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Title: The Shrapnel Academy
Subtitle: A Novel
Author: Fay Weldon
Narrator: Matthew Waterson
Format: Unabridged
Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
Language: English
Release date: 09-17-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 1 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Literary
Publisher's Summary:
They thought they were attending a benign military lecture at the illustrious Shrapnel Academy, housed in one of England's grand manors and dedicated to the memory of Henry Shrapnel, genius inventor of the cannonball. But the weekend is not peaceful. Perhaps benign militarism is always a false conceit.
Septuagenarian General Leo Makeshift, charged with delivering the annual Wellington lecture, arrives in a black Rolls-Royce. The knee under his hand belongs to his current mistress, Bella, who wars a tight black skirt and seamed stockings for the occasion. (Bella is considerably younger than the general.) Medusa, or "Mew," on the other hand, hitchhikes to Shrapnel after the gas runs out on her motorbike. Mew is the correspondent from Woman's Times and, yes, it was a mistake to allow a feminist reporter on the scene.
On the greeting committee are Joan Lumb, the institute's dictatorial director, her lithesome secretary, Muffin, and Acorn the butler, a stunningly handsome South African whose army of Third World servants is primed to rebel against the ruling class.
Fate provides a snowstorm, making escape impossible; lust, jealousy, bigotry, chauvinism, and pure greed provide the other essential ingredients for all-out war during the Wellington weekend - between Upstairs and Downstairs, between men and women, between First and Third Worlds, between the fiercest of sexual rivals. Speculation about the occupancy of a given bed or the espousal of a given cause is unlikely to prove correct, yet to attempt it is irresistible.
As a chronicler, Fay Weldon has never been more brilliant or more ruthless about the folly of human relations. The Shrapnel Academy is a devastating update of the English country house novel, as savagely funny as it is topical.
Members Reviews:
Very funny - Defines term Mordant Wit
This book was a delightful examination of attitudes to war over history and misunderstandings among cultures - within the typical English country house motif. In this case the country house is a military academy. The characters are the usual ill-assorted group.
The book also examines the issue of the exploitation by Western developed countries of refugees from underdeveloped countries as domestic staff. While I was reading it I went to a reception where, naturally, all the wait staff was minority and immigrant. Weldon's insights caused me to re-examine that experience and implied relationships.
The book is also an exemplar of the world-power-in-decline writing that is typically English. Given our frittering away of world political leadership and credibility and the constant slide of the dollar against the Euro, perhaps we should read these books for clues to the future or a bad example.
Outrageous and fun
This was a fun read. Hilarious at times, outrageous at others, slow at the accountings of wars. Fay Weldon is a wonderful writer and this is well worth reading.
Unpleasant
Let me tell you what I liked about the book:
Okay, now that that's done...
I couldn't finish this book, so I'll avoid a precis of the plot. The writing is tedious. The author thinks that it's okay to directly address the readers, but her asides are at best condescending, and at worst puerile.
