Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Book 37

After reading three non-fiction books, I decided to try a novel.  Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson tells the story of retired and widowed Major Pettigrew, who lives in a small seaside village in England and who finds himself falling for Mrs. Ali, the lovely, intelligent and free spirited Pakistani widow who runs the local village shop.

There are all kinds of complications;  Major Pettigrew's family, his little circle of friends at the golf club and the cultural differences between Major Pettigrew's very British outlook on life and Mrs. Ali's traditional Muslim family.

I saw in a review that Simonson's writing was compared to Jane Austen's.  This is a bit of a stretch.   I guess people think that any quiet romantic novel set in England is Austenesque?  This book reminded me a bit of Barbara Pym, though I haven't read any of her novels for at least a couple of decades.  But anyway, I enjoyed this book greatly.  I liked the Major very much.  He is a throw back to a genteel, noble, principled worldview and he's at odds with his materialistic, socially grasping son, his narrow-minded compatriots at the golf club and even his own selfish, less than noble character flaws.  He is wonderfully drawn.  Unfortunately, the other characters are not so well crafted.  Unlike Austen, who was pretty good at defining characters, I never really got a good hold on a lot of the other characters and what made them tick.  I was especially frustrated with Mrs. Ali, who just didn't quite work for me.  I found the character of the son frustrating as well.  I kept waiting for something cathartic to happen to make him more likable and less wimpy, or at least give me a clue into why he turned out so badly, but even though things kept happening, you never get the sense that he ever grew up in any way.

I read most of the novel really quickly, highly enjoying the Major's character and wit.  There are some very funny lines in the book. But at the very end, just when the climax of the book should be so satisfying, I found it too contrived.  It rankled me and I wound up putting it aside for a couple of days before I finished it out of a sense of duty.

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