Old Filth
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Reviews
Whitley Bay Book Group discussed Old Filth in November 2023.
Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (Failed In London, Try Hong Kong) to his final working days as a respected judge at the bar. Yet through it all he has carried with him the wounds of a difficult and emotionally hollow childhood. Now a widower in retirement, he looks back on his own history.
Most of us really liked this book, although one disliked it and one was ambivalent.
Those of us who were enthusiastic loved the language and found it very funny in parts, for example when Filth is thinking about the motorway drive, and the pen picture of the lorry driver he cut up. We liked the way the story was organised, with breadcrumbs scattered until the author let us know what happened in Wales. We thought the characters were well-drawn, and the emerging relationship between Sir Edward and Veneering, Sir Edward’s erstwhile enemy, was poignant and quite moving. We liked Albert Loss, who helped Filth at the beginning of his career, and the headmaster Sir, who could cope with anything.
Some of us weren’t aware of the Raj orphans, whose parents were running the Empire and sent them “home” to school, which could be an unhappy experience for them. Filth himself was damaged and emotionally stunted by his childhood. He ends up very successful but emotionally empty, and can be considered a metaphor for colonialism.
We were delighted to discover that Old Filth is the first book in a trilogy, with the second telling Filth’s wife Betty’s story, and the third Veneering’s. Some of us have ordered the sequels already.
We awarded the book between 1.5 and 5 stars, with an average of 4.
