Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

Wilson's second novel brings together a large, complicated cast of multiply-interconnected characters (so complicated that he apparently felt it necessary to include a dramatis personae before Chapter One), with at their centre the middle-aged, middlingly successful, medievalist, Professor Gerald Middleton.

Forty years ago, on the eve of the Great War, Middleton's teacher, the late Professor Stokesay, had made a sensational find in the Suffolk tomb of an Anglo-Saxon bishop. Once seen as an isolated freak, new archaeological work on Heligoland (!) is now starting to persuade scholars that Stokesay's discovery might be part of a significant pattern. Middleton has reason to suspect that the pagan idol found in the bishop's tomb was planted show more there as a twisted practical joke by Stokesay's son, since killed in the war, but has never felt it appropriate to cause trouble by saying anything. Should he do so now?

At the same time, Middleton finds himself in possession of various confidences relating to his own family, with similar dilemmas attached to them...

A darkly-funny, morally-complex tale, with no real daylight at the end of it, but a lot of entertaining little jabs at the scholarly world and its eccentricities, and insights into 1950s English (bourgeois) society. Plenty of gay characters, but they are still mostly pushed into obscure corners of the plot and their lives are made to seem furtive and shady to the remaining characters: this isn't the brave new world of Mrs Eliot. Not quite yet, anyway. show less

A comedy of manners that examines what it means to be English, though summing it up in a line is as satisfying as saying Cabaret is a musical.

The action revolves around the early 20th century excavation of a 7th century English bishop's grave and a pagan male fertility idol found in it. The protagonist, Professor Middleton, believes that its inclusion may be a hoax but for years has said nothing about it. The historical device nicely illustrates the different epochs that have gone before in the UK, and gives Wilson a pallet to sketch several different types of Englishmen found he identified in the 1950s. While each character is very different, Wilson deftly narrates the precedents that have gone into creating their very English show more attitudes.

What happens in the novel is funny, mordant, sad, ghastly, and ultimately encouraging. I’ll leave it to you to get the details for yourself.

One item that really interested me about the book was the idea that the present is the culmination of the past but always seems so removed from it, and that the leaders of each age consider their own to be the most advanced and enlightened, regardless of how badly that age might be viewed at any other time. show less

Angus Wilson is brave. He also wrote this hilariously cynical book involving a wealthy family and its many branches and connections, all of them involved in lies.

Wonderful complexity and richness of character. To sum up in a phrase: archeological excavation uncovers adultery. The dig serves as a background for all the whacky escapades and [I suppose] must provide some kind of metaphor. Mix the pagan phallic effigies in with that unreliable central character - it is an unpretentious yet thrilling Wilson (at his best).

2392 Anglo-Saxon Attitudes a novel by Angus Wilson (read 25 Jun 1991) I noticed Angus Wilson died recently and in his obituary he was described as one of the five great post-World War II novelists--the others: Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing and ____. Since I had read something by all of the others I thought I should read something by him. This book reminded me of Point Counter-Point, by Aldous Huxley and read by me in 1950 and chosen by me as the best book read in 1950 (I only read 14 books that year). Anyway, I found this book absorbing. It tells of Gerald Middleton, a medieval history professor, and his involvement with his awful wife and three kids--all terrible people--and an excavation of a seventh century (fictional) show more bishop's--Eorpwald--tomb, where an idol had been put in the casket by Gilbert Stokesay. There are a lot of side stories, and towards the end the plot becomes ridiculous, and the people more so. But except for his adulterous period Gerald Middleton--64 at the time of the novel--is a fairly interesting person. But on balance the book is over-written and seeks to over-sensationalize and is not really very credible. But I might read more of Angus Wilson. [So far, I have not.] show less

An awfully good book, held back to 4 stars because I wasn't emotionally engaged (when compared to the somewhat similar John Irving, Charles Dickens, or Robertson Davies--it's that kind of book). A very large cast (dauntingly large at first, but eventually you work out that everyone knows everyone else, and what those relationships are, and the book narrows its focus to a particular person/family and you realise who are the leads and who are the supports).

Not as funny as I was expecting--really, not funny at all, or at least not in the way where I would tell others "it's so funny!" because it's not. It's a slightly satiric soap-opera. I was particularly surprised by the openness with which characters' homosexuality, adultery, etc., was show more dealt with (I suppose books from the time period aren't necessarily as chaste as the movies/tv from then!) so that's also a mark in its favour. show less

I suspect this one will gain on a second reading--it's hard for me, a late twentieth century, transplanted Australian, to really get the class issues that Wilson is, I'm pretty sure, out to examine. It's funny in places, in a very English/ironic way, and the characters are fantastic. There's not really any story, which I don't mind. And yet somehow it didn't grab me. Partly, I suspect, this is because of the ludicrously long chapters (this goes double for those particularly intellectual authors who refuse to put in any chapter breaks at all, or paragraph breaks, because, like, that would totally restrict the free-ranging wildebeest that is their genius); partly because so much of the book seems so irrelevant until very, very late; show more partly because I was expecting something else.

So obviously I am ambivalent. The introduction by Jane Smiley is much better than the usual NYRB introduction: she suggests that Wilson was trying to write a nineteenth century novel, which makes good sense of what he has done; and she points out, accurately, that many of the class references will fly over readers' heads. show less