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grubstlodger's review against another edition
4.0
‘The Golden Child’ was Penelope Fitzgerald’s first book and is unlike all her others. For a start, it has an ending. This is not a spare evocation of time, place and character like her other novels but more a full-throttled comic mystery.
It might be the longest of her novels, weighing in at a whopping two hundred pages, apparently it used to be longer with more sub-plots and characters but her editor advised her to trim it down. As such, it reminds me most of Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen mysteries. Fitzgerald originally planned to write other mysteries with the Dr Untermensch character but put them away to write ‘The Bookshop’ instead, and I’m glad she did because as fun as this is, that book was unique and wonderful, as well as many of her subsequent works.
The plot surrounds an un-named but obvious British Museum as it launches an exhibition about the Golden Child, funeral offerings created for the child ruler of a mysterious African country called Garamantia (ruler: Crown Princes Rasselas). It’s a thinly veiled pastiche of the Tutankhamun craze from a few years earlier, complete with roguish but now ageing discoverer and curse. We learn about what the Golden Child is by reading bits of primary school essays on the subject.
The book is especially good at setting the atmosphere of the museum, bracing itself for the influx of visitors like a ship bracing for a particularly large wave. It describes the people crammed in lines to see something they have been brainwashed into thinking important and how the act of queuing and going to see the exhibition is probably more important to them than the exhibition itself. This later become’s a key part of the antagonist’s motivation.
The mystery was well plotted, mysterious as it happened but plain, simple and clear after it had been explained with lots of little clues and incidental details that added to the whole, Fitzgerald could probably have made a living with literate mysteries if she wanted.
As such, this is a very entertaining and funny mystery with a lot of great details, funny lines and exaggerated characters and although I can’t think of much to say about it, I enjoyed it very much.
It might be the longest of her novels, weighing in at a whopping two hundred pages, apparently it used to be longer with more sub-plots and characters but her editor advised her to trim it down. As such, it reminds me most of Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen mysteries. Fitzgerald originally planned to write other mysteries with the Dr Untermensch character but put them away to write ‘The Bookshop’ instead, and I’m glad she did because as fun as this is, that book was unique and wonderful, as well as many of her subsequent works.
The plot surrounds an un-named but obvious British Museum as it launches an exhibition about the Golden Child, funeral offerings created for the child ruler of a mysterious African country called Garamantia (ruler: Crown Princes Rasselas). It’s a thinly veiled pastiche of the Tutankhamun craze from a few years earlier, complete with roguish but now ageing discoverer and curse. We learn about what the Golden Child is by reading bits of primary school essays on the subject.
The book is especially good at setting the atmosphere of the museum, bracing itself for the influx of visitors like a ship bracing for a particularly large wave. It describes the people crammed in lines to see something they have been brainwashed into thinking important and how the act of queuing and going to see the exhibition is probably more important to them than the exhibition itself. This later become’s a key part of the antagonist’s motivation.
The mystery was well plotted, mysterious as it happened but plain, simple and clear after it had been explained with lots of little clues and incidental details that added to the whole, Fitzgerald could probably have made a living with literate mysteries if she wanted.
As such, this is a very entertaining and funny mystery with a lot of great details, funny lines and exaggerated characters and although I can’t think of much to say about it, I enjoyed it very much.
carlyque's review against another edition
3.0
Wanted to like...was sweetly British, and enjoyed, but mildly.
gh7's review against another edition
1.0
It's always interesting to read a writer's first novel. Usually all the themes and some of the characters of future books are clumsily present in embryo form. And it's not the case to have great expectations. But I've never read a novel by an esteemed author with less artistry than this. It's like she wrote it in a month for either a joke or money. It's a pastiche of the murder mystery genre. To begin with it seems like it might be entertaining. An exhibition of ancient world tomb artefacts with a supposed curse attached is held at a London museum (a thinly disguised British Museum). But the longer it goes on the more offensively slapstick and daft it becomes. There are entire pages where she overlooks any thought of artistry and just rambles on, clearly finding her joke much funnier than it is. I rarely give any novel one star but because lots of people haven't read Penelope Fitzgerald I feel duty bound to warn them off this one.
bookeboy's review against another edition
3.0
The Golden Child was Booker winner Penelope Fitzgerald's first novel, written in her late fifties to entertain her dying husband. So the story goes. It is a comedy according to the praise on the cover, but don't come looking for laughs. I found it rather tedious and only finished it due to some strange unexplainable desire for closure. Something in the way it was written reminded me of Russell Hoban's Kleinzeit, but sadly not enough to lift it out of the doldrums. First novels often give away secrets authors later learn to hide. But not this one. It was tight lipped. I liked The Bookshop and will read more from Penelope Fitzgerald. I definitely like the sound of Offshore but this one wasn't for me.
queenfilo's review
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
aemsea26's review
4.0
This was strange but lovely. It begins as a comedy of manners amongst the erudite staff at a British museum and turns into a madcap journey through Russia / possible espionage / more museum and art world intrigue (and possible murder). Sort of like Commencement, except the twist and storyline shifts were hilarious instead of terrible.