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The 27th Kingdom is as mystical as it is malicious, a dark, surreal comedy about secrecy and self-deception. Chelsea, circa 1954, has its fair share of chatty bohemians, and Dancing Master House is positively overflowing with them. Its principal inhabitants are Aunt Irene, who fancies herself a "patron of the astonishing" and has a great fondness for horsemeat, and her vile nephew. Kyril is annoyingly handsome and has an entirely bad character. When a beautiful, black, and almost entirely silent postulant arrives for a brief stay, she quietly throws a theological spanner into the works--exposing and yet somehow protecting the two, and several other Londoners, from their worldly problems. Valentine doesn't so much need to test her vocation as to quell her miracle-working tendencies. At least according to the Mother Superior of her Welsh convent, who happens to be Aunt Irene's sister. Can this "vivid and alien" being, however, save Aunt Irene from a showdown with the taxman (who may be someone else entirely)? In the meantime, will Kyril manage to seduce her? And will Focus, the house's pillowy Persian, ever get near the rat that's been taunting him? Pleasingly, this pussycat has more insight than most of Ellis's humans, particularly when it comes to Aunt Irene's human kitten:
He'd morosely witnessed Kyril's numberless conquests, comparing him with the neighbourhood's dominant tom, a scratty looking object who stalked Cheyne Row. Focus had been made a eunuch for the sake of the sweetness of the air in Dancing Master House. He was glad, because it enabled him to take a removed and measured view of affairs--human, feline and, indeed, divine.As she moves among her main characters, and as things go from mad to worse, Ellis constructs a fractured fable of good and evil. Not that she's interested in whacking us over the head. After all, as Aunt Irene's sister puts it: "How the vulgar loved portents, prodigies and the untoward. Only the religious knew how embarrassing they could be--and quite beside the point." This 1982 novel may not be as elegant as some of Ellis's other books. On the other hand, it's hard to resist a knowing, noisy exploration of the perfections of silence and the mysteries of belief. --Kerry Fried --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
From Publishers Weekly
God works in mysterious ways, through an unlikely catalyst in beloved British writer Ellis's witty novel, a fable about the immanence of spiritual blessing in a crass society. Nominated for the Booker when it was published in England in 1982, this is its first appearance here. During the 1950s, Valentine, a beautiful black West Indian woman, is sent from the convent in Wales where she is a postulant, to live temporarily in London with the Mother Superior's sister, Irene Wojtyla, called Aunt Irene by everyone. Though she is quiet and self-contained, Valentine's arrival occasions a series of strange events that unsettle Irene and others in her frowsy bohemian household. Irene is the descendant of Russian ?migr?s who finally came to rest in Britain, their 27th place of exile. She lives with her nephew Kyril, a vain, self-satisfied, intensely dislikable young man; a boarder called "little Mr. Sirocco"; and a clever cat named Focus. Others in the house are the envious daily cleaning lady, Mrs. Mason, the doormat for her viciously alcoholic husband, and a family of amiable Cockney rogues who keep Irene supplied with stolen goods for her house and table, so that she avoids paying taxes. Irene is the outsider and iconoclast through whose eyes Ellis makes droll and sardonic observations about the English: their strange eating habits, social conventions and attitudes toward class and race. Of course, Valentine is the ultimate outsider, and when it seems that she is the source of small miracles, everyone is confounded. Reading Ellis (The Sin Eater) is always a salubrious experienceAone laughs at her whiplash humor while marveling at the ease with which she depicts eccentric but fully recognizable members of society. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
