H. F. Ellis. Swan Song of A. J. Wentworth (1982) The second (and final) chronicle of Wentworth’s life and career, as told by himself. It’s a mildly amusing and occasionally sharply skewering satire of the naively blinkered fool, in the peculiarly English tradition of Diary of A Nobody. Several of its parts appeared in (the now defunct) Punch, a magazine that appeared as if by magic in my Grandfather’s house when I was a boy barely capable of understanding the cartoons, let alone the prose pieces.
I enjoyed this book, but I suspect that it’s a specialised taste. Too many of the jokes depend on allusions too very English traits and attitudes, most of which were already obsolescent when this book was written. Wentworth is given a trip to the USA; it seems his experience as a maths teacher at Burgrove prep school qualify him for a lecture tour. He ends up a married man, but the causative events leading up that blessed state were recounted in the first volume, which I haven’t read. Drat! **½
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