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The Golden Child
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Penelope Fitzgerald's novel, The Golden Child, combines a deft comedy of manners with a classic mystery set in London's most refined institution—the museum. When the glittering treasure of ancient Garamantia, the golden child, is delivered to the museum, a web of intrigue tightens around its personnel, especially the hapless museum officer Waring Smith. While prowling the
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Paperback, 189 pages
Published
September 15th 1999
by Mariner Books
(first published 1977)
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It's always interesting to read a writer's first novel. Usually all the themes and some of the characters of future books are clumsily present in embryo form. And it's not the case to have great expectations. But I've never read a novel by an esteemed author with less artistry than this. It's like she wrote it in a month for either a joke or money. It's a pastiche of the murder mystery genre. To begin with it seems like it might be entertaining. An exhibition of ancient world tomb artefacts with
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If you’re old enough, you will remember the King Tut craze. (And the Steve Martin song inspired by it.) I was a junior in high school when we were taken on school buses to stand in line for hours, snapping photos of each other, as well as of a fake pyramid and a painted “Nile River” that wound around the outside of the museum, until we could file past the relics, which I’m guessing we couldn’t take photos of since I have none. The waiting took hours longer than seeing the actual exhibit, but a l
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Penelope Fitzgerald writes a whodunit. Except I didn't know it was going to be a whodunit, because having read a fair share of Fitzgerald I figured I knew what to expect and would skip the much despised back cover book summary. The initial chapters reminded me of Mad Men set in a museum, without all the screwing. Maybe more like Desk Set. Reminiscent of Human Voices, but much more tightly plotted, and unlike HV it doesn't constantly refer to people by abbreviations of their positions--DD(S), DDP
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This is the second of Fitzgerald's books I've read and I didn't enjoy it any more than the first. To me, she tries to write in a similar style to Jane Gardam but it just doesn't work for me. I forced myself to read more than I wanted to and there's no point in that. This sort of twee English eccentricity just becomes annoying after a while.
I had not heard of Penelope Fitzgerald (freely confessing my appalling American ignorance here) when I started reading The Golden Child. It took me a while to "understand" what I was reading: the first novel (from 1977) of a Booker Prize-winning novelist. At first it seemed to be an odd, old-fashioned whodunnit. As I read, I began to see a little more of what Fitzgerald was doing--telling a story that has elements of mystery and satire, and presented from the original, idiosyncratic point of vie
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I think that any absurd book is going to be loved or hated, and I have certainly hated my share of absurd books (notably, A Confederacy of Dunces, and The Sellout, neither of which I could finish because they were far too puerile for me.) Well this book is completely absurd,, and I thought it was hilarious and it endeared me even more to Penelope Fitzgerald. One thing I love about this book is that, in the middle of all its nuttiness, there is the truth of the way that a big museum is--that almo
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This was Fitzgerald's first novel and it shows, I think. Though many of the hallmarks of her craft are in evidence there is little of the masterly restraint of her more mature novels. Nonetheless there is much to enjoy. The setting is a thinly disguised British Museum which is holding an exhibition of Garamantian artefacts which includes the Golden Child. As the exhibition opens to massive public interest a series of mysterious events begins to unfold. As usual Fitzgerald draws her characters wi
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I have only read two Penelope Fitzgerald novels before, and both were strange and quirky but enjoyable. Of the three that I have now read, this was definitely my favourite. It is odd and quirky, very funny in parts, and utterly absorbing.
In this story of the exhibtion of The Golden Child - Fitzgerald is poking gentle fun at the world of museum exhibitions. As the characters and situations she has created in this novel are eccentric and often absurd, but entirely delightful for all that. The poor ...more
In this story of the exhibtion of The Golden Child - Fitzgerald is poking gentle fun at the world of museum exhibitions. As the characters and situations she has created in this novel are eccentric and often absurd, but entirely delightful for all that. The poor ...more
Regular readers of my blog may well be aware of my fondness for the work of Penelope Fitzgerald. I’ve been making my way through her novels, not always in order of publication, over the past few years. The Golden Child (1977) was her first novel, a hugely entertaining tale of internal politics, mystery and mayhem, all set amid the most British of institutions, a prestigious London museum.
The museum in question, a thinly veiled version of the British Museum, is hosting an exhibition of precious t ...more
The museum in question, a thinly veiled version of the British Museum, is hosting an exhibition of precious t ...more
Utterly, delightfully absurd.
An odd little book, about an exhibition at a thinly disguised British Museum. Very much of its time and not without its small pleasures.
The Golden Child is two novels for the price of one. You have the first novel, a scorching satire of bureaucracy and hierarchy, and the sort of toxic humanity that's the same today as it was when it was written in 1977. It's full of fun jokes, gallows humor, perfectly-captured exasperation, and is really quite well-written. Our protagonist, a hapless minor functionary at a museum exhibiting a King-Tut-inspired exhibition of archaeological finds from a fictional country, is subject to an almost p
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‘The Golden Child’ was Penelope Fitzgerald’s first book and is unlike all her others. For a start, it has an ending. This is not a spare evocation of time, place and character like her other novels but more a full-throttled comic mystery.
