Pride and Avarice - out Feb 2 - consolidates the annexation of lucrative Jilly Cooper territory (her next 600-pager's out in October). Distressingly, and as I write, the .co.uk arm of Amazon has no plot details of his latest 496-page epic which first came out as Deadly Sins in the UK last year: set in the OK Corral of, er, Hampshire. So I am forced to visit the .com arm and learn more, courtesy of a Publishers' Weekly's review synopsis reprinted there. "While funny and smartly conceived, [it] could stand to lose a good 150 pages," it sniffs between attempts at enthusiasm for his novel.
"As the narrative progresses, the ever-increasing chains of coincidences and shifts of allegiance begin to feel like a piling-on. Sometimes less is more."
In any case, the Publishers' Weekly review is an odd item to plonk on your online sales stall. And the Cooperland genre - which put the mittel into the england of shires bonkerama - requires a fat wad of book for its 50-something bottled blonde-in-pipe-jeans audience. What to do?
Coleridge (a sensitive Pisces), the much-adored Managing Director of Condé Nast in Britain - with Vogue, Tatler, Vanity Fair etc ever eager to help push book sales as disinterested fiction lovers - may also be left unamused by the misleading claim of Macmillan's PR puff for Pride and Avarice: "Hailed by The New Yorker as 'wickedly enjoyable', Nicholas Coleridge's newest novel is..."
Anyone would think the Condé Nast magazine found Pride and Avarice "wickedly enjoyable" and that it had got hold of a very early review copy. But the ringing praise was actually for Coleridge's earlier novel Godchildren. I'm sure this can't be a deliberate misrepresentation. I would refer Macmillan staff to the perils of dangling participles and misplaced modifiers and how to avoid them. Still, nearly 200 other online media have happily cut 'n' pasted the slip-up, so there's a comfort.
I would also question the use of "newest novel" - does this mean his old novels are permanently new? As in, "Have you read my new novel which was published 10 years ago?" But I'll let that pass. Wouldn't want to be called pedantic.
Here's an excerpt from his newest novel - tell me what you think.
15 comments:
Please be pedantic, Madame! Someone's got to be around this sort of tosh.
His novel starts dreadfully. Is there a new rule in commercial fiction that you must be as dull as possible?
Coleridge's stuff is not taken that seriously by booksellers, he's division 3. Not in Cooper's league at all, but his profile is a dream for a publisher.
Couldn't get through the first paragraph but I admire Nick for having the energy to write this drivel - how the hell does he manage to fit this slop in??
His last novel started with the name of his central character as does his latest. Aspiring writers please note.
The novel reads like someone's CV, a list of details and some smart description. probably writes in his sleep.
I've actually read the book, MA, and liked it a lot. Can't think why you are always so obsessed with Nicholas Coleridge anyway.
Mr C is an interest of mine, one of a great many as my 4 year-old blog testifies. Epochs may pass before Mr C gets another dose of creative Arcatisation.
If you've read his novel already then you're either one of his editors or a friend - so may I suggest your literary judgement is probably compromised?
But Coleridge is always competent and smart: I'm sure his "newest novel" will please his fans, even if his bon bon fiction leaves me needing mental root canal.
Way off topic but I think this deserves attention. Fast forward to 37:00 for a real hoot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qcps3/This_Week_28_01_2010/
Is this a sequel to his Deadly Sins novel ? It is nice to hear about Mr Coleridge again. Maybe Nicholas Coleridge and Julian Fellowes should join forces to write a novel about the British and European aristocracy or the history of Ttatler magazine X
The reader up NC's arse should reread Madame's piece. She disses his publisher rather than the book. Obviously Macmillan are not treating the book seriously if they can't beothered to put up a plot description.
I think J.K. Rowling proved that prose with excess fat and gruelingly slow narrative will hardly be indicative of the failure of a novel. The same about story starts or drivel; if I hadn’t been reading the story for my niece I would have put down the first volume down before reaching the second chapter and never find out about Voldemort; the first three chapters are sheer torture. She made it obvious someone can have no writing skills and still have the talent to wrap a whole generation in a story. She worked A LOT at making the characters three-dimensional, I’ll give her that.
It is to be seen if Mr. C’s newest-est novel has as much structure as a story like Harry Potter, enough to make readers empathize with some of the situations and be willing to put up with the drivel. Is the dreadful title of the novel an indication of how uninspired the story must be? I can’t be bothered to read the excerpt; not right now.
Anyone is welcome to call me pedantic; I’m a “sticks and stones …” kind of gal.
MA darling, why do I feel Tom Wolfe should be one of the labels in this story?
ox
oh! I love it when the verification word is "related": fattiest. LOL
Fear not, Blithe, you'll find no Voldemort in an NC novel. Just Sunday supp profile caricatures of rich people.
Madame, "Pride And Avarice" seems to be the US title of "Deadly Sins", which Amazon.co.uk tells me was published last April in the UK.
(A regular) xxx
Yes. It's taken quite a time for anyone to notice.
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