Angus Wilson is a master a capturing people in a very natural way. Real but surreal. ( )

This didn't really work for me at all: I just couldn't muster any interest in the life and work of the narrator, Carter. Pity, as I liked the last Angus Wilson I read. ( )

Angus Wilson is one of the cleverest and most underrated British 20th-century authors. For some reason, he appears to have been basically forgotten by contemporary readers. Overall his books are funny, intelligent, well-written, and timely (maybe this is why they can feel a bit outdated). The book is definitely a slow burn, so stick with it, and I think you'll be rewarded (though, sadly, it looks like the general opinion is against this one, at least on LT!).

The previous reviewer described The Old Men at the Zoo quite aptly; in some ways it seems like two different books. The first part is a social satire of British class mores, while the second half is a dystopic look at an imagined war and quasi-fascist takeover. The first half is smart; the second half almost hysterically apocalyptic and terrifying. Now that the book's future is in the past (like so many works of speculative fiction), it's all the more terrifying to look back at the Britain of the 1970s and see how close Wilson came to being right. ( )