"Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" by Helen Simonsen

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonsen

"Life often does get in the way of one’s reading."

Again, another book title that kept coming up, especially by friends in other book clubs. My book club is reading it as our June selection.

Major Ernest Pettigrew is a distinguished retired military man, still trying to find how to live as a widower. He lives in the same town he has known forever and observes his fellow Englishmen and women (and himself) and their reactions and responses to the English of Indian descent who live with them in town -- but it is more like a co-existence. The hint of – and sometimes quite obvious – racism and divide flows throughout the book, even as Major Pettigrew develops a relationship with Mrs. Ali, the local shopkeeper, herself also a widow. Major Pettigrew is an interesting character in that everyone has great reverence toward him. It is even more interesting that while all the other characters appreciate his integrity, the power of his position, the strength of his word, the respect he demands merely because of who he is (he does not demand it, it is freely given), his call to duty, his chivalrous attitude, and his humility, everyone wishes to use his greatest attributes to their advantage. Almost every character – rotten or not – wants Pettigrew on their side. They all know that he is so respected that his support of them is gold (At one point, when a man wants to sway others to his plan, he verifies the power of the Major: “If we can’t convince him of what we are doing, we might as well give up”). He seems quite aware that he is being used, but his sense of duty and desire to be needed encourage his involvement.

For some reason, this book took me a while to read and get into. It was not particularly difficult to read or even uninteresting. It took effort, and I am not even sure why. It was a book club selection, so I plowed through and after hitting about halfway, I was glad to pick it up and read the last 3/4ths of the book in one day.

My recommendation: When I finished it, I was glad to have done so. If it had not been a book club book, I probably would have stopped 50 pages in and then asked a friend who had read it what had happened. I recommend sticking with it, but don’t get discouraged when it takes a while to plow through it.

 Quotes I liked:

“Back behind his own gate, the Major felt a small spasm of grief. He had been feeling better in recent days and it was a surprise to find that his sorrow over his brother [who recently died] had not gone away, but had been merely hiding somewhere waiting to ambush him on just such an occasion.” (p161)

“’How amazing it is that we ever planned to read it [poetry about nature] outdoors,’ said Mrs. Ali. ‘It has so much more power out here where it was made.’” (p. 192)