This arrived a few weeks ago from Bloomsbury, complete with a packet of Darjeeling tea and shortbread biscuits. This was enough to make me feel favourably disposed to this novel and, indeed, I made a cup of tea and retired back to my comfy bed and duvet and started reading this rather delightful book.
Major Pettigrew is a widower, living on his own in the village of Edgecombe St Mary. One morning shaken and upset on hearing of his younger brother's death, he is visited by Mrs Ali, who runs the village shop and she stays to keep him company and comfort him. She, too, is alone her husband having died a couple of years previously. Mrs Ali is a reader and a lover of Kipling and of poetry and this lonely couple begin to find solace and . comfort in each other's company and slowly the Major realises that he is falling in love again.
"Mrs Ali was in the living room waiting for him to bring in the tea.....the sun shining through the wobbly glass, made the dust motes shimmer and edged her profile with a light gold brushstroke. She had arrived wrapped in a shawl of deep rose which now lay draped about the shoulders of a wool crepe outfit in a blue as dark and soft as twilight"
The main body of the narrative is the rather tender, lovely story of their growing companionship set against the background of a village with the usual motley collection of eccentrics, gossips and do-gooders and who try, rather embarrassingly hard, to show how multi-cultural they all are. A farcical Indian themed evening is mounted at the local golf club which ends in embarrassment all round and the members of the club, which include Major Pettigrew's thrusting ambitious son, Roger, all end up behaving rather badly and insulting Mrs Ali.
I very much enjoyed Helen Simonson's book - the main story of late flowering love between the Major and Mrs Ali is delightful. The major is chivalrous with an old fashioned courtesy and style of speech which is beautifully captured as is Mrs Ali's warmth of manner and fear of her lonely future. There are several other stands to the story -Roger Pettigrew, the Major's rather unpleasant son, who is perfectly willing to throw in his lot with a local developer intent on ruining the village with a huge building programme in order to promote his career, Mrs Ali's nephew and his disgrace in making a young woman pregnant and fathering a son, and an attempted murder near the end of the story which brings about a denouement I, personally found melodramatic. To be honest I was not interested in Mrs Ali's rather tiresome nephew, I just wanted to find out if the Major and Mrs Ali had a happy ending.
really really loved this book despite my slight caveat. There was so much in it to enjoy and I found the Major and Mrs Ali so charming and delightful. I have just passed it to my mother to read (Mother's Day coming up in the UK and I think she will like it) and she has already got stuck in and I look forward to hearing what she thinks.
Please do check out another review of Major Pettigrew on Cornflower Books. I read this earlier on today and it expressed my feelings about this book perfectly, probably more succinctly than I have done. I nearly put a link to it in this post and thought no need to review this as it is all here, but in the end decided to write about the Major and Mrs Ali both of whom are wonderful characters.
PS - Since writing this post, I have had comments from several people in the US, that they found it anti-American which puzzles me slightly. The portrayal of Sandy, Roger's American girlfriend and an obnoxious, loud and brash property developer, accord with Major Pettigrew's age, army background and temperament and therefore, seem to me, to be spot on. Once he gets to know Sandy, he begins to like her and appreciate her sense of humour, and the developer is drawn with such broad brush strokes that I cannot see why this would cause offense - he is so over the top that we know he is a caricature and not the real deal.
I would be interested in what any other visitors to Random think of this.
