Reviews for Faith Fox

The average rating for Faith Fox based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-02-24 00:00:00 Yuhong Liu Faith Fox is best described as a comedy of manners, and how is that defined? A comedy of manners is a form of comedy that satirizes the manners and affectations of contemporary society. It questions societal standards. Plot, which here centers on the reverberations of a shocking event, the death of a mother, is sacrificed to witty dialogue and sharp social commentary. So, plot is downplayed while witty dialogue abounds in this novel. The ironic humor employed is not nasty. Readers are implored to laugh at themselves. The British north / south divide, religion, the foibles of the elderly and our contemporary rat race pace of life along with our need to fulfill a thousand and one obligations simultaneously are targeted. Beneath the witticism we observe individuals struggling to come to grips with the death of a loved one. Holly, the mother of Faith Fox has died in childbirth. The question is not only who will take care of her but how to deal with the loss of her mother. The young and the old are equally well captured by Gardam. In this book it is the elderly that over and over again had me nodding. I recognized both myself and my husband and how it feels to be "not so young" anymore. There are a number of elderly couples depicted in this novel. Surely you will recognize yourself or someone you know in one of them. I will mention but one couple, Dolly and Toots, the parents of Andrew and Jack. Jack is a parish priest. Andrew is a doctor and it is his wife who has died. Toots' words are consistently negative but expressed in an ever so realistic and funny way. This is not to say that the eleven-year-old Philip's character is off; no, his lines are splendidly drawn too. It is the words, it is what the characters say that is consistently pitch perfect and funny. The setting is Surrey and Yorkshire, Britain, in the 1990s. Do remember that I spoke of the north / south divide. In the south live the posh and up-to-date. In the north live the simple, the plain, the ordinary folk. We hear what each thinks of the other. The characters are many, but somehow Gardam introduces each one in such a manner that who each one is sticks. They are all delightfully different. There are neither evil characters nor goody-two-shoes; they are all fumbling, making mistakes to be sure, but their intentions are good or they quite simply are not able to resist life's temptations. The ending? Well it is cute, but I like it. The audiobook narration I dislike, so I am giving it one star. Piers Gibbon overdramatizes and pushes the humor into slapstick. He also reads too fast. In books that have many characters one needs time to stop and think what it signifies when this person says that. A listener needs a few seconds to consider family ties. The women do not sound as women, not in the least. I believe there is another narrator available. Try that person instead. There are episodes which are reasonably well performed, but I personally do not prefer fast nor dramatized narrations. The reason why I enjoyed this as much as I did was because it kept me laughing. The lines are witty and clever. Jane Gardam's books in order of preference: Bilgewater (4 stars) Faith Fox (4 stars) Crusoe's Daughter (4 stars) Old Filth (4 stars) The Man in the Wooden Hat (4 stars) God on the Rocks (3 stars) The Queen of the Tambourine (3 stars) A Long Way from Verona (3 stars)

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-22 00:00:00 Rick Allen Faith Fox's mother dies in childbirth. Her father doesn't know what to do with her so he takes her to his brother's Christian commune in Yorkshire - Cold Comfort Farm without the woodshed. On one level, this is a typical English farce that made me laugh out loud many times. On another, it's a darker novel about people reaching crossroads in their lives and having to make decisions about who they really are and what they really want. In this respect, it's often quite moving. Jane Gardam is one of my favourite authors. Some of her novels are keepers that I'll read again. Faith Fox isn't in this category but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same.