Rating: 3/5
Review:
Rather a struggle
I have enjoyed much of Jonathan Coe’s previous work and he writes
as well as ever here, but overall I struggled with Middle England.
Having dealt with
wealth, poverty and finance in modern Britain in Number 11, Coe’s
latest state-of-the-nation novel takes us through the politics of the
last eight years from the 2010 General Election to the political
earthquakes in 2016 and beyond. As ever, he writes beautifully and
readably and creates convincing, if slightly exaggerated, characters.
The trouble is that there’s precious little in the way of the wit
and satire which have made his previous books readable and enjoyable.
Also there is such a wealth of detail both in the period settings
and his characters’ lives that I began to get very bogged down and
found myself skimming – something I’ve never done before with a
Jonathan Coe novel.
All this meant that,
although I am in sympathy with Coe’s point of view, I didn’t find
much new insight, satire or enjoyment here and for me it became a
rather dismal litany of all that has been wrong with British politics
(with references to the US as well) in the last decade or so.
Plainly, others have enjoyed Middle England very much but for me,
while it’s certainly not terrible, it was a disappointment.
(My thanks to
Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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