistelee, kuinka ennen kaikki oli paremmin" -tunnelma, minkä lisäksi menneen ja nykyisen eroja väännettiin uuvuttavasti ratakiskosta.
June 7, 2021
Kevyttä kesäviihdettä englantilaisittain. Kirjassa kuoleva upporikas mies haluaa tietää, kuka mahdollisista kuusikymmentäluvun lopun naistuttavista olisi se, joka on kirjoittanut hänelle vihjatakseen yhteisen jälkikasvun olemassaolosta. Kirjan kertoja, kuolevan miehen ex-ystävä, lähtee asiaa selvittämään.
Fellowes kertoo hillityn yläluokkaiseen tyyliin millaista oli elää nuo hippivuosikymmenen viimeiset vuodet ns. vanhan hyvän ajan luokkayhteiskunnan viimeisten haikujen hämyssä. Millaisia olivat juhlat ja kosintamenot, millainen nuorten aikuisten suhde vanhempiin, millaista rakkaus.
Kirjan tyyli on ihan viehättävä, mutta tarina muuttuu aika nopeasti toisteiseksi sillä Fellowes ei juuri keksimäänsä rakennekaavaa riko. Monet juonenkäänteet jättävät lukijan ihmettelemään henkilöiden motiiveja ja loppuratkaisu on suorastaan banaali, mutta kyllä tämä kesäisen hellepäivän eskapismista käy.
Fellowes kertoo hillityn yläluokkaiseen tyyliin millaista oli elää nuo hippivuosikymmenen viimeiset vuodet ns. vanhan hyvän ajan luokkayhteiskunnan viimeisten haikujen hämyssä. Millaisia olivat juhlat ja kosintamenot, millainen nuorten aikuisten suhde vanhempiin, millaista rakkaus.
Kirjan tyyli on ihan viehättävä, mutta tarina muuttuu aika nopeasti toisteiseksi sillä Fellowes ei juuri keksimäänsä rakennekaavaa riko. Monet juonenkäänteet jättävät lukijan ihmettelemään henkilöiden motiiveja ja loppuratkaisu on suorastaan banaali, mutta kyllä tämä kesäisen hellepäivän eskapismista käy.
January 3, 2024
I can see how this book could be seen as tedious reading and outdated, but I actually enjoyed it.
Fellowes is a talented storyteller and recorder of social history. He seems to be zeroed in on the British upper classes and when you read his biography, the storylines he writes about make great sense. Writers often write what they know best. The 60s were indeed pivotal years that Fellowes captures quite well-- at least on their effect on the upper classes of Britain still clinging to titles and money. But unlike Downton Abbey, this novel is set mainly in 1968 with a look-back from 2008. I have the feeling that both the narrator of Past Imperfect and the author of Past Imperfect have at times struggled with all that happened re: societal fallout from the 60s. Mr. Fellowes is now a member of the Conservative Party and he embodies for me, that group of teens (now reitrees) who although a product of the massive change of the 60s, didn't actually live it the way we think all young people of that time were living it. Nor did their politics change with them when they became older adults. Whether in Britain or America, a lot of teens were not at Woodstock, or interested in being like the stereotypes that came from those years.
I would recommend giving this book a chance. The plot is a good one and there are a few scenes towards the later half of the book that had me howling with laughter. When the tight reins of "proper" behavior go awry, they go awry with hilarity.
Also, for a while I couldn't help but feel that the narrator of this story is so much like Mr. Fellowes. There is for me a conservative, stuffy undertone to his words and attitudes. Both author/narrator is the old-school center conservative that used to exist in America too (before it got swallowed up in a cult). I was actually relieved when the narrator in Past Imperfect (did he ever give his own name?) could see that there were many faults and fallacies about some glorious old society. That in fact, snobs are snobs and they don't deserve things just because they come from some family or other.
On the whole this is a good plot, full of history of a by-gone era of a certain people, in a certain country and contains in places scattered a long the way, some really wonderful ruminations on what life is and what we feel as humans living it. Fellowes' narrator redeemed himself to me and I understood and related how we can be at the ages of 19 or 20. We can get our memories of ourselves stuck there. We make mistakes, sometimes huge ones and can spend years wondering what would have become of ourselves if we had simply been more aware. Many of us wouldn't have been so hard on ourselves, so lonely, so hopeless. For some, the past is perfect, but I suspect for many, it's more that the past is imperfect and aging isn't such a bad thing upon reflection.
Fellowes is a talented storyteller and recorder of social history. He seems to be zeroed in on the British upper classes and when you read his biography, the storylines he writes about make great sense. Writers often write what they know best. The 60s were indeed pivotal years that Fellowes captures quite well-- at least on their effect on the upper classes of Britain still clinging to titles and money. But unlike Downton Abbey, this novel is set mainly in 1968 with a look-back from 2008. I have the feeling that both the narrator of Past Imperfect and the author of Past Imperfect have at times struggled with all that happened re: societal fallout from the 60s. Mr. Fellowes is now a member of the Conservative Party and he embodies for me, that group of teens (now reitrees) who although a product of the massive change of the 60s, didn't actually live it the way we think all young people of that time were living it. Nor did their politics change with them when they became older adults. Whether in Britain or America, a lot of teens were not at Woodstock, or interested in being like the stereotypes that came from those years.
I would recommend giving this book a chance. The plot is a good one and there are a few scenes towards the later half of the book that had me howling with laughter. When the tight reins of "proper" behavior go awry, they go awry with hilarity.
