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Such Darling Dodos
John Betjeman wrote of this book when it was first published: ‘Reading these stories is rather like being the horrified by fascinated witness of a big operation’, and it is the surgical exactness of the author’s dissection of postwar England which first impresses the reader. It is an unparalleled and frighteningly vivid picture of decaying gentlepeople and out-moded idealists – the dodos of the title – and of the ambitious ‘new-look’ young intelligentsia of the late 1940s.
‘Undeterred by sportsmanship or kindliness he hits exactly where he likes and his blows hurt. Good taste and gentility are as roughly handled as humbug.’
– New Statesman.
‘Mr Wilson’s England is a sour place but it is wonderfully well observed and has a dreadful social truth … very amusing, original and talented …’
– VS Pritchett.
‘Undeterred by sportsmanship or kindliness he hits exactly where he likes and his blows hurt. Good taste and gentility are as roughly handled as humbug.’
– New Statesman.
‘Mr Wilson’s England is a sour place but it is wonderfully well observed and has a dreadful social truth … very amusing, original and talented …’
– VS Pritchett.
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First published January 1, 1950
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About the author
Angus Wilson
89 books42 followersSir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson, KBE (11 August 1913 – 31 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot and later received a knighthood for his services to literature.
Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to an English father and South African mother. He was educated at Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford, and in 1937 became a librarian in the British Museum's Department of Printed Books, working on the new General Catalogue. During World War II, he worked in the Naval section Hut 8 at the code-breaking establishment, Bletchley Park, translating Italian Naval codes.
The work situation was stressful and led to a nervous breakdown, for which he was treated by Rolf-Werner Kosterlitz. He returned to the Museum after the end of the War, and it was there that he met Tony Garrett (born 1929), who was to be his companion for the rest of his life.
Wilson's first publication was a collection of short stories, The Wrong Set (1949), followed quickly by the daring novel Hemlock and After, which was a great success, prompting invitations to lecture in Europe.
He worked as a reviewer, and in 1955 he resigned from the British Museum to write full-time (although his financial situation did not justify doing so) and moved to Suffolk.
From 1957 he gave lectures further afield, in Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and the USA. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1968, and received many literary honours in succeeding years. He was knighted in 1980, and was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 1983 to 1988. His remaining years were affected by ill health, and he died of a stroke at a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 31 May 1991, aged 77.
His writing, which has a strongly satirical vein, expresses his concern with preserving a liberal humanistic outlook in the face of fashionable doctrinaire temptations. Several of his works were adapted for television. He was Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia from 1966 to 1978, and jointly helped to establish their creative writing course at masters level in 1970, which was then a groundbreaking initiative in the United Kingdom.
Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to an English father and South African mother. He was educated at Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford, and in 1937 became a librarian in the British Museum's Department of Printed Books, working on the new General Catalogue. During World War II, he worked in the Naval section Hut 8 at the code-breaking establishment, Bletchley Park, translating Italian Naval codes.
The work situation was stressful and led to a nervous breakdown, for which he was treated by Rolf-Werner Kosterlitz. He returned to the Museum after the end of the War, and it was there that he met Tony Garrett (born 1929), who was to be his companion for the rest of his life.
Wilson's first publication was a collection of short stories, The Wrong Set (1949), followed quickly by the daring novel Hemlock and After, which was a great success, prompting invitations to lecture in Europe.
He worked as a reviewer, and in 1955 he resigned from the British Museum to write full-time (although his financial situation did not justify doing so) and moved to Suffolk.
From 1957 he gave lectures further afield, in Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and the USA. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1968, and received many literary honours in succeeding years. He was knighted in 1980, and was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 1983 to 1988. His remaining years were affected by ill health, and he died of a stroke at a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 31 May 1991, aged 77.
His writing, which has a strongly satirical vein, expresses his concern with preserving a liberal humanistic outlook in the face of fashionable doctrinaire temptations. Several of his works were adapted for television. He was Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia from 1966 to 1978, and jointly helped to establish their creative writing course at masters level in 1970, which was then a groundbreaking initiative in the United Kingdom.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 7, 2015
I know what it is I like about these stories: they're mean. I certainly don't mean that they depict cruelty (some do, but that's not the point). Rather, reading these (and also authors like Muriel Spark) bring home for me the fact that earnestness and hand-writing have won the day in contemporary lit. Nobody ever seems to be spiteful or biting or wicked or sly or just plain disdainful. Righteous denunciation abounds, likewise moral outrage, but this voice, this Angus Wilson mode seems to have largely left the building.
