Win The Clothes In The Wardrobe Edited By Alice Thomas Ellis Released As Hardcover

Thomas Ellis is a witty writer, i love her! This is probably my least favourite of her books I've read to date.
Her other books have been really amusing and full of wicked humour but this one just seemed to have an ominous and foreboding feel to it.
Although I liked the ending which in my opinion was the best part, It's the first part of a trilogy so I hope it improves as it goes on, This is the first of Ellis's books that has bored me, It

has her usual dry wit which I love and her usual tortured musings over Catholic guilt and morals.
The lead character, Margaret, becomes quickly irritating though and the outcome of the story irrelevant to me, If this was the first of her books I'd read, I wouldn't read any more, I'm just going to put it aside as one that I haven't enjoyed and I won't bother with the rest of the trilogy.
rather depressing but funny nonetheless, an easy read. this is part of a trilogy and i liked it well enough to search out the other two books I'm starting to worry that ATE just keeps writing the same book.
. . could she have got away with it if her publisher wasn't her husband However, Im interested in reading the rest of this trilogy.
From the teasers at the back, it seems that Margaret and Syl are back on, Completely nuts, how's she going to fall into that again

"I wanted to say that women, since they uttered human beings, had no need to make a noise, that all the bluster of music was a sad cry because the world was unevenly divided, but I couldnt think of how to put it.
I had always felt embarrassed and had to look at my feet in the presence of anyone playing any musical instrument, and had realised once when watching Syl spitting and squinting at his oboe that this was because it was irresistibly evocative of masturbation.
"
A well written novella with a dark acerbic humour that I enjoyed, however the characters were very hard to like or identify with and I had to make myself keep reading.
I finished it indaysrail journeys but dont feel enlightened or entertained having finished it, Watched the movie on Prime Video, Slow going plot but the British humor is wonderful, The best part was Jeanne Moreau, perfectly cast as the worldly and free spirited 'Lili' who drinks too much and thinks everyone else should too.
She plays the biggest part in this drama, including the punchline, Great oneliners!

"I wanted to die young, but now it's too late, " "Your average whore goes round like a taxi touting for trade but the innocent irresistible woman is like a municipal bus.
It isn't her fault that people keep running after her, and its unpleasant for her, people jumping on and off.
. . "

This sort of throwaway clever remark is what made this book, though enjoyable, not the best Alice Thomas Ellis I have ever read.
The whole novel, like this sentence, was a little too contrived, The characters in it, as I often find in her books, are slightly less surreal than La Spark's and slightly less upmarket than those of Mary Wesley.
but the three women write similarly of relationship and division and disgruntled hopes, Nevertheless, whereas in Spark I find intrigue and mystery and in Wesley there is a heavily tongue in cheek fun poking, Ellis sometimes seems to stand on her honour somehow a writer of wit and arch humour and whilst this often works and makes me smile it can sometimes drag and annoy.


The story is a simple one, Margaret is preparing for her marriage to an oily ageing creep who is her mother's age and indeed in her mother's circle.
This, incidentally, is another common upper middle class concept in this type of story, of being in 'a circle' which jars on me somehow.
It serves to alienate me from the characters though maybe that is its point, Margaret seems powerless to do anything about it, She is a demoralized rabbit caught in the very gaudy and aggressive twin headlights of maternal snobby oppression on the one hand and adolescent ennui and hopelessness on the other.
Enter Lili, the larger than life femme fatale quoted at the head of the review, . . she enters, she perceives and then, cleverly and decisively, she manouveres,

There is mystery at the heart of the story, what is the secret Margaret is hiding which causes not her ennui but her hopelessness, her feeling only worthy of a dead life It is not a William Styron, Sophie style choice when we discover it but it is bleak and shocking and causes things to make a little sense.


Lili is an unlikely redeemer and her mode of redemption is interesting and unexpected, . . but it made me laugh out loud in an Airport Concourse so all credit to Ellis for that, This so slow and boring and the ending is lack luster, I thought it was supposed to be a childrens book, It is a story of naïve woman who is about to get married to a man who must be her father age.
Though the plot had scope for lot of brilliance, the plot in this was just too predictable, The characters come off as very fake, You can easily guess how the plot is moving ahead, It was a struggle to finish it, Thoroughly depressing, but all in all a good dark humored laugh, All about being forced into marriage and having choices, However, it was mostly a drunk's reflections on her disjointed family and their interactions with society, More specifically, it tied in reminescences of having lived in Egypt, don't want to tell specifics, but mostly all the taboos and crimes that can plague a person's conscience for life.
A good short read. Didn't bother reading the other two in the trilogy as it just didn't capture my attention or imagination, Naughty, eccentric aunts can save your life and sanity, Alice Thomas Ellis was short listed for the Booker prize for Theth Kingdom, She is the author of A Welsh Childhood autobiography, Fairy Tales and several other novels including The Summerhouse Trilogy, made into a movie starring Jeanne Moreau and Joan Plowright.
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