Last Friends

Old Filth #3

by Jane Gardam

ISBN 9780349000169 moved to this edition.
The third installment in the Old Filth trilogy, Last Friends will surprise and delight Gardam fans and appeal to new readers as it concludes a portrait of a marriage equal to any in the English language.

Of Edward Feathers, a.k.a. Old Filth, the New York Times wrote, “he belongs in the Dickensian pantheon of memorable characters.” Filth, which stands for Failed in London Try Hong Kong, is a successful barrister who has spent most of his career practicing law in Southeast Asia. He met his wife, Betty, after she was released from an internment camp at the close of World War II. The first two books in this series—Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat— told the story of their life together first from Edward's perspective, and then from Betty's. Last Friends is Edward's longtime nemesis and Betty's sometime lover, Terry Veneering's turn and with its telling a magnificent and deeply moving story comes to its satisfying final pages.
As the Washington Post commented, these “absolutely wonderful” books give us “an astute, subtle depiction of marriage.” With this third revealing view of Betty and Edward's life together the depiction is completed as readers renew their connection to this remarkable, unforgettable couple.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Jane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Sometimes he thought, one should take a long look at old friends. Like old clothes in a cupboard, there comes the moment to examine for moth. Perhaps throw them out and forget them.”

This is the final book in Jane Gardam’s trilogy about Edward Feathers, AKA Old Filth, his wife Betty, and Terry Veneering, a colleague and adversary. Book I is from the vantage point of Old Filth, and book II from Betty’s point of view.This book is told by two elderly friends of the three, Dulcie and Fiscal-Smith. It fills in the missing pieces. Meeting again at the funeral of Old Filth, these last survivors of this group, the last survivors of the glory days of the British Empire and the good life living in Hong Kong, have much to recall.

I thoroughly enjoyed each of the three books, although this was not as compelling as the other two. Still, Gardam’s witty and terse prose sparkled. Last Friends was the perfect way to end my relationship with these endearing and very human characters.

[Margitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third installment in the 'the Old Filth' trilogy and with a powerful grande finale, a love triangle is finally concluded in which Edward and Betty Feathers, and Terry Veneering's lives are brought to full circle.

Last Friends is not only the story of Terry's background, but also the other childhood friends' conclusion of their roles in the saga. Some of them survived sinking ships as Raj Orphans, bombarded by the Japanese, others met in the school of 'Sir', also orphaned children from different circumstances in England itself.

They all ended up in South East Asia and had to endure innumerable challenges to survive. They formed friendship bonds as children that would last all their lives and bring a gentle closure to the lives of an unforgettable couple.

The trilogy revolved around Old Filth, or Sir Edward Feathers. From the blurb:

Edward Feathers, a.k.a. Old Filth, the New York Times wrote, “he belongs in the Dickensian pantheon of memorable characters.” Filth, which stands for Failed in London Try Hong Kong, is a successful barrister who has spent most of his career practicing law in Southeast Asia..."

The narrative is carried by different role players, bringing their own perspectives and detail to the life of two people who glued them all together in some or other relationship. Not all of them thought they were friends, yet destiny had other plans for them. They eventually realized that they were not just bystanders in each other's lives anymore. Time was against them.

I closed this book with the feeling of loss. Everything about this trilogy spelled out endearment, loyalty, honor and the true meaning of friendship. Walking away from it I realized that there are so many unsung heroes who's stories will never be told, yet, from time to time, their tales land in the right hands and change our lives forever, even if they are only fictional characters. I walk away a much better person. It was a deeply touching experience.

RECOMMENDED

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

OMG! I SQUEED when I saw that this book was coming out. I adore Jane Gardam and the Old Filth novels have been so stellar. I CANNOT WAIT!

***************

Okay, I finally finished and was disappointed, I'm afraid. OLD FILTH and THE MAN IN THE WOODEN HAT are both so stellar, complex, nuanced and surprising, that this felt like a novella rehash of the least interesting characters in the Raj Orphan set.

I adore Gardam's writing style and understand why she felt the need to return to this setting and character group, but I finished sort of wishing she hadn't. This is a nonrequired third in a trilogy where the first two overshadow this slight novel by a long way.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Description: The third installment in the Old Filth trilogy, Last Friends will surprise and delight Gardam fans and appeal to new readers as it concludes a portrait of a marriage equal to any in the English language.

