Rating: 4/5
Review:
An amusing read
I thought that The Papers Of A.J. Wentworth BA was gently amusing,
but the cover quote of “One of the funniest books ever,” from the
Sunday Express is stretching it a bit.
Wentworth is a
hapless, inept and hopelessly unaware schoolmaster in a small boys’
boarding school in 1938. Mainly told in the first person by
Wentworth himself, we get accounts of various “mishaps” as the
boys amuse themselves at his expense, while Wentworth pompously tries
to preserve his dignity, oblivious of the fact that the rest of the
world is laughing at him. It is very neatly done and cleverly
written, so that I recognised some traits of teachers I have known
and the attitudes of the boys.
For me this a brief,
lightly amusing read rather than laugh-out-loud funny, but there is
actually some rather acute character observation underpinning it.
Not a classic, then, but certainly worth a read.
(My thanks to
Prelude Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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