Product Description
Its 2013 and 80-year-old Frances is sitting on the stairs of number three Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill, listening to the debt collectors pounding on her front door. World history has finally reached her doorstep! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Update Orwellian Tale
It is 2013. And in England the collapse of the economy in 2008 is playing itself out because nothing has worked to bring it back. The NUG is in control--the National Unity Government--and those readers who know Orwell's "1984"--and who doesn't?--will experience what very well might actually happen. It is a world filled with paranoia, with surveillance cameras everywhere: "Dath by caual push is rumoured to be one of NUG's favoured methods of assassinaiton," she says at one point in the novel. "...paranoia has swept the country: we who used to be so trusting, so welcoming of immigrants, dismayed by a smacked child, hopeful of globalism, who felt loyal even of our mortgage company, are now thoroughly suspicious." As well they should be. And as well as most of us might be if we were to collectively acknowledge just how scary it is to live in a world where Wall Street rules supreme. Google continues to exist is "This page cannot currently be displayed" is any indication of just how scare information is. Oh, yes, and there is a NW. A Neighbourhood Watch. Fay Weldon draws well, in a timely way,from Orwell.
This tale is told brilliantly--at least most of it is--by an octogenarian published writer who lives with her grandson, Amos, on Chalcot Crescent. And when the novel opens, outside her door, men are attempting to get her to open up so they can perform some type of foreclosure since this house she has owned for nearly 50 years is now in jeopardy as have been millions of other homes.
At times our narrator berates her own writing, telling us we might do well to stop reading the book. But I don't think you will. Or telling us that what we are reading is "a bowdlerised version"--note that I am using the British spellings--and she will get around to editing it later. And she seems to know just about everything that is going on, recreating conversations she would not have heard except she is able, she claims, to piece things together based upon what people tell her in phone conversations and emails when she can get them. The electricity is often off. Water is very scare, mainly because it has become the only significant export England has. You do know it rains a lot there, right?
Everything has become nationalized including the meatloaf: National Meat Loaf which she claims everyone likes, the current staple food that has replaced bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. Why? Because Europe is no longer able to import food since "everyone has their own people to feed."
"The European Community is in disarray and, though not formally disbanded, might as well be: it can no longer enforce its rulings through financial penalties and has no other means of doing so."
I have highlighted the political/economic satire. But know this is a novel with a wonderful cast which include the narrator's daughters, their children, their several former husbands and lovers, her former husband and lovers. And we are constantly aware that she is about to lose her home, the one she has had to fight for in divorce court, the one she has paid for from selling her novels, back when she was a popular writer. Yes, there is lots of laugh at although darkly.
And I for one am becoming more and more convinced that by 1213 we might be living under the constant surveillance of Big Brother as our politicians cave in even more to Big Brother CEOs.

"I am not cynical.I am just old.I know what is going to happen next."
Fay Weldon, the immensely popular British author of twenty-nine previous novels, creates an unusual variation of metafiction in this new novel.Here, an elderly author is sitting on the stairs behind the closed front door of her house in Chalcot Crescent, evading the bailiffs who want to talk with her about her debts.The beleaguered author is Frances Prideaux, whose life parallels that of Fay Weldon in almost every key issue.Frances, however, says she is the sister of Fay, an author she claims is now reduced to writing cookbooks.Frances herself has written dozens of successful novels, and now, needing more money, has decided to write "a fantasy about alternative universes."

Frances's alternative universe is in 2013, a time in which Britain is in dire straits financially and socially, and her writing becomes this novel, a broad satire of the issues she sees dominating British life in the immediate future.These issues alternate with Frances's commentary on her own life and that of her family.The Shock of 2008 has eventually evolved into the phony Recovery of 2012, and finally the Bite of 2013.It is a time of fuel allowances, ration books, roads and other infrastructure in decay, power cuts, water shortages, sixty percent unemployment, and banks which charge the depositor for putting the money into the bank!The National Unity Government (NUG) controls all, the National Institute for Food Excellence (NICE) feeds the people (mostly on National Meat Loaf, made from suspicious substances), and the National Institute of Homes for Everyone (NIHE) provides housing.Neighborhood Watch, aided by CiviCams, "protects the peace."

As Frances describes her life, past and present, the reader comes to know about her child out of wedlock, her many marriages, the marriages and liaisons of her two daughters, all their children, and their relationships with her and with each other.Several of the grandchildren and their friends have suddenly appeared at Frances's house in Chalcot Crescent, intent upon using her house as the central headquarters from which they will capture an important person in the government and conduct their own coup.

Weldon's social commentary is to the point, but it, and the satire associated with it, are heavy-handed, lacking the subtlety that allows readers (at least this one) to identify with it.Annoying and unnecessary aphorisms pop up everywhere for emphasis:"Money gives you confidence.You can laugh at authority,""Fate determines all things.What happens was meant to be."Frances introduces numerous characters from her life, but their importance to the thematic unity of the novel is unclear. There is much repetition, and the novel, overall, feels rough and fragmented, "scattered" and somewhat unfocused.It may be that Weldon's late novels benefit from a long familiarity with Weldon, both as a writer and as a person, but it lacked charm for me, and I will be interested to see how successful the book is with an American audience.Mary Whipple
... Read more

Product Description
This is not a book for everyone, but its admirers are vigorously enthusiastic. For example:
Rhoda Koenig in New York Magazine, who calls it ". . . a novel of blazingly hot revenge, one that amply illustrates the saying about heaven having no rage like love turned to hate, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
Or Rosalyn Drexler, who said on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, "It affords a scintillating, mindboggling, vicarious thrill for any reader who has ever fantasized dishing out retribution for one wrong or another."
Or Carol E. Rinzler, who wrote on The Washington Post Book World's front page, ". . . what makes this a powerfully funny and oddly powerful book is the energy of the language and of the intellect that conceived it, an energy that vibrates off the pages and that makes SHE-DEVIL as exceptional a book in the remembering as in the reading . . . . a small, mad masterpiece."
... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

meh
Our heroine marries for convenience but expects loyalty and love from her husband. She is disappointed to find that wishing will not make her husband find her attractive, nor will it transform her hapless life.
The story opens at the inevitable-her husband leaves her and the children for his adorable, successful girlfriend.Every reader can feel the humiliation and righteous anger as we root for the homely wife to get her own back. But unlike my sister reviewers, my involvement decreasedas each stage of our heroine's plot unfolded. The solution to everything came from that enduringtriumvirate of mediocre plotting: surprise wealth, plastic surgery, and white collar crime.
Sure, the situations were inventive, what you'd expect from a resourceful heroine with a bottomless bank account and fake identities at her disposal.But this was a cold-blooded revenge. I felt no connection to this bloodless woman who seemed to blame every bystander for her own shortcomings. I would have enjoyed the story if she learned something, or accomplished something, cared about anyone at all. It puzzles me to find the word feminist in reviews of this book. Feminist ethics? More like, the opposite of. Empowered heroine who overcomes her self-loathing due to male-centered ideals of beauty, and her dependence on a male provider? Not hardly. Darkly ironic, much hilarity ensues? Meh.

Too bad Hollywood butchered the movie rendition
Fay Weldon was in the zone when she penned this masterpiece, and that pen of hers cuts like a knife. The movie made from this book is the worst butchering of a story I've ever been unfortunate enough to encounter. On the other hand the BBC did an excellent adaption as a mini-series by remaining quite faithful to the book. This novel could be quite dangerous in the hands of the wrong woman. :-)

revenge is bittersweet
Well, I saw very pleasantly surprised at the good quality.Would do business with this seller again.

A Very Dark Comedy: A Review For Those Who've Seen The Movie "She-Devil" starring Meryl Streep
This review is for those who've seen the movie.
This review contains SPOILERS for the book.

I was happily watching a favorite comedy, 'She Devil' starring Meryl Streep, Roseanne Barr, and Ed Bagley Jr. when suddenly something caught my eye that I'd never noticed before; "Based on the novel by Fay Weldon."Immediately, I ran out and bought the book.Because of this, my review contains references to both book and movie.

Ruth is a woman ignored her whole life, even by her own parents.She's the ugly duckling who never turned into a swan; an object of pity, not love.Ruth hates being tall; tall women get the modeling jobs, but not tall women like Ruth.Ruth Patchett is 6'2" tall, square jawed, four moles on her face, heavy boned, clumsy, ungainly, and emotional.She's also in love ... in love with Hate, and in love with her husband "bobbo", who in turn is in love with Mary Fisher, a petite and rich romance novelist.Mary Fisher lives in a converted lighthouse on the sea's edge, a romantic setting for a romantic woman in love.

Yes, Ruth burns her house down after Bob leaves and drops the kids off with him, then sets about ruining Bob's life until his short prison stay makes him realize how worthy a wife she was, with the happy hinting that life goes on and somehow they'll work it out.That's there the movie and the book part ways.The movie is a true comedy, highly worthy of a purchase for your humor library of DVD's.The book has humor in it, but the book is dark and filled with tragedy and intense self hatred manifested in every way possible.