Of Edward Feathers, a.k.a. Old Filth, the New York Times wrote, “he belongs in the Dickensian pantheon of memorable characters.” Filth, which stands for Failed in London Try Hong Kong, is a successful barrister who has spent most of his career practicing law in Southeast Asia. He met his wife, Betty, after she was released from an internment camp at the close of World War II. The first two books in this series—Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat— told the story of their life together first from Edward's perspective, and then from Betty's. Last Friends is Edward's longtime nemesis and Betty's sometime lover, Terry Veneering's turn and with its telling a magnificent and deeply moving story comes to its satisfying final pages.
As the Washington Post commented, these “absolutely wonderful” books give us “an astute, subtle depiction of marriage.” With this third revealing view of Betty and Edward's life together the depiction is completed as readers renew their connection to this remarkable, unforgettable couple.

Opening: The Titans were gone. They had clashed their last.

The cunning plan is that when a sufficient gap has arisen so that I have forgotten most, which seems to take less time all the time, I shall re-read this trilogy through, coupled with the short stories, in succession and as close together as an acid treated Tawantinsuyu era Cusco wall



4* Old Filth (Old Filth, #1)
5* The Man in the Wooden Hat (Old Filth, #2)
4* Last Friends (Old Filth, #3)
3* The People on Privilege Hill

3* Bilgewater
4* The Stories of Jane Gardam

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a joy to read. Not every minute is happy, of course, but I finished with a satisfied smile on my face. So much of what happened and so many of the characters in the first two books of the Old Filth trilogy are fleshed out further here, given more depth, as only glimpses of their childhood can do. I’m so glad that I discovered my error in not reading this book. It really completes this story.

[Jan-Maat]

What did I think? Did I think, what? I think I might have enjoyed this more if I had never read Old Filth.

By itself Last Friends was a fun book - at least I found the first half fun and amusing, the whole book could well in fact be fun and amusing, it was probably that I ran out of my fun quota for the week by the time I got half way through, and so had exhausted my limited capacity to be amused. There was a fierce stab of poignancy somewhere around the middle of the book that caught me deep in my soft heart - no bad thing in a novel which is after all a device to produce an emotional response in the reader from a curious two-dimensional experience admittedly three dimensional if you read in braille.

Old Filth in Goodreads terms began for me as a five star read and then in steps by the last page went down to being a four star one, while Last Friends was fairly consistently three and a half stars. I think it could be read as a stand alone, as a trilogy it looks at the love triangle of Edward Feathers, his wife Elizabeth and her lover, Terry Veneering with a focus on the latter. His life and the book touches the most of the same few locations as Old Filth which you could take as a pleasing take on the small world of international Anglo-sphere of construction contracts (and disputes) a subset of the small world of the English Legal system, I found it a bit irritating just at how many points Gardam made her heroes lives intersect though it does play on the idea of 'this town is too small for the both of us', so the two men, Feathers and Veneering, I accept, are practically obliged to be rivals.

Curiously we are told that Veneering is a secretive man and that nobody knows anything about him, but repeatedly people that he meets turn out to have know that he was on the the City of Benares - a refugee ship which was sunk enroute to Canada during WWII. This left me with the impression that Veneering was the man who nobody knew anything about, apart from things that in the pre-internet days it would have been very difficult for people to have known about (particularly for a person who had changed their name). Plainly a very small world.

Gardam gets a bit meta-fictional, Veneering is also a character in Our Mutual Friend and since he was bad in that book, he can't be bad in this one, a warning that we readers ought to have taken to heart in Old Filth the problem is that I have not read Our Mutual Friend, luckily Gardam knew this, so she makes a point of explaining her meta-fictional joke in this book . I am glad she explained her cleverness to me, but equally when you have to explain your jokes to the reader, they are perhaps too clever by half and maybe the author needs other signposts to warn the reader that the narrator's viewpoint is exactly a point of view and not the truth (in capital letters and underlined). Perhaps Gardam in her reliance on co-incidence and over lapping lives lived in a limited number of destinations was always playing a meta fictional game with the reader.

