Word: mr
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Mr. Ronson Lighter. The imaginative leap from adolescent affluence and argot to a perception of teen-age attitudes is what gives Absolute Beginners its moral energy. The novel would be no more than a cheerful nature walk from the Elephant and Castle to Notting Hill if Maclnnes did not see beneath all the apparent irresponsibility. What he finds is the fusion of caring and a concern for style that leaves young people unimpressed by questions of race or war or money...
Away ahead of public concern over civil liberties and possible abuse of constabulary power, Maclnnes knew that he did not like policemen. So, in Mr. Love and Justice, he contrived a minuet about how the police and vice prey on each other. Born policemen, Maclnnes believes, think like born criminals. Both move through the world of mugs with alert and total mistrust...
...character named Johnny Fortune from Lagos to London twelve years ago, few people in England were thinking of racial tension or predicting an Enoch Powell. Maclnnes set Johnny and a white friend loose in an African and West Indian shadow world full of jouncing characters with cross-rough names: Mr. Peter Pay Paul, Mr. Karl Marx Bo (a future Prime Minister for sure), Mr. Ronson Lighter, and villainous Billy Whispers. The result was British high-low comedy, presented with affection and delight. When he took these people among whites who even then self-consciously affected Spade guests, the satire said...
Maclnnes' ear for the issues is sound too. His robust sympathies never crush his judgment. Beneath the charm and humor, sadness lurks. Mr. Karl Marx Bo says, looking around the Moonbeam club: "Serious individual as I am, I cannot always resist the lure of a little imitation joy." By the end, the tinsel has peeled for Johnny Fortune. After a police frame-up and a month in jail on a marijuana charge, he sets out to join his family in Lagos-full of shame and defiance: "Let them kill every Spade that's in the world, and leave...
...other writers were persuaded to get off Mr. Davis' literary turf. The publishers were only too glad to let him run on for 424 pages, including three genealogical tables and 19 pages of bibliographical notes-as though the Bouviers were either highly significant or vastly entertaining...