Major Pettigrew's Last Stand / Helen Simonson

 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4+ fully lovely, sparkling stars

Major Ernest Pettigrew is caught between a rock and a hard place. He's part of the old guard with very definite notions of how one should do things, but must watch his shallow self-centered son ooze around, acting like he's God's gift to humanity. He has his old friends to associate with, but he has developed a new friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali. As a result of this new acquaintance, he has started to see more clearly all the casual racism in his village community. The two halves of his life, traditional and more contemporary, are like the two guns left to him and his brother: one exquisitely maintained, the other in rather rough shape.

Simonson lays bare the discrimination against the people of Indian and Pakistani heritage, many of whom have never lived in those countries: excluded from local clubs, unwelcome at community events, their point of view not at all considered. The WASP population wish to maintain their stranglehold on the privileges of English village life, which is hypocritical when they resent the very similar superior attitude coming from the rich American who has bludgeoned his way into their society.

I have to say that I enjoyed a gentle love story between two older adults. There's nothing precipitous, they get to know one another gradually over mutual pursuits and books. Half way through the book we come to realize that the Major is trying to devise a ruse to kiss his new friend, but he seems to keep ruining his own plans. There's as much friendship between two lonely people as there is romance. Still, there is romance and the admission that mature folks can still feel passion.

I wonder if the Major's surname, Pettigrew, was chosen to allude to Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. In that book, a mature woman in a distressed condition comes to find friendship and perhaps even love from an unexpected quarter. It's a lovely book and I feel many of the same emotions stirring in this one.

A story that will get you thinking about which traditions to hang onto and which to release, how much one should struggle against change, and, as a result, which things are worth fighting for.



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