The central issue of the Love triangle was that Feathers was not capable of conventional romantic love, locked as he was into his fixation on Malaysia and denied, due to Empire and racism, from ever being Malaysian himself - Veneering to balance the equation then had to be the man capable of love, the problem for me was that I could accept that in Old Filth in which we mostly sense Veneering as detested rival, but in this book Gardam did not convince me that Veneering was particularly loving (on the other hand mathematically he did not need to be since Feathers was so particularly emotionally repressed) and I was a bit, well disturbed or uneasy that Veneering has a father from Odessa and a tough, illiterate Teesside mother, both Catholic, therefore Veneering is capable of love and politically left-wing, while Feathers is the repressed Patrician, this seemed to be more stereotype than characterisation , so while I felt that Old Filth was subtle, the final taste Gardam left me with was crude.

Apart from that it was great, just sailing close to parodying herself I felt.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last of her magnificent trilogy, and the least, but still extraordinary and compulsively readable. I couldn't do much else while I was reading it and I didn't want it to end, not least because I can't bear saying goodbye to this company of characters. This is the funniest of the books because two of the protagonists, Dulcie and Fiscal-Smith, are her most Dickensian creations--hapless, ancient characters rather than the out-size heroic figures at the center of the first novels. It's also lacking the drive of narrative the other books had. The characters are more schematic and she takes less time to create dimension and soul--it's essentially, as I say, a comic novel. Given that, it's odd that it is also of the three novels the one most clear-eyed about death, the loneliness and humiliation of old age and the devastation wrought by the contemporary world upon a kind of grace and civilization that were once part of British life.
It feels a bit constructed and less true to life, the coincidences and neatness of the plot not as convincing as the previous books. But still, oh, what a writer. Precise, steely and witty, this is masterly work.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last Friends is the third novel in Jane Gardam’s trilogy that began with Old Filth and continued with The Man in the Wooden Hat. Having read and loved both those novels, I felt pretty sure what to expect in this last book. The first focused on Sir Edward Feathers, barrister in Hong Kong and London, promoted to judge, Old Filth himself. The second focused on his wife, Betty. Surely the third would focus on Terry Veneering, Edward’s legal nemesis (also a barrister and a judge) and Betty’s (not so) secret lover. Even the book flap announces as much: “Last Friends is Terence Veneering’s turn.” In addition, I was sure that the last friends of the title referred to Feathers and Veneering, who, ending up as neighbors after Betty died, spend time together playing chess and chatting. Well, I was sort of right about all of this, but what this novel delivered went way beyond my narrow expectations. One thing I continue to learn about Jane Gardam is that what I expect is not necessarily all that interests her. In addition to what I expected, each of these novels contains surprises and reversals of what I thought I knew from reading the ones before it. Different perspectives definitely, but just a merely different view is way too simple a way of talking about what this third novel brings to its readers. Entire areas of knowledge that were barely alluded to before are now revealed at length.

Yet as I read the book, the entire beginning of this novel seemed out of place to me. Here I was supposed to be learning about Terry Veneering, his own life and his views of both Betty and Edward. We begin with at Feathers’ funeral, which seemed a good place to begin, but instead of sliding over to Terry Veneering, we meet up again with Dulcie, the quite elderly widow of Pastry Willy, who had been yet another judge and a former colleague of both Edward and Terry. We meet her daughter and twelve year-old grandson, who are visiting from the United States. The relationship between this mother and daughter is just chillingly real. Another funeral attendee is Fiscal-Smith, an attorney who knew both Feathers and Vennering. He manages to get Dulcie to take him to her house, where he becomes (and remains) an unwelcome guest. After a series of interesting and humorous adventures, Dulcie, who was always wishing Fiscal-Smith would just leave, gets up the nerve to suggest he pack his bags and go. He does. While I enjoyed reading this section of the novel, for the longest time I thought its very existence as the extended book’s opening a deep fault of a book that was supposed to be about Veneering.

We eventually do shift to Veneering’s story. We meet him in his childhood home—he is the son of a brilliant but dissolute old Russian and a sweet but not-so-smart young English girl. We come to understand that Veneering (a name he took on later, his father’s name was Venetski) is a lucky young man. Gardam describes a series of fortunate happenings that save his life at least twice over despite the German bombings on England and its surroundings (including the open seas) and introduce him to kind people of wealth who are willing to aid him. As a young man he is clearly Fortune’s favorite child, a status that does last his lifetime as we watch him suffer some great losses later. But the novel does not stay long with Veneering as its central character. We return to Dulcie and, finally, to Fiscal-Smith, a character we’ve disdained throughout the first two novels and the first half of this third novel. He’s a lonely old bore whose company no one wants. Gardam works her magic and makes him interesting and almost sympathetic. Fiscal-Smith’s story does overlap with all the other characters’ stories, including Veneering’s, so I might be a bit unfair to say Gardam entirely abandons Veneering. Perhaps it’s best to say that revising our attitudes about Fiscal-Smith and spending more time inside the slightly muddled mind of the very old Dulcie seemed more important to Gardam. In the end, she convinced me that those two were worthy of my extended attention. No matter which direction Gardam chooses, I find I always want to go her way—even if I thought I had very good reasons why it’s the wrong way. She’s that good a storyteller. By the novel’s end, I no longer thought the way this book began (and ended) was a mistake, but I have to admit I spent a fair amount of my reading time complaining to myself.

