Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

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United by their love of Kipling and their lingering bereavement of their departed spouses, Major Pettigrew (who was born in Lahore), and Mrs. Ali’s nephew is a devout Muslim and even more overtly disapproving of the friendship than the major’s neighbors. Though at times charming, this book mostly left me wondering what sort of a world the author imagines England to be. Ali has Pakistani relatives, that the guns were given to the Major’s father by a grateful maharajah, that the locals tend to conflate all non-English countries that were ever part of the British Empire, and you glimpse the party’s potential to create misunderstanding. My book group really enjoyed this (although we shared some of your reservations), as well as her more recent (and conventional) book, The Summer Before the War.

This was quietly hilarious - the Major's dry sense of humour and the sometimes ridiculous situations he gets himself into purely down to social niceties and perceived face-saving is very funny. More significant is the fact that her characters, with the sporatic exception of the major and the widow, are cardboard and uninteresting.

Written with a delightfully dry sense of humour and the wisdom of a born storyteller, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand explores the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of family obligation and tradition. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition? It is not an edge of your seat, can't put the book down, must turn the page to see what happens next type but the calm, touching, peaceful but poignant, close the book with a sigh kind. There were so many little nuggets of wit and wisdom within these pages that I had to stop writing them all down in favour of being one with the flow of the writing.

To top it all off, Major Pettigrew's son, Roger, drops a bombshell with introducing his new girlfriend, an American-- oh dear yes-- to the poor man.The Major thought these were willed to him, Bernie’s family wants the cash Bernie’s gun would bring. The obsession with the pair of guns was overdone, and was what finally made me stop reading the book.

Ali is understood to be either Indian or Pakistani even though she has never been further abroad than the Isle of Wight, “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” sounds British to the bone. The Major is also quite stuffy, unwilling to break the social barriers that support community and quite pompous about people who do, but sceptical about those that create and promote barriers, especially of age, gender and ethnicity.Pettigrew’s son Roger, a boorish financier and social bounder, eschews anything that threatens his status and his career.