Lodge, David

London. 1991. Secker & Warburg. Reprinted Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket With Some Wrinkling At The Bottom Spine. 0436256681. 294 pages. hardcover. Jacket Design by Chris Shamwana. Jacket illustration by Paul Cox. keywords: Literature England. FROM THE PUBLISHER - The pale, unaccompanied man paddling in the blue Pacific on a thronged Waikiki Beach is obviously a stranger in this tourist paradise, and, to judge by his very British rolled-up trousers, a long way from home. Not far, though, from relations. Bernard Walsh has a kind of professional interest in paradise, but he is in Hawaii on family business, escorting a querulous parent to the bedside of a long-forgotten aunt. It is a mission that transports him from quiet obscurity in Rummidge to a lush tropical playground, from cloistered solitude into bright sunlight on the other side of all the worlds he knows. The interminable flight from Heathrow thrusts him into unfamiliar company, all consumers or connoisseurs of the package tour: honeymooners and second honeymooners, businessmen active and retired, young women looking for Mr Nice, families nuclear and fissile. But it is the island itself that holds the most astonishing surprises, as an accidental encounter opens up to Bernard possibilities of life, and love, never dreamed of in his normal overcast habitat. Bernard, whose expedition began from a sense of duty, is subjected to a series of disconcerting revelations about his family and about himself, but the greatest discovery of all is that he can rise to the challenge. He has come a long way from his childhood role as thurible bearer at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. But then Waikiki is a long way from Rummidge. In this enchanting, wittily framed portrait of the late flowering of an honest man, David Lodge continues to expand the boundaries of comedy. inventory #40443 ISBN: 0436256681.