[Dar vieną puslapį · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Meilužis" - trečioji Gardam trilogijos dalis. Kaip sufleruoja pavadinimas, šįkart meilužis atskleidžia savo kortas ir pasakoja kaip viskas atrodo iš jo perspektyvos. Tiesa, turiu paminėti, kad pirmieji pusšimtis puslapių nustebino - Gardam įveda naują veikėją, senyvo amžiaus moteriškę, ir pagauni save galvojant - ką gi aš čia skaitau??? Ta damutė man neįdomi, nerūpi ir išvis - kur tas žadėtas meilužis? Aišku, perskaičius dvi knygos dalis, tu nori nenori bandai pasitikėti autore ir tikrai neveltui. Pasakojama ir apie žadėtą meilužį.

Taigi Gardam ne tik galima, bet ir reikia pasitikėti. Ji žino ką daro. Gal kartais atrodys, kad ką ji čia dar papasakos, bet jei jau pasakos - tai bus verta kiekvienos raidės, o nustebinti autorė taip pat moka. Ypač ten, kur atrodo, jog viskas aišku kaip dieną. Jokia ten ne diena, o dar viena Gardam intrigėlė.

Meilužis, kuris skaitytojui jau gana gerai pažįstamas, taip pat atsiskleidžia visai naujoje šviesoje. O ho ho kokių dalykų autorė prigalvojo. Likau nustebus. Be to šypsnį kėlė ir tai, kad tiek Edvardo tiek Terenso gyvenimai savaip buvo sunkūs, bet kiekvienas iš jų apie kitą galvoja kaip apie gimusį su marškinėliais ir viską gavusį ant lėkštutės.

Jane Gardam moka pasakoti. Ji moka tą pačią istoriją nupasakoti iš skirtingų perspektyvų. Daro tai įtikinamai, talentingai ir tiesiog negalima ja nesižavėti.

Visą šią puikią trilogiją siūlau skaityti tiems, kuriuos žavi britiškas gyvenimo būdas, jų savitas humoras ir nori visu tuo persmelktos smagios ir puikios istorijos

Video apžvalga: https://bit.ly/2x09fuB

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this last book in the Old Filth trilogy, we get the childhood and secrets of Terry Veneering, the third leg of the love triangle between Edward Feathers, his wife, Betty, and himself. Not as standout as the first two books, in my opinion, but still a satisfying conclusion to all the "friends" we met along the way. Jane Gardam is a treasure.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked ‘Old Filth’, the first book in this trilogy, a lot (4.5 stars on a re-read). But while I still liked the second book, ‘The Man in the Wooden Hat’, I did not like it was much as ‘Old Filth’. And I was blasé, ho-hum about this last book in the trilogy. Just as Gardam did not tell us anything about Betty’s early life in the second volume, here, unless I missed it, she tells us nothing about Veneering’s son, Harry, and him getting killed in Northern Ireland . Harry was rather important as Betty loved him as if he were her son.

Also, the story line as to what happened to Fiscal-Smith and Dulcie didn’t do wonders for me. And some of the things Old Filth thought about his wife Betty made me like him less (some of his thoughts not so positive). I’ll prefer to remember Sir Edward/’Old Filth’ from the first book in the trilogy. 😐 😑

Reviews:
• Very interesting review by a Booker Prize awardee (Hotel du Lac), Anita Brookner...https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://www.complete-review.com/revie...
• https://nationalpost.com/entertainmen...

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why is there no sixth star? OMG, when did you ever hear of a trilogy that just gets, if possible, BETTER at the end. And nothing foreseen by this reader.

What a masterful window into worlds of the Raj Orphans of that late British Empire. And taken nearly to the present day!

