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A review by katykelly
Augustus Carp, Esq. by Henry Howarth Bashford
5.0
Ignatius Reilly and Charles Pooter together...
I hadn't heard of this book until by chance, very recently. Written less than a hundred years ago, I thought of both 'Diary of a Nobody' and 'A Confederacy of Dunces' while reading it, and thoroughly enjoyed the life story of a rather unlikeable, snooty man portrayed.
From childhood to manhood, Augustus Carp is grovelling, self-satisfied and someone you wouldn't really want to spend any time with at all. Outside of the book, of course.
It's a rather funny tome, the author's descriptions of misadventures, medical problems, and Carp's successes and failures all so trivial and minor, but to him so important.
I loved it, I felt so sorry for Augustus's poor walked-over mother, SO wanted to see his equally pompous father brought down low, and wanted to see if Augustus ever got taken down a peg or two.
Very amusing little volume about a middle-class life in a middle-class setting, a quietly comic minor classic. I liked the sketches included as well, by a woman no less, who was thought to be a man, included in a book whose author himself was unknown.
Much easier to read than you might expect, the old-fashioned chapter headings (with a summary of the points of the chapter ahead) through to the Grossmith language and ridiculous situations are thoroughly enjoyable, even to a modern audience, I would hope.
I hadn't heard of this book until by chance, very recently. Written less than a hundred years ago, I thought of both 'Diary of a Nobody' and 'A Confederacy of Dunces' while reading it, and thoroughly enjoyed the life story of a rather unlikeable, snooty man portrayed.
From childhood to manhood, Augustus Carp is grovelling, self-satisfied and someone you wouldn't really want to spend any time with at all. Outside of the book, of course.
It's a rather funny tome, the author's descriptions of misadventures, medical problems, and Carp's successes and failures all so trivial and minor, but to him so important.
I loved it, I felt so sorry for Augustus's poor walked-over mother, SO wanted to see his equally pompous father brought down low, and wanted to see if Augustus ever got taken down a peg or two.
Very amusing little volume about a middle-class life in a middle-class setting, a quietly comic minor classic. I liked the sketches included as well, by a woman no less, who was thought to be a man, included in a book whose author himself was unknown.
Much easier to read than you might expect, the old-fashioned chapter headings (with a summary of the points of the chapter ahead) through to the Grossmith language and ridiculous situations are thoroughly enjoyable, even to a modern audience, I would hope.