Volume 47, Number 11 · June 29, 2000
Close to the Edge
By Gabriele Annan
Mr. Phillips
by John Lanchester
Putnam, 291 pp., $24.95
In 1892 the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith published The Diary of a Nobody, covering fifteen months in the life of Charles Pooter and his wife, Carrie. Hilaire Belloc called it an 'immortal achievement,' and it is still much read. John Lanchester's Mr. Phillips is Mr. Pooter, a hundred-and-ten-odd years later, only sadder. And even funnier. This is because The Diary of a Nobody is mainly about class and convention, standard light comedy themes, whereas John Lanchester's novel is mainly about sex and death and therefore closer to the edge. Which is not to say that it is not about class. Mr. Phillips takes it for granted that every single Englishman and woman has in their brain
Review, 1879 words
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