There are no words for the understories of the seconds and friends of both Eddie Feathers (Old Filth) and Teddy Veneering. Or of Elizabeth or Isobel or Elsie. No, the superlatives don't even do it. Because these "after tales" are told with such nuance and context to eras more than 60 years apart! The skill in this dialog! A schoolgirl running past a resume carrier- tripping down the steps to her bicycle; well, that shows up in reverse to detail- nearly 3 full books later.

And the spirit of joy that comes from personality. Personality and will forged out of huge tragedy, and catastrophe, AND complete "lacks". That will and that strength- these novels give it real faces.

The 1953 section in London alone in this one is just 7 star priceless.

Everything a wreck- no jobs in the "right" fields. Infrastructure blown to dangerous.

As example, I will quote this entire section that being out of huge chaos in another era and place myself, I SO understand:

"You sound so very young, Mr. Veneering. Did you not think of staying at Oxford- life as an academic?? (She ain't seen me yet!)

No. Mrs. Beetle-Bags, I did not. I don't want to interpret the world. I want to put it straight. To spread the globe out flat like pastry on a slab like Ma made. Pick it up, slap it down, turn it over like a Tarte Tatin in Le Trou Normand in Hong Kong. Oh hell, that was wonderful! I don't want a careful bloody life. Why am I turning to the right? This placed is St. Yves Court- St. Yves, the Breton lawyer. And saint. (Might write a book on him?) Augustus's chambers-

Where there is nothing but a gaping door and windows and a heap of rubble on the pavement with a rope round it and a red lamp you light with a match. And it's eight years on. 1953-Christ! However did we win the War? No-one will ever know. I'll tell my grandchildren.

Or will I? Will I reminisce? Will they give a fuck for historic Britain? Little ragged-edged, off-shore island and not my own country anyway. Go to Russia soon, let's hope. Everywhere fighting their neighbors to the death. Death doesn't bring life-ever.

He saw his house-master at his Roman Catholic school saying. "Sharpen up, Veneering. The Ressurection?"

This above quote is when he serendipity changes his law career from "Crime" to "Sewers and Facilities" in utter pique at losing a minor criminal case.

Read this trilogy. It's a masterpiece.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Gardam could write 10 more books that orbit the world of Old Filth and I would keep buying and reading them. Of the three (Old Filth, The Man with the Wooden Hat and now Last Friends) I think this one is the weakest but it's still a world I enjoy reading about. This book reveals the backstory of Filth's long time rival (turned chess partner) Veneering. I can't imagine reading this book on it's own - would you really understand the characters and relationships if you entered during this third act? So if you are at all interested, start with Old Filth (which is really a gem). If you're already hooked then this chapter is a must read.

Side note: In order to only give this book 3 stars - which seems low but I can't quite do 4 - I had to go back and change The Man in the Wooden Hat to 4 because, really, that was a better book and I need to differentiate. This star system is tricky at times!!

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gli ultimi orfani dell’Impero

E’ il volume conclusivo di una trilogia redatta con stile tipicamente britannico ma dalla struttura originale, poiché le vicende non sono ricostruite lungo i tre libri secondo una precisa sequenza cronologica, bensì variamente intrecciate, narrate da personaggi e punti di vista ogni volta diversi e rivissute attraverso un andamento discontinuo sul piano temporale.

Al famoso principe del foro Edward protagonista di “Figlio dell’Impero britannico” subentra la moglie Betty nel secondo romanzo, “L’uomo col cappello di legno”, forse il più riuscito dei tre, ed infine in questo “L’eterno rivale” viene messo in luce soprattutto Terry, l’avvocato antagonista di Edward e amante una tantum di Betty, mentre anche alcuni personaggi minori qui assurgono a un ruolo più centrale e definito.

Un gioco narrativo intrigante, reso ancor più originale dalla peculiarità che accomuna i personaggi principali, l’essere figli o meglio “Orfani dell’Impero britannico”, nati all’inizio del XX° secolo dall’ultima generazione di alti funzionari inglesi nelle colonie (Malesia, Hong Kong) e, dopo un’infanzia asiatica più o meno dorata, trapiantati in Inghilterra per ricevere la necessaria educazione rigorosamente british; anche se in tutti loro resterà quasi un’impronta di “doppia patria” ed il legame affettivo e professionale con l’Estremo Oriente non verrà mai meno.