The Ruth played by Rosanne Barr in the movie was overweight, an easily fixable condition, as was the mole she had removed from her face.The Ruth in the book is genetically ugly, not so easily fixed.Having been unloved by her own parents and kicked out of the house at age 16 so her step-father could use her room for his train sets, her self-loathing is deeply ingrained from childhood up.Her and Bobbo's marriage is pretty much arranged by his parents, whom Ruth was working for, to get Bobbo out of the house so they could go back to living in hotels as they preferred.Bobbo explains to Ruth they have an open marriage, and proceeds to tell Ruth of every affair he has, calling her his "best friend" as he shares how much love he holds for Mary Fisher.But when he finally announces he's divorcing Ruth to marry Mary, Ruth's compliance snaps.

In the book, Ruth burns her house down and drops the kids off at Mary Fisher's, then leaves them for good.She never returns for her own children, and never feels a pang of regret for doing it.Her own self hatred is too intense, her own feelings is that she was a bad mother and not worth having the children to begin with.She doesn't particularly like her children simply because they are a part of her.She sleeps with men who mean nothing to her, then finds employment at the nursing home Mary Fisher's mother, Pearl, is residing.After seeing to it that Pearl is returned to Mary Fisher's "palace by the sea" by emptying bedpans on her mattress (incontinence is not allowed at the home - this book was written in 1983, pre-Depends times)

Put on your glasses, with shades the color of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and take a good look at Ruth.Ruth herself steals money from Bobbo's accounts, using their joint fund he'd previously cleared out.Ruth finds a man who can help her change identities, and becomes first Vesta Rose, then Polly Patch, then multiple other identities.She uses every person whose life she moves through, both sexually and emotionally, both male and female, to achieve her goals.But her goal is confusing until close to the end: Ruth wants to be the one woman Bobbo wants to be married to, and have Bobbo love her, so Ruth must be Mary Fisher.Literally.

While Mary Fisher's lifestyle declines (she and Bobbo never did marry because Ruth Patchett was a "missing person" so Bobbo couldn't legally divorce her) she's forced to care for Bobbo's children during his incarceration, and for her mother.The real estate market is down; she's lost all her other houses to carrying the legal debts incurred by Bobbo, and now must sell her crumbling lighthouse below market level price.She grows old and fades, her books don't fare as well, and above all, she gets cancer.When Mary Fisher dies, she is reborn; through extensive and life threatening plastic surgeries.Her house is bought by a mysterious millionaires who's money has done quite well in the investment markets.Mary Fisher lives on.

All the blurbs call it "bright and funny".It's not.It's very dark, humorous at times, but a black look at the human condition.This isn't a book of revenge, it's a book of self-hatred so intense that it's pathological.This is a sad book, a bitter book, a book about a women who's accepted by others but not by herself.A woman who goes to dangerous and life-threatening procedures to completely alter herself into another woman's physical projection.My five stars for this book are deserved.It's a well written journey into self-imposed hell, a hell without the boundaries of shame or degradation or regret.Every word is another step.You must pick up this book and read it, for your own good.There is humor but it's very dark, and I myself would call this a horror story and align it with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.I simply cannot get this absorbing book out of my mind.You want humor, watch the movie, you want tragedy, read the book.Solid 5 stars, definitely worth a purchase.Enjoy!

One of the few. . .
. . .novels where it's a good premise, but I actually liked the movie adaptation better.

I can believe that Ruth would indeed turn as dark and cynical and manipulative as she does in the novel.

What I have a hard time swallowing is that

1) She manages to cast aside enough of her personal inhibitions to use the means that she uses to wreak general havoc--shades of _Naked Came the Stranger_, for those of you who have read that.The movie is superior here not only because one would like to think that revenge on that scale _is_ possible without resorting to those means, but a woman who grew up thinking herself plain and not having had much luck in love is rather unlikely to hit on that as a method in any case.

2) That after all Bobbo has done to her, that she'd even _think_ of wanting him back afterward, let alone going through what she does in order to achieve that goal.

Sure, read the book, but take it with a grain of salt. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (4)

An avid reader belonging to a book club
As I started reading this book, I felt the author was a very negative person. At the end I still had this feeling, but it was a compelling story none the less. Her writing style made me think, and I had to go back and read several passages again to get the full meaning of her words. The story was a depressing one for the characters, but their life's stories intertwining with each other were fascinating. I'm so glad she didn't let all her characters have the typical happy ending leaving you to feel that their lives would still be full of ups and downs.

Fay Weldon is marvelous!
I don't want to say anything particular about the book, only that it was virtually perfect.Fay Weldon understands human emotions and faults.She expresses all of the thoughts and feelings people carry around all bottled up inside, and she does so with great conviction and humor.Just read the book.

Don't count your chickens
It would be all too easy to assume from the title of Weldon's latest novel that it is a depressing read.However, I doubt that Weldon could ever seriously be mournful, especially not when you have both nurses and desire inextricably linked, as you have here.There's just a brief mention of Blues hero Stephane Grapelli, but that's just about how far the relevance goes.However, if you do know who Grapelli is, then you may well be of Felicity's generation in this novel.The title's also an oblique reference to Rhode Island Reds, a particularly fancied breed of chicken at the moment.Apparently, these poultry are extremely easy to rear.It's just Felicity's luck however, that she marries an American GI who hasn't a clue about how to run his own farm.She's even more unfortunate in that she believed his tales of a plantation mansion.Fifty years later, the funeral of her son-in-law from this marriage leads to a quite unexpected flirtation with romance.

Admittedly, parts of Felicity's life story are quite grim.Sophia, her only living relative, works in London as a film editor, whilst Felicity herself abides in Connecticut.Felicity has had a minor stroke, and is coming to terms with the reality of her advancing years.Sophia loves her grandmother - it's just that she feels far more comfortable when the Atlantic Ocean is in between them.Her busy life as a film editor means that she cannot just drop everything and be by her grandmother's bedside in Connecticut.Weldon is very perceptive in relating how much guilt can taint love, and how uncomfortable the young can be beside the old.

Sophia, and Charlie the chauffeur, tend to view the world from the perspective of the movies.When Sophia visits an aged relative Weldon notes that this old lady tends to use references from the fairy books of her youth in her conversation.Maybe what Weldon is saying here is that the motion picture is now the dominant form of fiction.Unfortunately, it really grinds my teeth to come across yet another character in an English novel this year that works in the Soho media world.If future readers ever come back to these novels, like Toby Litt's 'Corpsing', and Amy Jenkins' dire 'Honeymoon', they might think that everyone in England was working in film.The only writer who has a credible excuse for writing about Soho is Christopher Fowler who actually works there.The impression I get is that most young English novelists would really much rather prefer writing for the movies, and I can't help but think that this is very sad.

Sophia mentions many films in her narrative, whilst neglecting to mention the most obvious one:'Harvey'.Okay, so The Golden Bowl is an old peoples' home, but it does stand comparison with the mental institution in Jimmy Stewart's movie.Okay, so you don't get to see the invisible rabbit in 'Rhode Island Blues' either - it's the interaction between the characters and the structure that seems quite similar.You don't see the whole of this story from Sophia's viewpoint, since Weldon chooses to flit between the main characters at times.It's quite a jolt to suddenly see the world from Nurse Dawn's perspective, who seems to be such a minor character otherwise.But then 'Harvey' also strayed from Jimmy Stewart's suspect vision, into other smaller narratives, such as the nurse's romance with the doctor.Although, this being Weldon, the Doctor/Nurse relationship here is far more risqué.

Feliticty's mental health comes into question when she starts seeing a gambling toy boy, and when the staff at The Golden Bowl discover what we've known all along - namely that her Utrillo painting is not a print.With insurance being such a premium in the litigatory States, moves are made to ensure the safe removal of the Utrillo from the Golden Bowl's walls (James Stewart's mental state in 'Harvey' was also brought into question due to a suspect portrait).Unfortunately, Felicity has also let slip to Sophia that she may have more family in England.Sophia, all alone apart from a temporary fling with a film director of Kubrick's stature, can't help but investigate her roots.She finds a couple of quite dull cousins who eventually let her enter their lives.Felicity impulsively decides to remarry at the tender age of 83.Sophia's cousins just as impulsively decide to check out their newly found grandmother, and petulantly join Sophia on her trip to the States.The question on everyone's minds seems to be this: is such an old woman capable of looking after a valuable Utrillo?

Ironically, Utrillo spent much of his own life in and out of institutions, with painting his only therapy.From this point of view, it's very fitting that his work should end up on the walls of an institution like The Golden Bowl.Sophia recognises the name of the old peoples' home as deriving from a passage in Ecclesiastes.No doubt it is also a reference to the novel of the same name - that also featured a suspected gold digger.What this novel seems to be about broadly, is the clash between the new and the old: the disparities between British and American culture, the contrast between the generations, and old and new forms of fiction.Several novels this year have discussed a problem which currently troubles Western culture: what to do with an ever aging population, from Will Self's vulgar 'How the Dead Live', to Barbara Kingsolver's life-affirming 'Prodigal Summer'.Weldon comes somewhere in between the two extremes.There is something quite merciless about some of her observations, mostly concerning the immigrant Charlie and his ever-increasing family.But most chilling and timely of all is Sophia's disquieting journey on Concorde.However, Weldon provides us with a mixed dish here; not all of her prognosis is quite as gloomy as this.The blues are there, but playing quietly in the background with the reds.

