England has always reveled in its drawing-room dramas, from Jane Austen’s social minefields to E.M. Forster’s Howards End to Upstairs, Downstairs — and yes, the blockbuster Downton Abbey. John Lanchester’s brilliant Capital, set on a once-ordinary London block whose housing prices have skyrocketed, has the distinction of being the first brick-and-mortar novel set squarely in our current times.
One last clue: THE BOOK IS CALLED “SWITCH BITCH”
Posted by Lizzie on 12/04/06
Roald Dahl, latter-day Sauron:
At 17 I did not notice the deep vein of misogyny that runs through them; now I can’t miss it… his women, even when sympathetically portrayed, seem a monstrous, alien regiment, their sexuality voracious and threatening. In “Georgy Porgy” the poor hero is menaced first by the “huge red mouth” of his mother and then by the mouth of Miss Roach. Then there’s the “wet mouth” of the “vigorous” Mrs. Bixby in “Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat,” the “big red mouth” of the nearly anonymous mother in “Pig”; and, once more, the “big red mouth” that Vic, the narrator of “The Great Switcheroo,” notes that all the female guests at a party possess.
(A long time ago, we did a roundup on Dirty Dahl–whom we love almost as much as Dirty Leo. You can find it here, if you care.)
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