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136 pages

English

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Satirical and yet compassionate, Childish Things begins with a funeral at which Gregor McLeod, a retired school-master aged 72, is mourning the death of his wife Kate. It soon becomes evident, however, that McLeod has been something of a womaniser and, despite his very recent (and heartfelt) bereavement, is being pursued by an assortment of attractive women. Jenkins proceeds to explore McLeod's adventurous escapades with these ladies both at home and abroad. The result is a tremendously compelling comic novel which retains all the sharpness, wit and pace that is customary from Jenkins, combined with a mellow, wry wisdom that never fails to entertain. His central theme, do we ever outgrow 'childish things'?, is explored with captivating insight and delicious humour. This is a gloriously readable novel from a consummate storyteller.

Informations

Publié par	Canongate Books
Date de parution	13 septembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780857863768
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0360€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

CHILDISH THINGS
ROBIN JENKINS has been hailed as ‘the greatest living fiction-writer in Scotland’ ( The Scotsman , 2000). Born in 1912, his first novel was published in 1951; nearly thirty works of fiction have followed, many of which have been graced with literary awards and remained in print for decades.

"If you love the novel, if you are interested in books that are human and wise, not slick and cynical, then treat yourself this year to some Robin Jenkins . . . he is simply wonderful."
Andrew Marr, The Good Book Guide
"Robin Jenkins is approaching his 90th birthday. He has written more than 25 novels, and his latest [ Childish Things ] is as lively as his first – an astonishing achievement at his age . . . Jenkins happily lampoons racism, religion, avarice and celebrity in America [and] laces his themes of greed and selfishness with plenty of lascivious goings-on. For all the humour, this is also a thoughtful novel, and a wry look at ‘what a mess folk make of their lives’."
The Times, London

"Gregor’s American adventure, in which he finds his doppelgänger in the shape of the aged former movie star, Linda Birkenberger, sets him in a comic world of Californian consumer Calvinism in which the elect are manifested by their astronomical bank balances or their perfectly sculpted busts. Jenkins pokes amiable fun at American absurdities as a means of drawing out Scottish contradictions . . . a spry comedy like Childish Things may seem slight, yet it reaches deep into the Scottish psyche."
Times Literary Supplement
"Beautifully combines sympathy and humour."
Sunday Post

"[There is] wisdom and humanity in this wonderful comic novel . . . Jenkins is impeccably insightful, and the comedy deliciously black."
The Scotsman
"Robin Jenkins debunks the theory that old people don’t have fun, let alone sex, and humanises the ageing process. McLeod is a charming old duffer who is skilled at three things – women, golf and lies. When he meets a rich but vulgar American actress . . . he comes face-to-face with his own faults, failings and lies . . . Childish Things is a witty, ironic, intelligent and charming novel."
Punch

"Jenkins is still funny, still readable, and his portrayal of old age . . . is warm, funny and perceptive."
Big Issue
"This subtle novel addresses the issues – sex, money, religion, power – that do not change as generations come and go. But it is also a gentle satire on America and Scotland, old age and youth, Calvinism and consumerism. Jenkins’s prose still shines."
The Times

"This book is a perfect example of my belief that there are some wonderful novels out there . . . This is a lovely book, I owe my recommendee many many pints."
The Crack
"Like all the great masters, his skill is lightly worn, his sentences singing with what he does not say . . . in his 90th year, [he is] the great old man of Scottish letters."
The Times

"Written by the light of sunset, this is a novel that illuminates more broadly and with more penetration than a hundred works hacked out under a more youthful glare. Robin Jenkins deals effectively with issues of class, inequality, the bourgeois socialism of the Scottish nation and the psychological origins of the misuse of untrammelled power that lie behind the Yankee empire. He does this by deploying the novelist’s traditional crafts of fine characterisation, delicate observation, a raucous sense of satire and an awareness of present-day political and social realities that will shame many a younger writer."
Scotland on Sunday
"Jenkins looks at poor, inadequate humanity with compassion. He is a satirist with a heart . . . We are lucky to have a novelist of such balance, wisdom, humanity and wit. He is a national asset."
Sunday Herald

First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Canongate Books Ltd. This edition published in 2002.
This digital edition first published by Canongate in 2011
Copyright © Robin Jenkins 2001
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 1 84195 228 1 eISBN 9780857863768
www.canongate.tv
In memory of my mother
By the Same Author