Also, for a while I couldn't help but feel that the narrator of this story is so much like Mr. Fellowes. There is for me a conservative, stuffy undertone to his words and attitudes. Both author/narrator is the old-school center conservative that used to exist in America too (before it got swallowed up in a cult). I was actually relieved when the narrator in Past Imperfect (did he ever give his own name?) could see that there were many faults and fallacies about some glorious old society. That in fact, snobs are snobs and they don't deserve things just because they come from some family or other.
On the whole this is a good plot, full of history of a by-gone era of a certain people, in a certain country and contains in places scattered a long the way, some really wonderful ruminations on what life is and what we feel as humans living it. Fellowes' narrator redeemed himself to me and I understood and related how we can be at the ages of 19 or 20. We can get our memories of ourselves stuck there. We make mistakes, sometimes huge ones and can spend years wondering what would have become of ourselves if we had simply been more aware. Many of us wouldn't have been so hard on ourselves, so lonely, so hopeless. For some, the past is perfect, but I suspect for many, it's more that the past is imperfect and aging isn't such a bad thing upon reflection.
January 3, 2020
*** 3.5 stars ***
Quarante ans après leur dispute, le narrateur retrouve son vieil ami Damian Baxter rencontré à l'université de Cambridge. Ce jeune et beau roturier a depuis gravi les marches du succès en devenant un riche homme d'affaires. Mais c'est un homme seul et malade que le narrateur retrouve - condamné par la maladie, il aimerait retrouver son héritier pour lui léguer sa fortune et demande à son camarade de recontacter ses anciennes conquêtes.
Retour donc sur leur folle jeunesse, sur leur cercle d'amis privilégiés, sur les soirées mondaines et sur les codes de la gentry qu'on ne pouvait jamais effriter. Damian était un jeune homme courtisé, au charme ravageur, qui faisait trembler les têtes couronnées. En renouant avec son passé, le narrateur aussi replonge dans une histoire de passions interdites et de grand amour secret - la fascinante Serena Gresham a bouleversé son cœur à jamais. Désormais écrivain en perte de vitesse, notre quinquagénaire fixe son horizon sentimental d'un calme plat en soupirant amèrement sur les nombreux actes manqués de son insouciante jeunesse.
Le roman offre ainsi un aperçu du changement sociétal de l'Angleterre des années 60 à nos jours, des mœurs et des modes des jeunes gens de la haute société, mais aussi des relations au sein des familles, des valeurs éculées, des rendez-vous loupés, des ambitions dévorantes et des traditions qui se fossilisent. Le constat est doux-amer, chacun ayant un peu amorcé les lendemains de fête avec la gueule de bois, et cela se ressent à la lecture, parfois longue et édifiante. Le narrateur aussi se pose en donneur de leçons mais n'inspire guère la sympathie... j'étais loin d'applaudir ses exploits. Tout ce joli monde apparaît finalement mesquin et narcissique. Mais je me moquais bien de leurs déboires, par contre j'étais curieuse de connaître leurs histoires, de comprendre les événements survenus lors des vacances au Portugal, d'expliquer la brouille entre les deux hommes, de deviner qui est la mère de l'enfant etc.
Bref. C'est un gros roman pompeux, pétri d'un charme suranné, avec des mystères qui exhalent un parfum de scandale et au leitmotiv farouchement aguicheur. Ceci dit, j'ai été intriguée et j'ai signé pour 650 pages.
Quarante ans après leur dispute, le narrateur retrouve son vieil ami Damian Baxter rencontré à l'université de Cambridge. Ce jeune et beau roturier a depuis gravi les marches du succès en devenant un riche homme d'affaires. Mais c'est un homme seul et malade que le narrateur retrouve - condamné par la maladie, il aimerait retrouver son héritier pour lui léguer sa fortune et demande à son camarade de recontacter ses anciennes conquêtes.
Retour donc sur leur folle jeunesse, sur leur cercle d'amis privilégiés, sur les soirées mondaines et sur les codes de la gentry qu'on ne pouvait jamais effriter. Damian était un jeune homme courtisé, au charme ravageur, qui faisait trembler les têtes couronnées. En renouant avec son passé, le narrateur aussi replonge dans une histoire de passions interdites et de grand amour secret - la fascinante Serena Gresham a bouleversé son cœur à jamais. Désormais écrivain en perte de vitesse, notre quinquagénaire fixe son horizon sentimental d'un calme plat en soupirant amèrement sur les nombreux actes manqués de son insouciante jeunesse.
Le roman offre ainsi un aperçu du changement sociétal de l'Angleterre des années 60 à nos jours, des mœurs et des modes des jeunes gens de la haute société, mais aussi des relations au sein des familles, des valeurs éculées, des rendez-vous loupés, des ambitions dévorantes et des traditions qui se fossilisent. Le constat est doux-amer, chacun ayant un peu amorcé les lendemains de fête avec la gueule de bois, et cela se ressent à la lecture, parfois longue et édifiante. Le narrateur aussi se pose en donneur de leçons mais n'inspire guère la sympathie... j'étais loin d'applaudir ses exploits. Tout ce joli monde apparaît finalement mesquin et narcissique. Mais je me moquais bien de leurs déboires, par contre j'étais curieuse de connaître leurs histoires, de comprendre les événements survenus lors des vacances au Portugal, d'expliquer la brouille entre les deux hommes, de deviner qui est la mère de l'enfant etc.
Bref. C'est un gros roman pompeux, pétri d'un charme suranné, avec des mystères qui exhalent un parfum de scandale et au leitmotiv farouchement aguicheur. Ceci dit, j'ai été intriguée et j'ai signé pour 650 pages.
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