In questa affascinante cornice, soprattutto nei primi due volumi si snodano con eleganza e fantasia le storie di personaggi per un verso privilegiati e viziati, ma allo stesso tempo instabili e perennemente insoddisfatti, condannati a non sentirsi a proprio agio in alcun luogo.

Il problema che a mio avviso contribuisce a rendere “L’eterno rivale” meno avvincente dei precedenti è che, già Jane Gardam ha impiegato una decina d’anni per pubblicare l’intera trilogia, per di più questo terzo tassello è uscito in Italia nel 2023, ben 10 anni dopo l’originale. Per quanto mi sia adoperato a ridurre l’eccessivo intervallo, temo di essermi perso, a distanza di anni, la ricostruzione di una parte degli eventi, delle parentele, delle allusioni a personaggi che tendevo inevitabilmente a confondere nelle rispettive passioni, nei tic, nelle abitudini, nelle doti e nei difetti, con le conseguenti difficoltà a coglierne pienamente il carattere e vanificando in parte l’effetto del complesso gioco di specchi allestito dall’autrice.

Ci sarebbero quindi motivi per rileggere la trilogia dall’inizio, ma francamente e con tutto il rispetto per la sua indubbia abilità, miss Gardam non è Proust o Garcia Marquez, e quindi non lo farò e mi accontenterò di questa malinconica atmosfera post-coloniale e di personaggi che sbiadiscono pian piano nella memoria.

[Hermien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still enjoyable but not as good as the first two books.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is rather difficult to rate the one book when you can not see it apart from the other two books in this series. Overall the first and mostly the second book where the best. But this one sort of brings it all together. Jane Gardam is an exquisite writer, who paints colourful stories filled with colourful people. The three books are the story of a time long lost and forgotten. The stories of Edward Feathers, old filth, his wife Bettie, Teddy Veneering, old friends Dulcie and Fred Fiscal-Smith. Not one story has only one side to it. Even history is not always what it seems. The main characters have their haydays during the last great days of the Brittish empirie. And they leave that all behind with regret but also with a new hope for the future. Interesting and captivating read. I loved it.

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realizing I felt a little lost with some of the background details because I read book two too long after book one in the Old Filth trilogy, I raced forward to book three. Some diminishing returns with the series overall, however. Old Filth itself was truly wonderful, but this final volume is more for completists, or those seeking Old Filth fan fiction perhaps. It's a bit betwixt and between, starting with the backstory of Terry Veneering, but puzzlingly interspersed with chapters in the voices of other, formerly quite minor characters - then pivots more fully towards them, as the truly 'last friends' of their set. I'm still undecided as to whether it was very cleverly structured or a bit muddled. I didn't care for the writing style, finding the short sentences, arch character names and dialogue obtrusive. But there is something quite readable about Gardam nonetheless.

The last couple of chapters did finally draw me in, and I found the idea of 'last friends' itself very interesting and evocative. Who will be left, what will they know and not know of the lives of the people who used to be around them. What gets puzzled over then tossed in the bin. I think of my grandmother, who chortled and told me that she knew more people below ground than above, while browsing the obituaries and looking for ones to clip and add to her collection. And now that she's also gone, I've no idea where that collection (it was in a binder) ended up, or what the people in it meant to her. That is at the heart of Gardam's trilogy, and I'm happy enough to have been a completist, even if it didn't maintain its strong start. 2.5 though.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't know what I would have made of this book if I hadn't read the first two in the trilogy, both of which I deeply admired both as a reader and as a novelist. Gardam is brilliant at developing characters, at weaving their histories together and at making us care about them. All of these have featured before: Veneering, Old Filth himself, Dulcie, Betty. And even though they are mostly dead at the beginning of the book, we dive back into their history and fill out the picture. That said, the references to some are so oblique, so assuming that the reader will remember all about them from the earlier two books that I felt lost much of the time. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody who hadn't read the first two in the trilogy very recently. But I'll go on gobbling up Gardam whenever I can. I especially recommend A LONG WAY FROM VERONA, her first novel set in WWII England.

[Mij Woodward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a little blasphemous. I cannot believe I am going to not rave about Last Friends, as I normally would-- about anything written by Jane Gardam.

Her writing is so superb, and it is here, in Last Friends. Moments, scenes she sets up, vignettes. Superb and wonderful.

I guess I DO rave about parts of this book.

Yet, somehow, Last Friends did not grab me the way Old Filth did, or The Man With the Wooden Hat.