An excellent book
One of her best; I couldn't put it down.An intricate, clever, funny, touching book that is Fay Weldon in top form.The characters feel very real, and their situations are truly compelling.I really enjoyed this book. ... Read more

Product Description
A kehua is a Maori ghost - the wandering dead searching for their ancestral home. Without the proper rituals to send them on their way, kehua are forced to remain on Earth to haunt their relatives. They're not dangerous, and they even try to help the living, though it's wise not to listen to them. They tend to get things wrong...In the wake of murder and suicide, a young woman flees New Zealand, hoping to escape the past and find a new life. But the unshriven spirits of the recently departed can't rest peacefully, and are forced to emigrate with her, crossing oceans to finally settle in - of all places - Muswell Hill, London. Here their shadowy flutterings and murmured advice haunts the young woman and her female bloodline across the decades, across the generations.'Run!' the Kehua whisper.'Run, run, run!' ... Read more

Product Description
An autobiography from a wickedly funny writer who never fails to amuse Fay Weldon, one of England's best selling and most celebrated authors, looks back on her life as wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, antifeminist, and bon vivant in this frank and funny memoir.Born Franklin Birkinshaw in 1931, Fay spent her youth in New Zealand with her sister, mother, and grandmother before moving to England. Later Fay had to scrape by as an unwed mother in London, trying marriage, then advertising, and then writing on her own. She closes her memoir as she drops what will be her first success, a television play, into a mailbox on her way to the hospital to give birth. Riddled with Weldon's customarily fierce opinions, this frank and absorbing memoir is vintage Fay. An icon to many, a thorn in the flesh to others, she has never failed to excite, madden, or interest. With this engaging autobiography, she has finally decided to turn her authorial wit and keen eye on herself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Sheer delight
Auto Da Fay is about as good as autobiography gets. Fay Weldon has a wonderful zest for life and a larger than life-size personality that comes through on everypage. It's the sort of book that cheers you up and restores your faith in human nature.

A Good Boy Tomorrow: Memoirs of A Fundamentalist Upbringing
Basic Flying Instruction: A Comprehensive Introduction to Western Philosophy

An Utterly Delightful Autobiography
Fay Weldon is the author of twenty-four novels, five short story collections, two children's books, four works of nonfiction, several plays, and now AUTO DA FAY, a memoir. This delightful autobiography is imbued with the same audaciousness and perspicacity as is her other works. As a woman of deep insights she highlights the key, transcendent events of her life. On page one, titled "Pre-name", she writes, "I long for a day of judgment when the plot lines of our lives will be neatly tied, and all puzzles explained, and the meaning of events made clear. We take to fiction ... because no such thing is going to happen, and at least on the printed page we can observe beginnings, middles and ends, and can find out where morality resides." She declares that, while life moves into entropy, each individual does the best with the hand s/he is dealt.

Weldon was born in 1931 and raised in a rural New Zealand town called Napier. She was the daughter of a troubled but creative mother who, along with Fay and her sister Jane, was abandoned by Fay's father, a selfish, philandering doctor named Frank Birkinshaw. The girls attended a private parochial school and, early on, Fay displayed her dislike for authority and disdain for pomposity. "Mother Teresa was nice and motherly, and would hug you and give you sticky treats: all the others ... ruled by sarcasm and violence. I liked their names, but that was about all."

When the sisters wanted to baptize the girls, Fay's mother wouldn't allow it. She describes her parents as "... freethinkers, rationalists - humanists" and, while Jane had been christened as a Protestant, Fay had not even had that benediction to her name. This state of her soul meant that Fay was excluded from much at school and learned to enjoy her own company. She also had to learn to take care of herself and approach life's challenges with a sense of humor. She says she was the 'good' girl, always wanting to please.

Affable or not, Fay grew up in a strange milieu that was often as perplexing as it was pleasing. She attended school, made friends, and her relationship with her troubled mother was as exasperating as any normal girl finds her mother to be, even under the best of circumstances --- and these women certainly didn't have it easy. In 1946, at the end of World War II, upon the death of a relative, Fay's mother received an inheritance of ... "nine hundred pounds." This gift changed all of their lives because it allowed them to go to England. There, the schools Fay attended and the people she met offered the opportunity for her to nurture her genius for writing.

Weldon's life, at times, unfolds like the lives her heroines lead: she became pregnant and gave birth to a son; she married a man whom she thought would take care of her, but didn't want to have sex with her and insisted he be her pimp; she went to work for an ad agency and did so well that she wrote herself out of a job; and twists of fate kept her on a journey into an interesting life that keeps going on and on. Her words are but amulets of power, both here and in her other writing. She uses well her flawless sense of timing to limn her own story effectively and inspirationally. Weldon's fans will delight in visiting the places, sharing the experiences, and looking within themselves, as she does, and asking some of the same questions about life, love, work, parenting, survival and family. But Fay Weldon will deny this. She says of herself that she does not enjoy the journey inward. She does not enjoy examining 'who she is'.

But fortunately for us, she does raise 'those' deep questions; the ones we all struggle with and, fundamentally, Fay Weldon is as unconventional in her writing as she is in her life. Her honest approach to her writing reflects her observations as they regard the 'war between the sexes' and the roles people play in their relationships. This memoir ends when she is getting on with her first novel, THE FAT WOMAN'S JOKE, and the rest is, as they say, history. Enjoy!

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum ... Read more

Product Description
Inspired by a series of instructive letters written by Austen to a novel-writing niece, Letters to Alice is an epistolary novel in which an important modern writer responds to her niece's complaint that Jane Austen is boring and irrelevant. By turns passionate and ironic, "Aunt Fay" makes Alice think - not only about books and literature, but also life and culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Autocratic, with glimmers of insight
As an educated and prolific writer,Fay Weldon does inspire with some passages about literature in general. But, my taste for following her advice was nearly stamped out by her autocratic behavior in "helping" her niece. If I were her niece, Alice,I would have burned all succeeding letters fromthis "aunt" after the first. I found the aunt condescending, hippocritical, and boorish. Her efforts appear self-serving and full of her own rightous opinions. The aunt makes pointed remarks criticizing the intellectual capacity of her niece and her certain stupidity. The aunt never asks once for thoughts from Alice which magnifies her opinion that Alice has nothing to contribute and she, the aunt, knows best. Haven't we all tuned out a relative or professor who lauds their self-rightous behavior over us?It is all about what she, the aunt, feels is best and absolute. Furthermore, in a letter to Alice's mother, Fay makes a point of belittling her and her husband and lies about encouraging Alice to write a novel. No wonder they do not like having her around.
In discussing my feelings about this book with a friend, who has a degree in English Lit, she points out that the aunt is being ironic. I am sorry, I do not see that style. If that were the case, then I feel her title and the endorsements are misleading. There are some insights into understanding Jane Austen, which is the reason for reading this book as part of a Jane Austen book group. I found the writing far to irritating beyond that to care about the "advice" to Alice.

as much about literature as Austen, and a great read
Written in the form of witty letters to a niece taking an undergraduate English Lit course, this book attempts to bring insight to the work of Jane Austen in particular and to answer those who question the relevance of literature in general.First published in 1984, there is no mention of deconstruction's effect on academic departments, but otherwise the author seems to address most issues pertinent to the reading and writing of fiction, beginning with a wonderful chapter on the lovely metaphoric City of Invention.Elsewhere, Weldon discusses non-literature, Latin, a writer's relatives and friends, feminism, literary truth, critics and invention.Austen is here as well,and the author enlightens with her discussions of Austen's life, times, works, style and death.There are many wonderful passages, and I especially admired the analyses of Austen's work, but I would have liked more of this, and in more detail.At one point the author writes: "[Jane Austen] knows how to end a scene, an episode, a chapter, before beginning the next: when to allow the audience to rest, when to and how to underline a statement, when to mark time with idle paragraphs, allowing what went before to settle, before requiring it to inform what comes next.It is a very modern technique.It requires ... consciousness of audience, and audience reaction."It should be evident from that passage that Weldon is an elegant, insightful and articulate writer, and I would have *loved* to have seen extended examples and analysis of specific Austen passages to illustrate the points made in the preceding excerpt.

Ultimately, I didn't think the niece's subplot worked.Weldon first advises her not to attempt to write a novel, and then advises her to write it, and then advises her about dealing with the publisher when the novel is not only published but very successful.What's Weldon's greater meaning?Why would this undergrad's novel be published and who is reading it?Is it a condemnation or just a device to drive the conceit?

I learned a lot about Jane Austen and about writing, and got some help for the next time someone tells me it's a waste of time to read a novel.Very enjoyable and highly recommended.

