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A review by ellisknox
Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning
2.0
An old-fashioned book and that's fine by me. I read plenty of older books. But I think comedy ages less well than other types of fiction. I get the sense from reading old reviews of Canning that folks thought these stories were uproarious, or such as would serve in 1930s England. Today, it wavers between silly and tedious.
The premise is lovely. Mr Finchley is an utterly ordinary bachelor, working in an office in London, who sets out on his first real vacation. Right at the start he somewhat unaccountably takes a nap in the back of a Bentley convertible only to discover that the Bentley has been stolen while he's asleep. Next thing he knows, he's tearing across the English countryside on the lam from the coppers.
What follows is a series of vignettes, one comedy caper after another. In each one, Finchley discovers something about himself, about his fellow man, or about English society. All the insights are more modest than profound. The descriptions of the countryside (I admit I was looking forward to those) form the tedious part. Not that they go on too long, but that they are all sort of shot from the same angle, in the same tone. As picaresque as the adventures are, they somehow all bled into one another.
I eventually came to believe that what passed for outrageous or funny or adventurous at the time of publication just doesn't ring with the same brilliance today. I enjoyed the book well enough, but I won't be following Mr Finchley on any further adventures.
The premise is lovely. Mr Finchley is an utterly ordinary bachelor, working in an office in London, who sets out on his first real vacation. Right at the start he somewhat unaccountably takes a nap in the back of a Bentley convertible only to discover that the Bentley has been stolen while he's asleep. Next thing he knows, he's tearing across the English countryside on the lam from the coppers.
What follows is a series of vignettes, one comedy caper after another. In each one, Finchley discovers something about himself, about his fellow man, or about English society. All the insights are more modest than profound. The descriptions of the countryside (I admit I was looking forward to those) form the tedious part. Not that they go on too long, but that they are all sort of shot from the same angle, in the same tone. As picaresque as the adventures are, they somehow all bled into one another.
I eventually came to believe that what passed for outrageous or funny or adventurous at the time of publication just doesn't ring with the same brilliance today. I enjoyed the book well enough, but I won't be following Mr Finchley on any further adventures.