Product Description

Old Filth was a 'child of the raj'. His earliest memories are of his amah, a teenage Malay girl - not of his mother who is dead, nor his father who can't cope. But very soon he is torn away from the only person who loves him, and sent to be educated at 'Home', where he is boarded out with strangers...What is the terrible secret that the children shared? What exactly happened at the farmhouse in the Lake District from which Filth is rescued by 'Sir' whose 'outfit' is one of the oddest schools in England? Old Filth is funny and heart-breaking at the same time. It is peopled with characters who astonish the reader - monsters, eccentrics, blessings in disguise. Jane Gardam has a unique understanding not only of the human heart but also of the bizarre workings of the minds of the elderly. A touch of surrealism combines with the subtle delicacy of a gifted novelist to make Old Filth a genuine masterpiece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #253193 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

The Guardian, 30th July, 2005
'The writing crackles with energy, variety, sensuous richness.'

Guardian, 19 November 2005
'Gardam does old age brilliantly ... She is on top form here'

Sunday Times, 13 November 2005
'superb novel ... quiet beauty, sly wit and heartbreaking humanity lie within its pages ... unforgettable'

Customer Reviews

Clever, subtle and very funny
A gentle yet gripping story (I won't indulge in spoilers see reviewer below if you want your pleasure ruined) that describes the life of a distinguished judge taking the unpleasant consequences of his childhood and carefully unwrapping them to show how they have echoed and shaped his adult life. The book is at different times very funny but also very poignant and tragic. I think the great strength of Gardam's writing lies in her effortless understatement. Too many writers now either have nothing to say or else tell their stories with great big hairy signposts you can't fail to miss.
Engaging and intelligent without being obscure and all done in less than 250 pages - amazing!

Funny and moving
What marvelous characters! This book opens a whole world--the world of the Raj Orphans, those sent back to Britain from the farflung Empire between the two wars--and makes it come alive through the complex character of Edward Feathers, Old Filth. As he moves in and out of time, his experiences bring to the reader not only magically historical moments but characters so beautifully drawn their equals are rarely seen in modern fiction. From his best friend at school to the "Chinese dwarf" with whom he sails back East as a teenager to his mad cousin Babs, the cast of Old Filth's life turns out to be rich and quirky and not at all what many of his admirers might have guessed as they describe him as someone to whom "nothing happened."

A real treat
Don’t be put off by the horrid title or by the fact that the main character, whose real name is Sir Edward Feathers, is frequently referred to as Filth, even by his loving wife: the nickname of this distinguished lawyer who had made his career in the Far East, stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Otherwise no name could be less appropriate for this old man who is described as “spectacularly clean” and whose kaleidoscopic life story, in England and the Far East, this is. It would be a spoiler if I described it or the gaps in the story which the author leaves to our imagination to fill in.

The book and the characters in it are quirky, funny, sad, and touching; the touches of period flavour (ca. 1923 to 2002 - though there seems to be an error on the very last page) are spot-on; and Jane Gardam’ style is idiosyncratic, often staccato, but a pleasure to read. Her similes or descriptions are never hackneyed, never forced, but always fresh and arresting. I found the novel a real treat.