A "must read" for sceptics of the value of literature
There's a national debate going on in my country concerning the value andrelevance of literature in modern society. Students are liberallyencouraged by their schools to drop literature from their curriculum infavour of more examination friendly subjects to increase their chances ofachieving the maximum aggregate score for their "O" and"A" levels. So, it is not without some irony that I should bereading Fay Weldon's "Letters to Alice On First Reading JaneAusten" as my introduction to this author's works. Well, I wascompletely blown away by its first chapter/letter entitled "The Cityof Invention" which alone is worth the price of the book and....saysit all. The imagery she uses in distinguishing the different genres inwriting as well as the intrinsic or superficial merits of each form ofwriting is absolutely breathtaking. In it, she hints at why Shakespeare inthe "city of invention" is that castle that marks the skyline anda compulsory stop for every tour group making the rounds of the"city". Weldon is eloquent, witty and wickedly funny with herpen. While she never quite hits the high of that first chapter again, sheoffers some rare and valuable insight into why Austen is read even today.Great literature has the power when read (whether quietly or aloud) totouch the masses by revealing the universality of some home truths orvalues they espouse. Although Austen fans will be delighted to see theirfavourite characters come to live in Weldon's world, you don't have to likeJane Austen to enjoy this book. To fellow Singaporeans sceptical about thevalue of literature in schools, my advice is "read this and you willsee how absurd the question really is". No matter if you disagreeafter reading the book, b'cos you would have had a jolly good time. Greatstuff. Truly.

Read This Book
I loved this book when it first came out years ago, and it still makes me laugh, as Jane Austin still makes me laugh.Fay Weldon is one of the fewwriters I know of who has the wit and the irony that we Austin-lovers lookfor. Letters to Alice is wise and insightful; read it!

Required reading for all who aspire to create.
Borrowed from a friend during my Jane Austen period, this book so delighted and inspired that it is now a dog-eared resident of my nightstand.As a neophyte pro-writer, I often have people ask me how I made the transition from "wanna-be" to "real" writer.This book was an important part of that process. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Not One of Weldon's Best
This book reads like a fable.However, I felt like the author ministered to the narrative
like a preacher scolding a room full of naughty children.Her repetitions and 'reasons'
drive me nuts.I can read a Weldon book only once every several years because they
tend to be so similar to one another.I had been looking forward to this one and was
disappointed.

The plot:Boy meets girl.They fall in love and have a child.The evils of the world
work to destroy their love.The child disappears.Their love crumbles.Love prevails
and all is made right.

Brilliant. I return to this book again and again.
I don't know if I can add much to Jana's excellent review, other than to say that this is a book unlike any other I have read. It is one of the few in my collection I wouldn't part with. Really well done and entertaining!

A Delightful Tragicomedy Of A Modern Day Fairy Tale!
Fay Weldon gives new meaning to irony in "The Hearts And Lives Of Men." This is a satiric love story, peopled with some of the most original characters I have met in years. Weldon gets right to the guts of the love-hate contradiction, that exists in all of us, and turns it into grand comedy, and sometimes, grand guignol. She also parodies the art world, and the lives of the rich, famous, and talented, as well as a few plain ordinary folks, back in the 1960s, "when everybody wanted everything, and thought they could have it, and what's more had a right to it!" It was a time when it was possible to have, "Sex without babies. Revolution without poverty. Careers without selfishness. Art without effort." Her writing is elegant, and her wit, delightfully malicious. She takes her readers into her intimate confidence. We become her Dear Readers, and priveleged to travel with her into the realm of her insights, and very wicked they are.

"This is the story of Clifford, Helen and little Nell." We are once upon a time, in London, in the glorious mid-1960s. Clifford, a wealthy, up and coming art aficionado, who is soon to give Sotheby's a run for their money with his establishment, Leonardo's, and Helen, the much younger, lovely daughter of an eccentric, impoverished artist, fall in love at first sight. They gaze across a crowded room into each other's eyes, (just like in the song), and immediately know that fate has touched them. Nell is conceived that night. And, as with most fairy tales, and sadly with life also, all is not happily ever after.

Clifford and Helen fight as passionately as they love. He is too often busy at work, buying, appraising, and selling art to spend much time with his new wife and daughter. "Telling the good from the bad is what the Art World is all about, and a sizable chunk of the world's resources is devoted to just this end." And Clifford wants part of that chunk. A very wicked witch enters the picture, at about this time. Actually she was there from the beginning, in the person of Angie, Clifford's super wealthy, scheming, ex-fiancee. The new husband was just too busy to pay much attention to Angie's vicious mischief-making before. And mischief-make she does. Helen and Clifford divorce as a result, and in the nastiness that accompanies such dissolution of relationships, little Nell becomes lost to both of her parents.

Nell, miraculously survives a kidnapping, plane crash, various foster parents and many harrowing adventures. Her parents grieve, blame each other for their loss, and move on with their lives. They must live many years, and learn much in that time -enough to deserve Nell. And then she will return to them.

In this adult fable, true love will finally triumph over hate, lust and greed. Good will ultimately prevail. It is the process of reaching the story's finale that makes this tale so fascinating and funny. The characters will change, grow and mature. And those few who do not, will find their just reward. A hilarious read! You'll want to applaud at the novel's end. ... Read more

Product Description
After returning home from a stint on the London stage to find her husband mysteriously dead and her female friends suspiciously smoothing over the details, an actress begins losing her mind in finding her worst fears confirmed. Reprint. K. "Amazon.com Review
The 21st novel by the "quintessential anti-romancenovelist" Fay Weldon, Worst Fears focuses on AlexandraLudd, a minor actress whose seemingly idyllic life in the West Countryin England is turned upside-down when her husband Ned dies of a heartattack. Alexandra learns that not only was her marriage a sham, butthat her friends and family are not as loyal as they seemed. When atthe funeral her husband's mistress, Jenny, receives more sympathy thanAlexandra and even her dog, Diamond, snubs her, Alexandra realizes itis she who has been shallow and vain, and embarks on a journey todiscover what really sustains romantic love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Secrets revelaed
Fay Weldon's novel Worst Fears starts and finishes with bereavement. It examines how a woman deals with simultaneous loss and revealed betrayal. Alexandra is an actress, if I might be excused such gender specificity. She is also quite successful. She is currently appearing in a London West End production of Ibsen's A Doll's House. She is therefore away from home a lot.

Her husband Ned has just died, apparently discovered on the floor of the family home by a visitor. It was a sudden and massive heart attack. Alexandra wonders what might have brought it on. She takes time off work, thus allowing an understudy temporarily to take her role. She returns to the rickety, old, antique-stuffed cottage in the country. It is perhaps a rural idyll that now has to be rewritten.

Her worst fears are that there is more than meets the eye. She also has some hopes, but from the start it seems unlikely they will be realised. She is greeted by the dog, Diamond, who seems to know something is wrong. She contacts local acquaintances, Lucy and Abbie, whom she suspects know more than they are saying. Hamish, her husband's brother, comes to stay to help sort things out. Sascha, Alexandra and Ned's little boy is with Irene, Alexandra's mother. It happens often when Alexandra is away at work. Her husband Ned, as usual needed space at home to concentrate. He was, by the way, was an authority on theatre, a critic, an expert on Ibsen and also interested in costume design.

As Alexandra delves into recent events, she discovers a tangle of interests, relationships and liaisons. All of them have implications for her, despite the fact that she was often not directly involved. The protagonists relate directly to one another. They socialise, if that might be the right word. They interact. They act. They play-act. Alexandra's worst fears begin to materialise.

Ned's surname is Ludd. It is surely not a coincidence that he shares a name with one of the wreckers of history. He is the only developed male character in the novel, despite his being dead. He never speaks, but his presence pervades, perhaps even controls everything that the still living can do. The truths of his life have been at best partial, his interests specifically personal. It seems that the women are positioning themselves to lay claim to ownership of his memory. And thus recollection, rumour and revelation unfold their tangle.

The above may suggest a rather one-dimensional approach towards a feminist moral, but it is much more subtle than that. This thread is there, of course, and is epitomised when Alexandra's part in A Doll's House - itself a play about women and emancipation - is exploited to success by her understudy via sexual stereotyping. And Worst Fears opens with two of the women involved viewing Ned's body, their attention drawn to a part of his anatomy that is to become one of the book's main actors. Their reverence is sincere as they genuflect before their flaccid altar.

This accepted, it seems also that the book deals more fundamentally with the more universal issues of self-interest and selfishness. All of these characters, despite their often social or private relations, are in conflict. They compete with one another and even with themselves. When liberation becomes a possibility, it is revealed as no more than an opportunity for even greater self-obsession, a means of shutting out the interest of others.

As the plot of Worst Fears unfolds, the impression it leaves is that these accomplished, middle-class, apparently comfortable people are all still engaged in a primeval struggle for raw animal dominance. The currency that is hoarded in the process remains the same as it would have been if the characters had never evolved from quadruped apes in a forest gang. There is no liberation here, for anyone, except, that is, via their words, the very weapons they use to prod, punch, pierce the reality that effectively confines them to themselves. These could be anyone's worst fears.

Should have been a short story
I do think Fay Weldon is a very good writer, and will probably read other books of hers.

But, this particular story was a disappointment. It should have been about an eighth as long as it was. And, it just didn't make any sense. Alexandra was endlessly in denial, and pathetically obliging when it came to allowing people to step all over her. The attacks seemed very unrealistic, and mind-numbingly repetitive.

And the fact that she, Alexandra, kept being referred to as she, Alexandra, yes, she, Alexandra, I'm talking about her, Alexandra. Arrrrg! What was that all about?

