Word: simcox
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Paradise Postponed combines some of the social sweep of Brideshead with the hugger-mugger of Rumpole, the overweight, conniving and lovable Old Bailey barrister. The novel's central mystery emerges after the death, in 1985, of Simeon Simcox, 80, Anglican rector of Rapstone Fanner, a village some two hours' driving time west of London. The clergyman's will contains a staggering surprise. He has left nothing to his wife Dorothy or his two grown sons Henry and Fred. Instead, the ardent Socialist once known as "the Red Rector of Rapstone" has bequeathed all of his shares in the family-owned...
With this problem firmly established, Mortimer backs and fills over the four decades of complications that preceded it. The fortunes of the Simcox family form one important skein. The successful end of World War II and the subsequent victory of Clement Attlee and the Labor Party inspire Simeon in his pulpit. He draws his sermons from Revelation 21: 1: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and earth had passed away." Firmly committed to social justice at home and abroad, the minister writes impassioned letters about the New Jerusalem to his bishop, signs...
While the Simcox boys settle down, young Titmuss rises preposterously. The son of an accountant at the Simcox brewery, trained to replicate his father's footsteps, Leslie senses the postwar crumbling of old barricades and makes his moves. He joins the local Young Conservatives, never minding that most of his colleagues despise him. He courts and wins Charlotte Fanner, the awkward and unhappy daughter of the village's titled landowner. He grows rich through investments and gains political power, but he does not win the respect of those who know him best. As Dorothy Simcox preaches to her husband, "Perhaps...
That is not exactly what old Simcox had in mind when he dreamed of the future. Nor does Mortimer seem especially enamored of what his country threatens to become. But Paradise Postponed is a remarkably judicious presentation of pros and cons, and extremely funny besides. Near the end of his life, watching TV reports of the war for the Falkland Islands, Simeon complains to his wife: "What we're doing is going round in circles. I mean, is this where we came in?" To enter this novel is to join an eddy of wisdom and comic resignation...
Lewis Silverman kicks out the jams as megalomaniacal and libido-crazed deejay Vince Fontaine, and Andrea Shlipak plays megaditz yearbook editor Patty Simcox with similar reckless abandon. Missy Dubroff and Michael Kelley also shine in supporting roles as clique-members Frenchy and Roger. As for the play itself, well, suffice it to say that there are few deep philosophical insights. But the script flows well and is a lot funnier than one might think, remembering the 1978 movie...