Go
Classic Search  |  Browse  |  Combination  |  Help  |  My Account
 
 

The Old Devils

by Kingsley Amis

Library Journal ``The Old Devils'' are aged drinking partners whose number is enlarged and enlivened when poet Alun Weaver and his wife Rhiannon return to Wales. Alun is a letch, a ``frightful shit'' in the words of one acquaintance, and Rhiannon still a beauty. Like pebbles dropped into a still pond, the Weavers set off a series of emotional waves that are still breaking at novel's end. Along the way Amis has characteristic fun with sex, drink, and fakery yet displays a largess of spirit lacking in his other geriatric comedy, Ending Up (1974). At least one happy ending is awarded here, to a character who had written off maturity as ``an interval between two bouts of vomiting.'' This winner of Britain's Booker Prize is caustic, verbally dextrousand highly recommended. Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book list A wicked yet not unaffectionate look at the way old age-and belated international celebrity-transforms a social set whose friendships were established in earlier, more optimistic times. (D 1 86 Upfront)

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.