From bad to worse.
First, Alexandra takes absolutely forever to get out of denial about the character of her husband--not credible at all. I don't believe anyone is that stupid. The reader is shouting, "You moron!" The lead character and story start out bad (Alex is even mean to the dog) and then all the characters and the story go downhill from there. Her late husband, her friends, and even her mother become more abominable. Injustice piles upon injustice. A. doesn't do any of the things we are rooting for her to do to make things right. She's appalling, utterly shallow and inert, and the ending is a terrible waste. The only excuse I could think of for such an awful story is that Ms. Weldon had bad things done to her and this was her revenge. P.S. I didn't find any humor. There was irony, sarcasm, bitterness, but not humor.

Worst Fears Indeed
I bought this at a book outlet, so it only cost 3 bucks, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten it.The back intrigued me, but I felt fairly let down after reading it.

I suppose as I'm not an adult or married, I wouldn't understand the fear of a spouse cheating on me.So maybe I just can't relate which took away from my experience reading this.

The main character just didn't intrigue me like I like in books.The way she dealt with her son seemed a little unbelievable but then, she does seem like she was pushed around a lot of the time.

I have to say, I was nearly believing she was insane, imagining that her husband was cheating on her at times.The writing was good, it just wasn't my speed.

The entire cast was mostly women.So it's not a very universal book, but maybe it wasn't supposed to be.

I wish that the characters had seemed a little more different from one another, but then, I'm not used to reading books mostly about women, so maybe they were just all blending together for me in this rural setting.

Overall, the writing was good, but I feel obliged to take off one star simply because I really didn't feel what the author was going through.

Weldon At Her Best!
The brilliant Fay Weldon skewers and punctures hypocrisy is this wonderfully sly first-person narrative. Protagonist Alexandra Ludd is the only real, genuine, honest human being in this disturbing but ultimately triumphant (in a way!) tale of adultery/infidelity, backbiting, lies, and false friendship. Alexandra, a beauty and successful actress, is in a sham of a marriage, but she's the only one who doesn't seem to know it. Her late husband Ned, a failed theater critic consumed by jealousy of her success -- she makes the money, he spends it -- porked all available females in the environs of their country cottage to get even with her for the failures of his professional career. He lived a devious double life and was unfaithful to her in nasty and sundry ways much worse than mere physical infidelity. Additionally, he maligned her character and twisted the reasons for her behavior. Alexandra is a great character, and I was rooting for her all the way, even when it seemed that all had fallen apart like Humpty Dumpty, never to be put together again. It's a terrible aspect of human nature, but success/beauty/talent are resented by those who lack any of these three attributes; Weldon exposes it for what it is, from the obsequious pseudo-friends to the horny brother-in-law Hamish, who, feigning assistance to the grieving widow, is just itching for the opportunity to get into her pants; to the country folks' envy -- there is a wonderful cameo of a resentful child-minder, the servant of everyone's nightmares -- of the city folks, who seem to have too much and they too little. It's a witty page turner typical of Weldon's best work. Am already casting the film with Angelina Jolie as Alexandra, Brad Pitt as Ned, Heath Ledger as his brother Hamish, Helen Mirren as the older, Slavic femme-fatale Vilna, Julianne Moore as the duplicitous best friend and neighbor, Abbie (playing against character), et al. Am only stumped by the worst of the bunch, the dumpy lump/unfaithful wife Jenny Linden and the unethical therapist/counselor Leah. They are perhaps the most contemptible of the rich and subtle cast of characters. Weldon has the typical counselor's mealy-mouth platitudes down pat, but the manipulative Leah is evil to boot. A terrific read that would make a fabulous film. ... Read more

Product Description
Via 20 madcap tales, Fay Weldon takes readers into a world peopled with therapists who blithely destroy marriages and family ties, husbands and lovers whose greatest cruelty is their indifference, and clever women navigating the perils of domesticity. Her wicked humor and seasoned wisdom are as evident here as always--and tempered by great compassion for the foibles of the human heart.Amazon.com Review
Fay Weldon is a writer who understands the value of holding agrudge. Who can forget the years-long vengeance the heroine of herbest-known book, TheLife and Loves of a She-Devil, exacted on her faithlesshusband and the romance writer who stole him from her? Even thephysical extremes to which Weldon's scorned wife goes in order toremake herself in the image of her rival--including broken bones andplastic surgery--are worth it when she finally succeeds in destroyingtheir lives. Horrifying as the conceit might seem in real life,Weldon's fictional revenge, whether served hot or cold, is a mosttasty dish. In Wicked Women, a collection of short stories, FayWeldon continues her one-writer crusade to ensure that bad people getexactly what's coming to them.

But if Fay Weldon's stories aredark, they are also savagely satirical. In "Santa Claus's NewClothes," the children of a recently divorced father have sometelling questions for their not-so-nice new stepmother, who alsohappens to be their father's former therapist. In "Not Even aBlood Relation," a mother turns the tables on her three heartlessdaughters in a manner sure to delight the reader. Weldon has aclear-eyed view of right and wrong--not for her are the concepts ofno-fault divorce or infidelity without consequence--and in herfiction, if not in life, victims receive Fay Weldon's fierce brand ofjustice. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (4)

No fun here
This "satire" fails on all fronts. It's impossible to be engaged by this self-centered band of bratty women congregating at a dysfunctional spa. I also have an ax to grind with author Weldon who constantly refers to distasteful men as "Aspergery". As the mother of a son with Asperger's Syndrome, I find it ironic that he is far more charming than any of the characters in this dark and dreary tome. Don't bother.

I couldn't finish it
Perhaps it's unfair to write a review of a book I've not finished, but I found it very dark and got tired of the self-centered characters who took turns at a spa over Christmas (that alone was depresssing)telling stories about their dysfunctional lives.Life is too short to read books like this!

The Spa is Blah
This book does not match it's hype.I actually read it while at a spa and was still not inspired. Quite sloggy.

Filled with anger and derision and females who are victims
It is fascinating to me that in the United States some people don't expect a reader to have any prior knowledge of literature, so that zingy titles that reference works the rest of the world knows to be "classics" can't be used here. So is the case with Fay Weldon's rather zingy THE SPA, the latest of her 26 novels. The title in England and other parts of the world is THE SPA DECAMERON, but here in the U.S. it is merely THE SPA. The reference to Boccaccio's DECAMERON would be evident to even the most dim-bulbed college student --- a book made up of many tales from different characters, one more bizarre than the next.

The idea with THE SPA is that there is a horrible plague invading the outside world. This pandemic needs getting away from --- it's called the "Sumatra flu" --- but it doesn't seem to be happening too fast because the ladies in this book have time to take to the spa and indulge in the caviar, champagne and mud packs that it has to offer. I have to admit that taking chocolate into a hot tub sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon. Weldon makes a brave case for these characters that they don't just want to be here --- they need to be here, they deserve to be here, based on the horrible things that have happened to them prior to their arrival. Like the children in the chocolate factory, THE SPA creates a Willie Wonka-like dreamland for stressed-out women in a crazy world. But the stories don't go down as easily as the chocolate might.

The narrator, Phoebe, arrives at the spa because her husband is off working and her house has been flooded. This unfortunate event occurs several days before Christmas, certainly a case of bad timing. And the women who are also residing at the spa that week include some very curious types: the loveless twin who is a well-respected surgeon, the crude and offensive manicurist whose last admirer was a sheik, a hermaphroditic judge with too much testosterone who has undergone a severe alteration in her very being. No one has a good thing to say about guys; clearly the gender wars are still very much at work here. The stories attempt to one-up each other with more lurid and sensationalistic specifics, but it gets to the point where you find yourself rolling your eyes and wondering if all the normal people have died of the flu already.

Weldon has never been, how shall I say, a "soft" writer. She is interested in the politics of men and women and the ongoing movement of civilization towards a place where their differences will force a final battle. To the victor goes the spoils, as it were, and here in THE SPA it feels as if the victors are those who have the opportunity to come through harrowing experiences, many at the hands of men, and yet be able to find a way to relax and still enjoy their lives by bonding together, towel-clad and chocolate at the ready, in hot tubs.

This is a typical Fay Weldon book, filled with anger and derision and females who are victims. However, as in her long-ago classic THE LIFE AND LOVES OF A SHE-DEVIL, she made them the ultimate victors through hard work and clever thinking. THE SPA means to make heroines of these ladies who have suffered and yet persevered. But the fact that they are all victims to begin with tells a sad and well-worn tale about the place of women in this world at large, pandemic or no.

