Since his debut with the Booker-nominated The Restraint of Beasts in 1999, Magnus Mills has delighted and occasionally confounded his loyal readers with a series of novels and short stories about projects, schemes and expeditions that never quite seem to pan out. In these situations, his characters tend to dither politely between cautious enthusiasm and mild exasperation. It’s the deadpan comedy of thwarted logistics.
Similarly, a person could drive him or herself slightly mad trying to puzzle out exactly what Mills’s books are about. Do they have a hidden meaning? Are they parables, allegories, fables? One often has the sense that the author knows but enjoys not telling. What matters is not the purpose of the fence but the job of building it. In the case of his very funny new novel, The Field of the Cloth of Gold, I can only state with certainty what it isn’t about: the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the name given to the historic meeting of 1520 between Henry VIII and his French counterpart.
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