Mandoa, Mandoa! (Virago modern classics) (original 1933; edition 1982)

When Maurice Durrant, the youngest member of Prince’s Tours, wins his seat, he sends his profligate brother Bill to Mandoa, a small African state, to attend the wedding of a princess. With him is his old friend Jean Stanbury, who has recently lost her newspaper job. The arrive to a Mandoa where the Lord High Chamberlain, Safi Talal, is a Westernophile who watches American films over and over; believes that the typewriter, rubber bath, and fountain pen are the hallmarks of civilized society; and uses phrases such as “OK, baby.”

I’m usually a huge Winifred Holtby fan, but I really couldn’t get into this book as much as I thought I would. Holtby seemed as though she was out of her element with this book; it’s the only one not set in Yorkshire, and she wasn’t much of a humorist (as much as Evelyn Waugh, to whose book Black Mischief this novel is compared).

Sometimes Mandoa, Mandoa! is funny, but it’s hidden in such a way that you have to read sentences again in order to really get it. Safi Talal, with his obsession with American culture (there’s even a Lord High Culture Promoter in Lolagoba) is probably one of the more interesting characters in the book, because he serves as a link between the natives and Europeans who try to “civilize” them. I enjoyed watching the interplay between the Mandoans and the Europeans, especially reading the list of rules for Mandoans (on pages 216-18). But I felt that a lot of the time the plot of the novel dragged and I couldn’t really get into it. It’s a shame considering that Winifred Holtby truly is one of my favorite authors. ( )

This is a book that is hard to get hold of now, and so although I would have preferred a virago edition of it to read I was glad of the chance to read it via kindle. I really enjoyed this slightly unusual novel. Written in the wake of the general election of 1931, and during the depression, it is an enormously intelligent political satire. Alongside the story of the launch of the new Mandoa is the story of the relationship between Maurice and Bill Durrant - between whom there exists terrible sibling jealousy, and Jean Stanbury friend of the Durrants, who becomes involved with the campaign against the involvement of Prince's tours in Mandoa. In this novel Holtby raises interesting questions about the modern (1930's) world verses a more primitive one. Many characters are amusing stereotypes - and the vast differences of social conventions in Mandoan and European societies are hilariously highlighted. I found this a very readable novel, well written - and although some aspects of the societies described are rather dated now, is interesting still, for what it can tell us about the time it was written. ( )

Not easy to get into, especially after the wind of change has blown through Africa ( )