--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano ... Read more

Product Description
The eagerly awaited publication of The Bulgari Connection created a whirl of controversy when a front-page New York Times article revealed that Weldon received an undisclosed sum of money from the famous Italian jeweler for a prominent place in her latest novel. The debate about the legitimacy of commercially sponsored literature has been heating up ever since, polarizing such literary luminaries as Rick Moody and J. G. Ballard, Michael Chabon and Jeanette Winterson, into respectively opposing camps. The novel itself, however, has been gaining much praise, since "Weldon is at her wicked best in this crisp, hilarious page-turner about ambition and love" (Booklist). Once again the acclaimed British author of Rhode Island Blues and Big Girls Don't Cry draws us into an unmistakably wild, rollicking tale full of her trademark satirical wit and sharp observation. Grace McNab Salt is the recently divorced wife of the millionaire Barley Salt, who has married Doris Dubois, the sexy, young host of TV's Artsworld Extra. The novel opens with Grace emerging from jail where she was sent for trying to run Doris over with her Jaguar in a supermarket parking lot in an act of revenge. All three attend a London charity ball, and in typical Weldon fashion the meeting turns everyone's lives upside down. Weldon's world is one of relationships: torrid affairs, lovers' spite, and revenge. Full of clever women, breathless romance, insistent desires, and even a dose of the supernatural, The Bulgari Connection is a boisterously witty and stylish novel. "[A] piquant social comedy." -- Sherryl Connelly, The New York Daily News "Weldon's latest is a stylish tale of romance in London." -- Publishers Weekly "It is a classic Weldon creation: playful, sharp and funny." -- Merle Rubin, Los Angeles TimesAmazon.com Review
The Bulgari Connection finds Fay Weldon on familiar ground, chronicling the pains and pleasures of the battle of the sexes, in this enjoyably funny novel. Set in glamorous contemporary London, Weldon's story begins with the proverbial love triangle. Wealthy, dissatisfied, self-made businessman Barley Salt leaves his frumpy wife, Grace, for the glamorous TV host Doris Dubois. Grace concedes that her husband "has aged better than I have," and that Doris "is 23 years younger than I am. She is slimmer than I am, and more clever." Grace tries but fails to run Doris over, and for her pains is sentenced to three years in jail. However, when she meets the struggling young artist Walter Wells, with his preference for "the blown rose not the bud," Grace literally has a new lease of life. As her life takes on new meaning, Barley and Doris start to lose control of their own self-centered lives.

The Bulgari Connection is a fast-moving, highly readable novel of greed, middle-aged deceit, and love, but feels like it was written in the 1980s, not the early 21st century. This is effortless Weldon, although many of her fans will feel that it is marking time rather than breaking new ground. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Potential Not Met
The story premise was a good one - second-wife, younger man-older woman, patronage, but the story was not written with any depth or insight.We really did not get to know Grace, Walter, Barley or Carmichael and Doris was just horrid (why would anyone be attraced to her, never mind marry her?).Fay Weldon missed the mark and wasted a good story.I didn't hate the book, but the story could have been so much better. I give it 2 1/2 stars.

I had no problem with the Bulgari sponsorship.Just read a few Danielle Steel books and you wonder if she is on Hermes' or the Ritz's payroll.It fit into the story, so not an issue.

My biggest complaint is "Where was Ms. Weldon's editor?".The character names were mixed-up at least twice - there is a big difference between Grace and Doris....and there was often stilted or incorrect grammar, which made it diffucult to read (I realize some of it was British English versus American English, but it was not all that).The paragraphing was not consistant.It seemed like Ms. Weldon typed it up and they printed it with no editor involved.This takes away from the reading experience.Any slack I might have given towards the weak writing was taken way with the bad editing.

This was my first Fay Weldon book.I am not sure I will try another one.I will not be adding her to my "Must Read" list.

Really great book!
This is a really entertaining book!! Very, very funny and clever. Ms. Weldon is a exceptional writer. Her book, The Spa Decamaron- spelling- is also really good. Actually, it is better than this book.

Fun, biting and timely.True Weldon!
I have been a fan of Ms. Weldon's writing for some time and was delighted to have this book read by my bookclub during the Christmas season.This was a fast reading.Funny.Critical of society as it should be expected from this writer.It also has that trace of sci-fi, or should I say, "an imaginative step into the future of scientific news" that's also very Weldon.Marvelous imagination.Wonderful fun.Not as well developed as most of her work.
It was inevitable that in our book club we discussed the sensitive issue of patronage.From a pope ordering the painting of the Sistine Chapel to portraits of lady this and that by English painters such as Gainsborough.And we also talked about patronage in books.In the end those in favor of private patronage won by one vote.We are 16.I believe artists, painters, writers and other talents should seek support from private sources.But that is controversial as we have all discovered.

Good light book.Quick reading. 4 stars.

For Weldon fans.
This is typical of Weldon's less important books.It is a light, but biting comedy, with an insensitive husband,a scorned wife who ends up on top, and a little bit of magic.It is "current" with an older woman-younger man romance. I believe Weldon was too heavy handed with the husband's new wife even for this type of book.At the same time, Bulgari Connectionis quite readable, and possibly cathartic for some readers.It captures the emotions and motivations of the husband very well.For a better, more complete novel, I would recommend Worst Fears by Weldon.If you are very interested in the husband's character , and have the time, you might consider Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full".

A funny, relevant and entertaining read
Forget the controversy surrounding corporate sponsorship and how Fay Weldon might have surrendered her integrity when she allowed the world-renowned jeweller to grace the title of her latest fictional work. The truth is that Weldon didn't have to make any concessions, let alone pander to the demands of advertising for she had written a winner and nothing should detract from the fact that "The Bulgari Connection" stands head and shoulders above most other titles in the same genre. It is a contemporary, thought provoking and thoroughly entertaining book and one that I would recommend without hesitation to anyone.

Weldon knows how to tell a story. She understands humour and how to find that elusive funny bone in readers that shuns mediocrity and the common attempts by many inferior novelists to try and pass off vulgarity and cheap nasty jokes as humour. It is a rare craft that Weldon has mastered and one that she wields with confidence and authority, considering how the story of Grace and Barley and Doris and Walter might in lesser hands have degenerated into farce. She manages to avoid all the pitfalls by making her characters and their feelings real and recognisable. How many readers out there wouldn't identify with the spurned and outgrown older wife or the insecure businessman finding success late in life who think that a trophy wife is all he needs to enter the portals of the rich and successful? Even Doris Dubois, the modern career woman, a guttersnipe and a bitch without scruples or redeeming qualities is a misshapen product of our society. When we laugh and cry at the antics and manoeuvres of these four characters, we're not unaware or unconscious of Weldon's social commentary on life in our modern times.

Don't let anyone persuade you that "The Bulgari Connection" is frothy and lightweight. It isn't. It is funny, relevant and entertaining and frankly you can do a lot worse than that. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (7)

A little reality, please?
Hattie and Martyn, "committed" to each other, but not married, get an au pair for their baby, Kitty. The au pair, from Poland, is a genius at cooking, soothing the baby, laundry, and belly-dancing. She's a dream come true. When it looks like she will be deported back to her country (which is actually the Ukraine; she deceived them; in fact, she seems to be a pathological liar), Hattie has a weird idea that may work to keep the au pair with them in England. Completely ridiculous book. I could not relate to anyone, except maybe the baby. The book is omnisciently narrated by Hattie's elderly grandmother, wife to a man in jail for dealing drugs. Both Martyn and Hattie's families are dysfunctional, and no one seems to be raising their own children; mothers foist them off on aunts or grandparents. Everyone has children out of wedlock. I get that it was a satire, but it was weird, off-the-wall, and completely leftist. Whose world actually looks like this, anyway?

A hilarious farce!
This is one of the funniest books I ever read.In fact, I loved it so much that I went on line to order it for a friend, when I saw the previous poor reviews on this website.Briefly, this book is not meant to be realistic in any way!It is a farce.Satire.Anyone who picks it up expecting a naturalistic novel about life as it is for most people will be terribly disappointed.

It is a very English book, and many Americans won't like its wicked humor.The protagtonist is a young, modern professional mother who can't wait to get back to work and get her life back, and so hires an eastern European woman to be a live-in nanny.It's not giving much away to say that the nanny encroaches on the the lives of the protagonist and her husband, but in entirely unpredictable ways.(Even the title is ambiguous: is someone being forbidden to leave, and who? Or does it express fear that an unwelcome interloper may never go?It's never clear.)

I loved this book's shock ending.No, it is not realistic.But it is hilarious and memorable.And the very last revelation in the book is so unexpected, and does rather explain the strange denoument.A brilliant satire.Give it a try.

much better than expected
I got this book by accident--I was on vacation in England and grabbed some British women's magazine off the rack in the gas station, thinking I would have a little mindless reading for the train ride.Well, in England a lot of magazines include free gifts, and this book was shrink-wrapped to it.

I expected this to be a silly romance novel, on the level of the ones Cosmopolitan prints excerpts from.I had never heard of Fay Weldon.So I was quite surprised to find a very, very darkly humorous and well-written novel.

The key is that NONE of the characters in this are sentimentalized at all.While Martyn and Hattie and Frances et. al. really do love each other, they are predominantly self-interested.Martyn is more concerned with the future of his political journalism career than with his partner's slow breakdown,Hattie is more concerned about being able to go back to work than with the obvious play Agnieszka is making for her common-law husband and child, Agnieszka is more concerned about getting to stay in England than by the damage this could cause Kitty in the long run, and even Baby Kitty, Weldon points out, loves best the person who attends to her needs the most.

That said, because the characters are so unlikeable (or very uncomfortably likeable), it's a hard novel to get into.Many people will be put off by the rather cavalier way mothers in three generations of this family leave their young children in the primary care of others.The mothers, simply put, aren't "motherly."

As to the people who claimed that the ending was a cop-out...uh, didn't you read the very beginning of the book?It was building all along...

Fay Weldon
You have to have Fay Weldon's perspective to enjoy her books.Serious Americans don't seem to have it much.
This book may not be as great as a lot of her others and it's even hard
going at times, but if you're into Fay Weldon like most women, you'll appreciate it - especially the ending which is what it's all about.
It just took too long to get there!

