This was our book club book for June. I have since missed the meeting where it was the book under discussion. There were legitimate reasons for missing - it was moved to Tuesday and that is a day when the car is unavailable to me at that hour, but I suppose I could have called around and gotten a ride, but I hate calling people for favors - like my mother in that, I guess. The real reason was probably that I didn't like the book all that much - and it was selected by a very good friend - and we usually agree on such matters.
It is all about a man who wants to be something that he is not - an Englishman. He and his wife are Jews who escaped from Nazi Germany and resettled in England.
Building a successful business is not enough for him, he wants to be more British than the Brits. His obsession eventually takes the form of ruining his business to build a golf course (a game he has never played) and carrying on an extensive and completely one-sided correspondence with Bobby Jones.
In a series of total improbabilities, he sort of succeeds and Bobby Jones graces his Coronation Day Tournament - and even more improbably he wins the acceptance and affection of a small village.
Possibly what made me the most uncomfortable with the whole business was the spectacle of a man making himself ridiculous to no positive end.
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