I did enjoy discovering Terry Veneering's story, his childhood, his motives. I got to know him, as I had Old Filth and his wife, Betty. I also enjoyed the way some storylines were tied up in the end, storylines that had been presented in the earlier books of this trilogy. Clever.

But honesty demands that I admit I liked the other two books better, for whatever reasons, not sure. Chemistry.

Anyone who read the first two books, must read this one too. I think you will be glad you did. And maybe, like my husband, you will like this third book of the trilogy the best.

[Jane Ciabattari · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read all three novels in Jane Gardam's "Old Filth" trilogy (FILTH is acronym for FAILED IN LONDON TRY HONG KONG) to review the last, "Last Friends," and was immersed in this end of Empire world. Here's my review in Boston Globe:

http://bostonglobe.com/arts/books/201...

[Inge · Rating 5 out of 5]

O wat hou ik toch van de langzame, licht weemoedige stijl van deze trilogie. Wat een geweldige schrijfster.

[Karen·]

My least favourite of the three.

[Ruthiella · Rating 3 out of 5]

“But it’s true, she thought, nobody really knows a thing about another’s past. Why should we? Different worlds we all inhabit from the womb.”

This is the third (and last?) book of the series which started with Old Filth. I think it would have been better to have read all three books closer together rather than years apart since they cover much of the same ground but from a different perspective. As usual, people are never what they seem. Only the reader has the opportunity to get a glimpse of the character’s inner lives and backgrounds; to guess at what really motivates them. The coincidences, so charming in the first two books, beggared belief a bit in this one in my opinion. But they do drive home the prevailing idea in all three books that life is driven as much by luck as it is by ability.

The perspective this time more or less that of Sir Terrence Veneering aka Terry Venetski, Old Filth’s former rival and reluctant friend in old age. Jane Gardam could take anyone’s biography and make it fascinating. She has a fantastic way of making small details into big stories. But the first book is still the best, in my opinion. Last Friends may enhance the first book but it doesn’t surpass it.

[Claire Fuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third novel in the trilogy Old Filth and the Man in the Wooden Hat, and really I read it to be completist, and that isn't a good enough reason. I think I would have preferred to be left with the wonderful memories of the first two novels, because this one felt like a bit of a muddle. We learn a little about Veneering's childhood, and more about a couple of the QCs' old friends. It flits around in time and never really settles to any kind of story that feels worth telling. It also seemed that every character thought and spoke in that clipped upper class English voice that doesn't use full sentences. Gardam's writing still makes reading effortless. I highly recommend the first two books, but don't bother about being a completist like me.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the startling outcome of Brexit, there has been much ruminating by pundits on the failure of British artists to capture the prevailing sentiment in their nation. I would argue that they haven’t been reading Jane Gardam.

In a fine comedic trilogy that began with “Old Filth,” followed by “The Man in the Wooden Hat,” and now ends with “Last Friends,” Gardam has brought to life three elusive but compulsively fascinating characters—Sir Edward Feathers (“Old Filth”), his wife Betty, and his arch-nemesis in love and the law Sir Terence Veneering. Ultimately we get each of their stories, from their youths before the war to the turn of the 21st century.

In a spry, sometimes dotty style that captures the creeping senescence of her characters, Gardam also manages to capture the gradual withdrawal and inward turn of Great Britain. From the edges of the empire—Hong Kong and Malaya, Malta and Africa—where they have made their careers and fortunes, her characters retreat home to an England they hardly recognize, only to wonder at the demise of the traditions they have kept alive in their imaginations and to rue the loss of light compared to the places they have lived and traveled.

As with so many trilogies, “Last Friends” ties up loose ends and brings conclusion to a prismatic story, but it is the weakest of the three novels. “Old Filth” and “The Man in the Wooden Hat” stand like two great bookends. They illuminate the mysteries of a long, polite marriage. “Last Friends” provides another view in elegiac tones—that people's motivations are ultimately inscrutable to others. As Gardam reflects through the eyes of Old Dulcie, one of her recurring characters: “But it’s true, she thought, nobody really knows a thing about another’s past. Why should we? Different worlds we all inhabit from the womb.”

And isn’t that what is troubling the pundits today? Brexit may be just as inscrutable.

[Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I first read Gardam's Queen of the Tambourine, which I liked very much. Also read God on the Rocks (not bad), and two more that I liked pretty well, Faith Fox and The Flight of the Maidens. Then I began on the trilogy of which Last Friends is the last installment.
First was Old Filth. I didn't understand why the author made a lot of the literary and plot choices she did. The many unknowns and mysteries were a little irritating and at the same time drew me on. Then The Man With The Wooden Hat, which I enjoyed because THIS guy had an interesting story. I should say that in all 3 books the characters are mostly male and have few moments of real feeling, which you better make the the most of because there is not a lot shaking here. The female characters are more interesting, but glimpses of them are brief. Again, in book #2, some mysteries solved, and some new ones created. But the answers produced are not very interesting, and I am beginning to feel manipulated. By the time I got to Last Friends, I saw what Ms. Gardam was up to right away, still I had hope. What I got was funerals. And the characters doing little besides harking back to a pretty boring past. And a lot of this you have heard before in the other books! More mysteries; but I can already tell I don't care at all about the solutions. I had to quit 50 pages before the end; it was that annoying.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

the 3rd and final novel about old filth, and his many human connections(ers) to lovers, rivals, dotty english villagers, colleagues, and the modern world encroaching on the old guard of bloody England their far flung empire. it is a bit hard to understand what gardam was trying to accomplish with this last novel, as it seems sometimes not full, not connected, even to the point of senility and maybe that was her point. when you get old, all your friends are either getting buried or getting forgotten, you become stingier and hoard your energy, your money, your love and generosity because you see it all ending up ahead, and hell, are your nephews, your night nurse, your dead lovers, your colleagues, going to comfort you? share with you? help you not die? fuck no they aren't. anyway, gardam is a brilliant writer and i urge all to read all three "old filth" novels. they remind me a bit of comyns, hysterical, horrific, cozy, and a bit profound. The Vet's Daughter

[Inge Vermeire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het derde en laatste deel van Gardams trilogie is opnieuw een topboek. Jane Gardam beschrijft heel mooi hoe de levens van al haar personages met elkaar verbonden zijn en hoe al die levens doordrongen zijn van het ophouden van de schone schijn.

Elk van die personages blikt hierdoor noodgedwongen terug op een weliswaar rijkgevuld maar ook eenzaam leven. Onder alle degelijkheid, onder al het conservatisme, onder de uiterlijke kalmte van deze bevoorrechte groep 'vrienden' schuilen immers grote emoties van jaloezie, verlangen en liefde waar een leven lang geen gehoor aan gegeven kan of mag worden.

Ik hou van de personages van deze boeken omdat ze al oud zijn ( in tegenstelling tot veel personages in andere fictie), omdat ze met heel veel humor en berusting terugkijken op hun levens, omdat ze helemaal tot leven komen dankzij Gardams onovertroffen stijl.

Volop genieten van deze fantastische boeken.

[Lese lust · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich habe jetzt die gesamte Reihe um Old Filth in einem Rutsch durchgelesen und finde diesen dritten Teil als qualitativ deutlich abfallend im Verhältnis zu den beiden anderen.

Hier spielt, wenn man es überhaupt so sagen kann, Veneering die Hauptrolle, sein Werdegang wird jetzt genauer durchleuchtet, aber natürlich auch die Geschichte derer fortgesponnen, die als Letzte noch übrig sind, also Fiscal-Smith und Dulcie.

Ich empfand sehr viele Begegnungen und Zufälle ausgesprochen bemüht, zudem zerfasert die Erzählung hier wirklich immer mehr, weil - in meinen Augen - die Rahmenhandlung dank der 3 bereits verstorbenen Hauptfiguren einfach schwierig zu bedienen ist.

Trotzdem würde ich drauf wetten, dass es noch einen vierten Band geben wird, in dem Isobels Geschichte eine größere Rolle spielt... aber momentan bin ich der Meinung, dass ich diese dann nicht mehr lesen muss.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The third instalment in Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy is a disappointment. It feels very much like the publisher – or indeed the author herself – is cashing in on her pervious success. Old Filth was a minor masterpiece, but this add-on, although it fills in some of the back story, particularly of Edward Feathers’ rival Terry Veneering, doesn’t seem to have an emotional heart. It feels calculated, manufactured, and as a result fails to convince. Jane Gardam always writes well, but here her characterisation and plot development isn’t as sharp as in previous books, and this, added to the fact that the reader really needs to have read the previous two books in the trilogy to have any chance of understanding what’s going on, left this reader at least feeling very let-down.