And it's a damn shame too, because if there's one thing that people are regardless of situation, it's ridiculous.
Perhaps there is a cruel literature out there and I have missed it. If so, please, do, tell me all about it.
And it's a damn shame too, because if there's one thing that people are regardless of situation, it's ridiculous.
Perhaps there is a cruel literature out there and I have missed it. If so, please, do, tell me all about it.
November 11, 2022
“A Little Companion” - 9.25
- It’s basically begging to be allegorized, which I feel may be a feint, given Wilson’s other possible interpretation, which is not about war or menopause or, even, more simply mental illness, but, more trenchantly for someone who writes the acerbic type of cozy literature featuring caustic but staid normal People like he or other mid century Brits, actually about the hidden cost and unacknowledged undertows of displeasure, ill feeling, and malevolence lurking beneath the surface of small town pleasantries and their most notable purveyors. In this sense, and in this interpretation, there’s hardly a more damning self critique or shot across the bow of contemporary literature in all of mid century letters. Story: small town woman, single and without child, starts to hear and see apparition of a child, which bothers her to no end, and is at points presented by Wilson in ineffectively horrific interiority, and which occasions many different means and methods of extrication, all of them unsuccessful, until the end, at which point she unwittingly does simply what he had asked from the beginning, which was for her to race him across the street, at which point he disappears, and, seemingly relieved, she is nonetheless beset by regret and loneliness at the departure of that which she heretofore could not relieve herself of fast enough. Cryptic-ish.
- It’s basically begging to be allegorized, which I feel may be a feint, given Wilson’s other possible interpretation, which is not about war or menopause or, even, more simply mental illness, but, more trenchantly for someone who writes the acerbic type of cozy literature featuring caustic but staid normal People like he or other mid century Brits, actually about the hidden cost and unacknowledged undertows of displeasure, ill feeling, and malevolence lurking beneath the surface of small town pleasantries and their most notable purveyors. In this sense, and in this interpretation, there’s hardly a more damning self critique or shot across the bow of contemporary literature in all of mid century letters. Story: small town woman, single and without child, starts to hear and see apparition of a child, which bothers her to no end, and is at points presented by Wilson in ineffectively horrific interiority, and which occasions many different means and methods of extrication, all of them unsuccessful, until the end, at which point she unwittingly does simply what he had asked from the beginning, which was for her to race him across the street, at which point he disappears, and, seemingly relieved, she is nonetheless beset by regret and loneliness at the departure of that which she heretofore could not relieve herself of fast enough. Cryptic-ish.
November 30, 2017
This book would have been a three star book UNTIL I got to the very last story--'What Do Hippos Eat?' The last story had the rare kind of perfect short story ending--an unexpected twist that reveals much about human nature (very much like the famous epiphany endings so favored by Joyce in the Dubliners collection). That story was 5+ stars, and I am glad the editor picked that one to end with.
Some of the stories fell flat for me because I'm not completely immersed in the British class system and don't know all the nuances of British culture. A British person might get more out of the stories that focused on that than I. This is still a nice collection and worth reading, no matter what your nationality.
Some of the stories fell flat for me because I'm not completely immersed in the British class system and don't know all the nuances of British culture. A British person might get more out of the stories that focused on that than I. This is still a nice collection and worth reading, no matter what your nationality.
August 21, 2014
Not as good as The Wrong Set and other stories. He's lost the knack of dropping us in to the story and, whilst seeming to make no effort to help us catch a hold of what's going on, secretly slipping us all we need.
July 2, 2012
Caustic stories about postwar Britain. Wilson has never been much read in the US. He reads now as an interesting regional writer, school of Evelyn Waugh, though with less control over sardonic distance.
March 13, 2012
I love Angus Wilson or I love some lost world - Waugh with sharpened teeth. Not for everyone I imagine.
November 12, 2012
Quirky, well written & true to life!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews