Stiff Upper Brit
Robinson, Matthew
Matthew Robinson A Stiff Upper Brit H.W. CROCKER III THE OLD LIMEY Retired British Gen. Nigel Haversham does not come quietly into our world. Crocker's hero bursts into the imagination with such...
...Who are you to say...
...Crocker's hero bursts into the imagination with such force he almost doesn't survive his own arrival via a self-induced car crash, reeking of booze and bleeding from the cuts and contusions that punctuate his drunken skid...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ March 2001 105 "Destroyer, how terribly pleased I am to meet you...
...The jacket blurbs of this wonderful debut novel compare the author to Evelyn Waugh...
...Nigel Haversham loves honor, civilization, and the British Empire...
...Being a man of ideals in a world of moral expediency, Haversham reaches into the hearts of cynics with the sort of idealistic leadership that one might call quixotic if Haversham couldn't back it up with a lifetime of action and the world's noblest military tradition...
...special forces veterans...
...That's good because Crocker, despite his obvious affection for the fellow, has mercilessly dropped him into the Los Angeles underworld, where Nigel's goddaughter has disappeared with her drug-dealing boyfriend...
...Haversham's quest in America is to find the girl and bring her back—by any means necessary...
...And the terrifying black nationalists are, to Haversham, African paladins standing guard over their tribe—worthy of the respect warriors of all times and all places accord one another...
...Sort of a children's crusade, what...
...But where the sage of Ferney would have us tend our gardens, the blustering brigadier would have us tend our private wars...
...Oh, jolly good indeed...
...Jamal, Holy Terminator, and I fought gangs before—in the projects...
...A better comparison would be with an ale-swilling, bulldog, Union Jack-waving Voltaire...
...And why the white carnation buttonholes...
...Mitty's world was born of boredom...
...And who are all these chaps...
...In The Old Limey the forces of political correctness get a well-deserved knuckle-duster that leaves us hoping for further campaigns from the fighting general...
...Naturally Penelope and April scold him for being judgmental: "What's wrong if people like it...
...A two-fisted drinker, a hardened veteran of battles in exotic lands, he is a stranger in the land the West has become...
...Haversham is far more sardonic, and self-knowing...
...But Nigel knows exactly who he is: "People like flogging too, but I should hardly think it a good thing if we had a booming flogging industry with million dollar floggers mincing about in tight leather pants...
...I hope I can call you that— Destroyer, that is...
...Here is Haversham greeting a special detachment of the "Black Jihad" who are marching under his Union Jack to target drug dealers: "Sir General Nigel Haversham, I am Destroyer Mohammed...
...As Destroyer introduced them, they nodded sharply in salute...
...Jamal B. Bad...
...It was like watching a chorus line of black Prussians, Nigel thought...
...Haversham is no British Walter Mitty...
...Mitty, the egoist, was ever his own hero...
...That's not exactly accurate...
...1212 and all that...
...From here, life only gets tougher for the "Old Limey...
...and Merciless Mustapha...
...Haversham's trick—and the novel's charm—is his ability to imagine others as he aspires to be, and partly is...
...The former special-forces leader becomes the dashing Confederate raider, riding into danger unconscious of causes...
...Well, I assure you, if I ever do have the misfortune of being trapped in the same room with her, I'll jolly well keep my bottle of Glenfiddich under lock and key...
...The alternately hilarious and inspiring result is a wickedly told adventure in which our British explorer cuts through the rave clubs and drug dens of L.A., teamed up with his devoted American posse—recruited on the spot with a mixture of self-confidence, optimism, and charm...
...Holy Terminator...
...Haversham's idealism was forged righting in the far reaches of the world for an intangible but sweet ideal of British civilization...
...Nigel's disciples include two radiant California sun bunnies, a platoon of quasi-military black nationalists, Jamaican drug dealers, and a klatch of U.S...
...Met so many Mohammeds in my time, I'd be confused...
...The white carnation symbolizes the purity of black children like the Esteemed Iced Khalifa's own daughter, Jihad Golightly, for whose future we fight...
...The narcissistic California blonde becomes an emblem of Viking beauty and strength, devoid of vanity, unconscious of her lithe form and golden locks...
...He is also blessed with an almost self-destructive taste for adventure...
...When his leggy "sun-kissed" guides, Penelope and April, describe the escapades of a Madonna-like singer who makes news by having sex with a bottle, Haversham is horrified and says so...
...Awful Ali...
...V Regnery Publishing, Inc., 339pages, $19.95 c., 339pages, $19.95...
...Oh, excellent...
Vol. 34 • March 2001 • No. 2
