The history of literature is replete with folly but the news that Sebastian Faulks is writing a novel featuring Reginald Jeeves and Bertram Wooster knocks all other blunders into a cocked-hat. We are not gruntled.
Madness, not to put too fine a point on it, seems the only explanation for such a project. Perhaps, like Gussie Fink-Nottle, Mr Faulks is a glutton for punishment. Like the newt-fancier, one supposes he must spend a good deal of time staring at himself in the mirror.
As for the rest of us, well, like the BBC’s present lamentable adaptation of Blandings this news has us groaning and wincing “like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch”.
Harry Mount says most of what needs to be said about this nonsense (though he is too kind by far to Faulks’ lame Bond novel). Be that as it may, he cannot be permitted a monopoly on umbrage. I suppose that if Faulks wishes to make a fool of himself that is his business but the endeavour seems unusually pointless even by windmill-tilting standards.
As Faulks’s pastiche of Fleming was only partially successful there appear no grounds upon which to suppose this vastly more demanding task will be within his competence.
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