293 pages
English language
Published July 10, 1999 by Back Bay Books.
Sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather is oddly unsurprised to find himself qualifying for the position of schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle. Hi colleagues are an assortment of misfits, rascals and fools, including Prendy (plagued by doubts) and Captain Grimes, who is always in the soup (or just plain drunk). Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, floating on a scented breeze. As the farce unfolds and the young run riot, no one is safe, least of all Paul.
A re-read, based on the LRB piece. What stuck out this time is the gratuitous racism – it's meant to be funny (even being set up as the punchline of a chapter), though it almost feels incidental, as if it could be snipped away entirely without changing the book. (It's odd this doesn't show up in the book's Wikipedia page right now.) But it can't really be snipped away – it's clearly part of the worldview espoused by the book.