It might be the longest of her novels, weighing in at a whopping two hundred pages, apparently it used to be longer with more sub-plots and characters but her editor advised her to trim it down. As such, it reminds me most of Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen mysteri ...more
It might be the longest of her novels, weighing in at a whopping two hundred pages, apparently it used to be longer with more sub-plots and characters but her editor advised her to trim it down. As such, it reminds me most of Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen mysteri ...more
This is not based on the weird ass Eddie Murphy movie from the mid 80s with that weird haunted sword or pipe or whatever it was.
Instead this is a kind of mystery, kind of comedy of manners taking place in a Natural History museum the night before a huge new opening. In this novel, several key figures circulate around the opening of a new exhibit that will introduce the world to the collected findings about an ancient civilization: Garamantia.
It has old burial vessels, pots, a strange hieroglyphi ...more
Instead this is a kind of mystery, kind of comedy of manners taking place in a Natural History museum the night before a huge new opening. In this novel, several key figures circulate around the opening of a new exhibit that will introduce the world to the collected findings about an ancient civilization: Garamantia.
It has old burial vessels, pots, a strange hieroglyphi ...more
It was quite interesting to read Penelope Fitzgerald's first novel from 1977 having read seven of her later books. Far fetched but fun, a typically short novel that descends into a combination of thriller and farce. A comedy mystery with some good characterisation along the way. The setting is brilliant, a big London museum with all the bitchiness behind the scenes. A big fictional exhibition is taking place in midwinter with thousands turning up to queue in the cold. See what I mean about far f
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This book started off a bit slow for me but toward the middle and end the pace picked up significantly and I couldn't put it down. It is my 4th favorite of her novels that I've read. Not because the characters will be particularly memorable for me but because of the overall feeling I sustained while reading it: a sort of pervading bemusement mixed with concern for the put-upon protagonist, and, in the end, a huzzah for his success (of sorts). In the "About the Author" bit at the end of this book
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Interesting. I felt like the writer was trying to convey some of the fanfare and commercialism of the traveling museum exhibits, such as Tutankhamen. This book, explores through a small golden infant pharoahs and the treasures found in his tomb. When the museum exhibit is loaned to a British museum, murder ensues, and a young in-experienced museum clerk is sent on a mysterious mission to Russia.
It was an entertaining read, but also somewhat informational, because I had never really even though ...more
It was an entertaining read, but also somewhat informational, because I had never really even though ...more
The plot revolves around (and around) a museum that has on exhibit a long dead royal child and all of his grave goods. The boy's tomb was discovered years earlier and has been in the Garamantian museum ever since. As the story begins it is on loan to a museum that is suspiciously similar to the British Museum in London.
Waring Smith, a young employee, is the most likely hero. It is his adventures the reader tends to follow. Murder and deception are riff.
Written in the in the 1970s, TGC is a joyf ...more
Waring Smith, a young employee, is the most likely hero. It is his adventures the reader tends to follow. Murder and deception are riff.
Written in the in the 1970s, TGC is a joyf ...more
Perhaps a bit dated, yet this book is so different, so quirky, it is worth reading. It plays on (and with) literary conventions. For example, there is a send-up of the hero's ability to feel the truth of the situation, even before the facts are apparent: "A physical sensation like the thawing of ice, or the melting down of gold, warned him that the worst of his troubles were over." That word "warned" is priceless, especially in a simile about gold.
I skipped lots, it couldn’t keep me interested. Everyone had a stupid name, and I can’t relate to stupid names, so it all seemed a bit put on.....felt like she tried very hard to name everyone oddly. It did have humour and at times it made me smile. I felt it was all absurd.....plus who doesn’t know or think that half the stuff on display in museums are fake ones and replicas?
Slight, simple, fusty whodunit discovered cleaning out bookshelves. I began reading mistakenly thinking it was going to be a novel about Egypt and kept reading for its quirky English humor skewering over-hyped exhibitions, museum politics, upper class Brits, and FOMO on the part of the museum going public. Best: terribly understated digs. Worst: so much to read, so little time...
3.5 stars
Well ... she got better. Will likely only appeal to the Fitzgerald completist.
A simply wonderful read from start to finish. As close to perfection as I can imagine.
Delightful!
Tom Sharpe-esque academics get unwittingly embroiled in political/spying scandal and run amok in a museum. Not sure what I was expecting but this was light, humorous, entertaining.
Well written. Simple with rather funny oh so British characters.
Tongue-in-cheek send-up of the British Museum, not to mention the murder mystery ... with a marvelously sympathetic protagonist ... a most enjoyable read ...
I think the best word for this is a ‘caper’. Good fun.
A tongue-in-cheek romp through museum administration politics and hierarchies - with heart in its characters Sir William and Waring Smith. Delicious writing.
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Readers also enjoyed
Penelope Fitzgerald was an English novelist, poet, essayist and biographer. In 2008, The Times included her in a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2012, The Observer named her final novel, The Blue Flower, as one of "the ten best historical novels".
Fitzgerald was the author of nine novels. Her novel Offshore was the winner of the Booker Prize. A further three novels — The B ...more
Fitzgerald was the author of nine novels. Her novel Offshore was the winner of the Booker Prize. A further three novels — The B ...more
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