Stupidest ending I've ever read
I agree with the above reviewer in that finishing this book actually made me really angry.I've never been compelled to write a review on amazon before, but this was the most ridiculous ending I've ever encountered.Without giving it away, it completely negated the preceding 275 pages of character development for one of the main characters.I can't imagine it passing muster in a freshman English writing course, much less a publishing house.I found the grandmother's narration irritatingly self-riteous throughout the novel as well.The only thing that kept me reading was the engaging storyline between Hattie, Martin, and the au pair, but the ending blew that for me.The politics behind it are questionable as well: the tired old villification of the working mother, the sexually available au pair, the husband who just can't help himself, etc.Oh, I could go on but I won't.Just take my advice and don't waste your time on this ridiculous book. ... Read more

Product Description
This latest offering from critically acclaimed author Fay Weldon is a darkly comic romp through the minefields of friendship and feminism. On a balmy evening in 1971, five women meet in a cramped living room in the suburbs of London. Tired of their husbands and their own unsatisfying lives, they form the aptly named Medusa, a book publishing house founded on the principle of "getting even." With wry and savvy humor, Weldon weaves us through twenty years of these women's lives, as good intentions fall by the wayside and the hazards of their new politics, sex, and infidelity take their toll.Amazon.com Review
Now, from the writer who made grisly comic fodder of an ugly woman'srevenge in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil comes thefirst novel to take the long, and caustic, view of the feminist orthodoxiesof the last 30 years and the women who embraced, disseminated, and weresometimes disappointed by them. Deftly managing the biggest cast she's yetconjured, Fay Weldon recounts the 1971 founding of distaff Medusa Press by agoofily believable gaggle of British feminists--Stephanie, the beautifulone; Alice, the philosopher; Layla, the ambitious; Nancy the organized, whobecomes Medusa's office manager; blonde Daffy, of the breeder urges; Zoe,the wife and mother who writes a feminist classic and commits suicide, thenovel's sole victim of patriarchal oppression. Everyone else, male andfemale alike, is more the casualty of ideas at odds with desires and theinexorable ironies of trickster time. A lot of the comedy is deadpan, funnybecause it's true--who but Weldon would risk admitting that the venerablefeminist sayingA woman without a man is like a fish without abicycleis a head-scratchingly opaque bit of sloganeering?

One of the great strengths, and charms, of Big Girls Don't Cry isthat the heroines of the 1970s become the middle-aged mothers of the late1990s; in most feminist fiction babies are burdens or betrayals, but notreal people: here as in life, they are ascendant, products of theirupbringing, characters to be reckoned with. Weldon's twentysomethings are aslovingly and astringently drawn as her fiftysomethings, and have as much tocontribute to the clever plot. If you ever want to found a mother-daughterbook club, consider making this your first selection. --Joyce Thompson ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Big girls can do whatever. . .
She's done it again. In her succinct, dry way, Fay Weldon has succeeded in capturing the hopes, dreams, crushing defeats, and stunning recoveries that mark, bruise, and reshape the women of today. Her "Big Girls" arereally a small group, every member flawed of course. She shows themtripping falling, fighting, succeeding. The problem is simple. These womendecided it was easier to change the world than to change themselves. Ofcourse, they do change, and the world is all the better for them havingdone so. Weldon's characters give us all a short, succinct course infeminist history, as they rise from humble beginnings (naked dancing in aliving room for all to see) to forces to be reckoned with in publishingcircles. They change the world. They change themselves. They change thereader. Weldon's wit is superb. She can say more in a few simple sentencesthan many writers can in several paragraphs (myself included).

Godawful wretched piece of tripe
Fay Weldon's been funny before; let us hope she will again, 'cause she sure struck out this time. This thing is so utterly meanspirited that it had me wanting to kick men and smack women. Had I not been trapped on across-country flight with nothing else to read, I wouldn't have endured it.As it was, I wished I was able to open the window; I would have chucked it.

Vintage Weldon: Mother Goose with an acid tongue.
You would think that after having written so many novels, and all about the same subject -- love and it's many complexities -- that Weldon would slip into formula writing.And I am still waiting for this to happen.AWeldon fan for more than 10 years, I have yet to be disappointed. How manytimes can one person write about lovers who cheat on each other (I haven'tread a single Weldon novel that didn't involve multiple shades of adultery)and still keep it fresh?Obviously many.I've always considered Weldonmore of a "womanist" than a feminist, and she uses thisopportunity to trash the feminist movement of the 70s. Her satire isdeliciously biting as she examines everyone's disparate perspectives.Youdon't know whom to sympathize with on what page because you can be surethat whomever you respected at the opening of the novel you will surelydespise somewhere along the way, and vice versa. I eagerly await each newWeldon novel knowing that I am in for a wild ride.I had the opportunityto hear her read many years ago from her (then) new novel Darcy's Utopiaand have never read her novels the same way since.She's like a crossbetween Mother Goose and Lizzie Borden. I would highly recommend thisnovel (or any other Weldon novel) to anyone who enjoys to laugh out loud,both at the characters and at him/herself.And there is just no way to beoffended because she offends everyone at some point. On a down side Iwill say that her ending was a bit predictable, which is surprising for anauthor who usually can turn the formulaics of life into somethingspontaneous and exciting to witness. ... Read more

Product Description
A novel of urban deceit and rural passion, of doctors, witches, birth and death.'Many people dream of country cottages. Liffey dreamed for many years, and saw her dream come true one hot Sunday afternoon, in Somerset, in September! A trap closed around her. The getting of the country cottage, not the wanting -- that was the trap.'Richard and Liffey, a young married couple, follow their dream of moving out of London to a country cottage in the middle of Somerset. Richard continues to live and work in London, coming to stay with Liffey only on weekends.Pregnant Liffey feels burdened, hampered, at the mercy of these biological impulses beyond her control.Then there are the odd neighbours, the Tuckers, to reckon with, and the looming shadow of Bella, Richard's lover in London, threatening the rural idyll Liffey had for so long imagined.With wit and wisdom, Fay Weldon paints a funny and shocking picture of the conflicts within these seemingly conventional lives, conflicts which seem inevitably to stem from the eternal struggle between male and female. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Hidden gem
I don't understand why nobody has written a review for this one yet. I read it years ago and still feel it's one of Weldon's best novels. It's a must for every pregnant women - as the hilarious story centers around a pregnancy. And it's certainly equally important for every woman considering this step! Containing about as many chapters as a pregnancy has weeks, the novel is simultaneously funny, fast-paced, quirky and oh so true. Weldon's prose was never more hard-hitting, albeit the fairy-tale-like setting.
Give it a try, you'll like it.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Great Christmas Gift for Women Friends.
Funny. True.

Years ago my Mom explained behavior coming down to basic biology. At 46 I really understand that she was correct. Fay Weldon is so funny and so true in this book. Sometimes our behavior is dictated by nature, sometimes by nurture.

Plan to give this book as a Christmas present to my best women friends.

Random & sometimes unintelligible
this book had an interesting premise and I did finish it, but often I found myself hating the book and truly questioning the brain function of the author.Some of the major disconnects could have been societal as the author is English and I am American.If so,it did not translate.

May be good for her love story fans
As there is no table of content here on Amazon, I would like to take the priviledge to type one for you here.

Part One: Sources of Happiness
Sex
Food
Friends
Family
Shopping
Chocolate

Part Two: Saints and Sinners
Death: The Gates of Paradise
Bereavement: Unseating the Second Horseman
Loneliness: Unseating the Third Horseman
Sahme: Unseating the Fourth Horseman
Something Here Inside

First of all, I must confess that I picked and read the book in order to learn how to woo girls. Pardon my disappointment of finding it more a collection of advice from a learned and mature female love fiction author for female than a tool book for men. Even worse, as a lover of self help books and love stories (yes, I do read a lot of love stories, and of course, to woo girls), I like none of her writing style, self help advice nor stories adopted to illustrate her opinion. I am afraid that only her fans are receptive to it. In short, not recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Mantrapped is a dazzling new work that continues Fay Weldon’s critically acclaimed memoir, Auto da Fay, and tells the story of a woman down on her luck. Trisha is forty-four and at the end of her rope: creditors are coming and boyfriends have long left. Then, one day, on the stairs above her local dry cleaner, she bumps into the dashing Peter Watson, an editor for the local newspaper. After brushing past each other, they mysteriously and instantly swap souls. Peter looks down to see himself housed in Trisha’s much curvier form, and Trisha discovers she’s newly equipped with hairy legs and a six-pack. Mixing humor, imagination and insight, Mantrapped proves that Weldon is still the best at writing about the sexes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Actually an audio book
This was my first Fay Weldon novel.I loved it and will read more of her work as soon as possible.I was confused by the poor reviews it got but then I realized that the reviews are of the WRITTEN work; I had LISTENED to the audio CD.The autobiography portions are read by Fay Weldon herself, sharply contrasting the fictional portions read by Rula Lenska.This is a book that needs such clear distinctions.
Fay, it seems, is a comedy genius with regards to gender.My only complaint is the abruptness of the fictional ending.It strikes like an artillery shell and leaves her characters (and readers) crawling out of the dust, looking around, wondering what just happened.In my opinion it "unwrites" everything that came before, making the previous philosophical discussions about gender seem trivial.Hmmm..now that I think about it, perhaps it is a good ending after all.

too much work
I know of Fay Weldon, I figured this would be a "good read" -- and I was hoping for something better from her than the usual "chick-lit" clogging the shelves these days. I found myself skipping 5-10 pages at a time, not particularly caring what happened, until I finally decided to do something better with my time.