So Gaily Sings the Lark (Glasgow, Maclellan, 1951)
Happy for the Child (London, Lehmann, 1953)
The Thistle and the Grail (London, Macdonald, 1954; Polygon 1994)
The Cone-Gatherers
(London, Macdonald, 1955; New York, Taplinger, 1981)
Guests of War (London, Macdonald, 1956)
The Missionaries (London, Macdonald, 1957)
The Changeling
(London, Macdonald, 1958; Edinburgh, Canongate Classic, 1989)
Love is a Fervent Fire (London, Macdonald, 1959)
Some Kind of Grace (London, Macdonald, 1960)
Dust on the Paw
(London, Macdonald, and New York, Putnam, 1961)
The Tiger of Gold (London, Macdonald, 1962)
A Love of Innocence (London, Cape, 1963)
The Sardana Dancers (London, Cape, 1964)
A Very Scotch Affair (London, Gollancz, 1968)
The Holy Tree (London, Gollancz, 1969)
The Expatriates (London, Gollancz, 1971)
A Toast to the Lord (London, Gollancz, 1972)
A Far Cry from Bowmore and Other Stories (London, Gollancz, 1973)
A Figure of Fun (London, Gollancz, 1974)
A Would-Be Saint
(London, Gollancz, 1978; New York, Taplinger, 1980)
Fergus Lamont
(Edinburgh, Canongate, and New York, Taplinger, 1979; Canongate Classic, 1990)
The Awakening of George Darroch (Edinburgh, Harris, 1985)
Just Duffy (Edinburgh, Canongate, 1988; Canongate Classic, 1995)
Poverty Castle (Nairn, Balnain, 1991)
Willie Hogg (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1993)
Leila (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1995)
Lunderston Tales (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1996)
Matthew and Sheila (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1998)
Poor Angus (Edinburgh, Canongate, 2000)
Contents
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
PART ONE
‘When I became a man I put away childish things’
1
Let’s admit it, in all our activities, golf and war, politics and religion, there is an element of childishness. Truly adult persons are as rare as saints. There was only one at the grave that sunny September afternoon: the woman in the coffin, my Kate, dead from cancer, bravely and humorously endured.
Take the minister, the Rev. Dugald Abercrombie, white-haired and gaunt, with an involuntary girn in his voice. After half a century of having his exhortations politely disregarded, he could not help sounding disappointed and a little resentful. His joints were inflamed and painful with rheumatism. He had lost his own wife eight years ago. He thought he had deserved better, like a child that had always done what it was told. God, the Father, had let him down.
There was Kate’s brother, Hector of the doleful countenance. Fifty or so years ago, he had gone to prison rather than be sent to war. No man ever knows exactly his own motives, but surely Hector – absurd name for a pacifist – must have been deceiving himself when he had declared, unavailingly as it turned out, that, by refusing to kill the persecutors of the Jews, he had been benefiting all humanity. Nowadays he lived alone with a horde of cats and kept a second-hand bookshop that seldom had customers. Looked at in one way, his qualms were noble, but looked at in another way, childish. Really, as I had once pointed out to him, he had spent his life in a puerile huff. Even Kate, most loving of sisters, had been impatient with him at times. He was missing her, though. Those tears were genuine. I loved him for them.
There was Henry Sneddon, who had vowed never to speak to Hector, in this life or in any other life there might be.
I had often rebuked him for what I called his unsoldierly lack of generosity. So had his wife Helen, most forgiving and least embittered of women. He was greatly dependent on her. At present, there she was, holding him up, though, at 78 she was a year older. Once, with great tenderness, she wiped his face, of slavers I thought, uncharitably, but it could have been tears; he too had been fond of Kate. No doubt Helen had arranged for him to use the minister’s private toilet in the kirk, if need be. Poor fellow, he claimed that his incontinence was the result of his having taken part in the Normandy landings 40 years ago.
There was Susan Cramond, in her £1000 fur coat. A wealthy widow only a few weeks from her 70th birthday, she did cycling exercises, dieted, swallowed vitamins by the handful, consulted astrologers, wintered in the Bahamas, and bribed God with large donations to the church, all to fend off the old skinny fellow with the sharpened scythe. From the other side of the grave, she was gazing at me, in childish appeal. Would I, please, would anyone, save poor Susan? She had, I may say, a reputation in the town for being hard of head and heart. Could it be that she was afraid of hell, though outside the graveyard she’d scornfully tell you she didn’t believe in it?
There were the Tullochs, Millie and Bill, she gazing up at him with cowlike meekness, he ignoring her as he so often did; he was usually punishing her for God knew what. At 55 or so, they were a good deal younger than the rest of us. Millie was present because Kate had been kind to her, Bill because he made a hobby of attending funerals, not because he wanted to share people’s grief but because he enjoyed it. I didn’t like him, even though I sometimes played golf with him.
Millie had a small doll-like face, with voice to match, thin and rather shrill. She had also, disconcertingly, one of the roundest, most enticing dowps I had ever seen.