This book seemed to follow the idea of: "Tell them what you're GOING to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you just TOLD them."I felt I was reading the same thing, told 2-4-5-8 different times, and even skipping 10-15 pages, didn't seem to move the story... was there a story? Or was it just "ramblings from the writer's studio?"

If you've noticed how much Weldon has produced in her career, perhaps anything she churns out now is just deemed a "good literary work" simply based on her past performance.

If I have to "work" to get through a story, at least let me learn something, or experience something-- don't force me to try to make sense of what amounts to nothing more than meaningless gibberish, and call that "literature."

Walled Books.
As an avid reader, it's a rare thing for me to put down a book before I've read it right through to the end. I've always soldiered on with the hopes that even a less-than-riviting read might get better as it goes. Not only did I put this book down, I very nearly heaved it at the nearest wall. (Hence, "walled books".)

I did make it nearly half-way through Mantrapped before I surrendered. The constant switches back and forth between the story of Trisha and the autobiographical bits were, I felt, not delineated clearly enough. Often I could not decipher whether I was reading about Fay or Trisha. Even something as simple as a change in type-face might have been helpful. As the author mentions having been told before,I found there WERE too many characters introduced in rapid succession and, frankly, the little 'cast' lists and introductions of a new character by putting the name in bold face did not help me much.

Having never read a novel by Fay Weldon before (nor heard of her at all, frankly), I wasn't particularly interested in reading her autobiography. I admit I only read a little bit of the description on the dust jacket before thinking "Sure, this looks like a fun little read!" and picking it up. Had I read more of the description, the promise of some insight and glimpses into the life of the author still might have intrigued me enough for a read. Unfortunately I felt the end product was poorly executed. Perhaps if I'd heard of Fay Weldon before and was familliar with her other novels and her work in TV I might have been more interested in reading about them, but instead the frequent name dropping and listed writing credits were more of an annoyance.

In summary, although I'm sure I've made it fairly clear, I did not like this book. At all. But, fans of Fay Weldon may well enjoy it, I suppose.

Fay Weldon's latest novel is worth the journey
Fans of Fay Weldon will find MANTRAPPED gratifying. Others may find it trying. Half novel, half extension of her autobiography Auto da Fay, this book's typically atypical main plot concerns a soul switch in London between a down-on-her-luck, past-her-prime woman named Trisha and a vigorous, modern young man named Peter. Weldon alternates the tale of this unprecedented metaphysical event with digressions about her own past. "Novels alone are not enough. Self-revelation is required. Readers these days demand to know the credentials of their writers, and so they should."

Whether one considers skipping between novel and autobiography annoying will probably depend on how one likes Weldon's philosophical asides. Weldon has been writing --- ad copy, plays and novels --- for fifty years, and her observations about the changes in her profession are trenchant indeed. "It is not better and it is not worse: it is just different," she claims. But underneath her air of cynical resignation, one senses a nostalgia for the past, when men were Men (unapologetically inexplicable) and the vagaries of the human spirit were not so clinically explored. "Since Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in public, what is there left to be exposed?"

To return to the story of Peter and Trisha and the soul-switch, the mechanics of it are never quite explained. Peter lives with Doralee, an efficient, smart young magazine writer who secretly drinks tap water to decrease the likelihood of getting pregnant. It all starts when Doralee upends a vase on her bed, necessitating the cleaning of her mattress cover. "There was no time in her life for the agents of misrule; for accidents or inefficiencies, or cheap vases with not sufficient weighting at the base." Doralee sends the cover off to Mrs. Kovac's cleaners, along with a little black dress. But the buttons melt in the cleaning process. Mrs. Kovac sends it upstairs to Trisha, who has squandered a lottery fortune, and mends in exchange for a rent break. Doralee demands good service, and when her little black dress is late due to the melted mattress cover buttons, she sends the tractable Peter to pick it up. At the cleaning shop, Peter goes upstairs to fetch the mattress cover while Trisha is coming down, fuming at Mrs. Kovac's various presumptions. They pass on the stairs, and voila --- Trisha inhabits Peter's body, and Peter discovers himself stuck in Trisha's.

Weldon is a master of cosmic and comical sexual shenanigans. Despite the inherent difficulty in specifying which character is doing, thinking or saying what, she makes the most of the situation. (She finally resorts to using "the Peter body" and "the Trisha body.") After getting thoroughly drunk and trashing the cleaning shop, the two misfits return to Doralee, who naturally enough wants the real Peter back, but who nevertheless is not above making notes for a book about the subject that could make her career. She drags the childish pair from psychotherapist to priest, to no avail. Will the Peter body and the Trisha body have sex with each other, or with Doralee? How can they reverse a process they never asked for or understood in the first place?

I can't say I liked these characters, but liking the characters is never the point in a Fay Weldon novel. You come for the delicious, arch insights, the deadpan revelations, the quixotic observations of the things that nobody used to talk about. Now that orgasms are faked in public, the titillation of Weldon's prose may have lost some of its effect. But for this reader, it was still worth the journey.

--- Reviewed by Eileen Zimmerman Nicol ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

A Very Interesting Glimpse into Austen: The Writer and The Person
This book is almost identical to the original but it has an introduction by Fay Weldon. It is a collection of short stories, drama, humor, and other works written by Jane Austen at least a decade before her major novels. It is a series of letters and other works that Austen wrote, and they show a free spirited Austen, quite unlike her formula books that came later. As a read this is not what one would call great literature, but it is worthwhile to see a young Jane Austen writing without constraints, and writing as a young woman years before her fame.

As background information, I have read all of Austen's novels and I have read various analyses of Austen's work. Jane Austen's formula for success was to write a novel about of a financially disadvantaged young woman who meets and marries a wealthier man. The exception is her novel "Emma" where the protagonist has her own means. There are no axe murderers in an Austen novel or any nasty elements. Her stories take place in small English towns and they all have a variety of characters including a few willful women and usually one male rogue.

"Pride and Prejudice" is Jane Austen's finest novel. That book is the perfect balance of story, prose, structure, and interesting characters. It evokes many emotional responses in the reader. That novel is among the greatest novels of all time on par with for example Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" or Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." From a strictly literary point of view, "Mansfield Park" is the most complicated and sophisticated literary work penned by Austen. Many like "Emma" as well.

The present work pre-dates her success and one can view it as her practicing her craft or simply developing as a writer. She will surprise most with the amount of humor that she manages to inject into the stories. The stories are short, some less than a page. Also, she has written bits of drama and humorous pieces which are included. I liked her brief humorous descriptions of the various kings and queens of England.

Most Austen fans will think the pieces to be very interesting but short. In any case, we see a completely different Austen here, and she writes with few self imposed limits. It is nothing like her later writings which tend to follow a formula.

As a note, the text is available free on line at the Gutenberg Project, and since it is so short it can be easily down-loaded.

Invaluable Glimpse
This edition of Love and Friendship includes the short epistolary novella bearing the same name, another short epistolary novella called Three Sisters, and five short stories written in letter form called A Collection of Letters.Jane Austen has been criticized for her lack of imagination, epsecially by her contemporaries.This is not so in her early work!This volume, written in her teens, indicates quite a healthy imagination.The plot of Love and Friendship is ridiculously silly and the heroine less than honorable, but Jane Austen's intelligence and wry sense of humor are more than apparent.Also, readers familiar with Jane Austen's more famous works will recognize the genesis of many characters and ideas in this volume that are fleshed out more fully in her later works.The mother, over-eager to marry off her daughters, in Three Sisters bears a strong resemblance to Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.There is also a precursor to the hypocritical Lady Catherine de Bourgh in "Letter the Third" in A Collection of Letters.Love and Frienship is an invaluable glimpse into the child mind of one of the most cherished authors in literature.

Love and Friendship Review
I found the style in which Jane Austen writes very entertaining and captivating. The use of letters to describe all the events in the novel that the main character Laura experiences or hears from her friends Marianne and Isabel. This novel is increadible especially because Jane Austen wrote it at the age of 14, when weighing it against her other sucessful novels, this is not her best piece. I recommend it to any reader who is willing to appreciate the language over the substance. ... Read more

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A spiky, feisty, hilarious collection of stories that expose women's clumsy, often doomed, attempts to negotiate a smooth path through life.Abandoned wives remain as lingering presences in the homes of their ex-husband's new girlfriends; beautiful young models find their misdemeanours exposed for all the world to see in the tabloids; middle-aged women get swept off their feet and into the criminal underworld by charismatic con-men; young trophy wives get thrown in jail after over-exuberant cavorting on their private yachts; mothers beg their thirty something career-minded daughters to freeze their eggs in the hope that they may one day bear their grandchildren.Bold, glamorous, sexy, unrepentant, Fay Weldon's heroines offer a quite unique view of the world as they face their trials without fear or trepidation. Both her legions of existing fans and new readers will be enthralled. ... Read more