The Renaissance Group - Couverture souple

Lord, Bernard

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1401023037 ISBN 13 : 9781401023034

Editeur : Xlibris, 2001

Synopsis

Bruce Hastie, a young, naive Scottish engineer, comes to live in a London flat while he works as a graduate apprentice in a turbine factory. It is 1958. He has two contrasting flat-mates, selected by a special agency, a disillusioned actor, Benjamin Garrick, and a rough, crude washing machine salesman, Edward Flunk, also known as Skunk.Bruce starts work at General Turbines Limited in the smoke, grime and heat of the foundry. One lunch-break he finds his chargehand boss, a huge, strong, Yorkshireman nicknamed Heavy, reading and enjoying some Dylan Thomas poetry. This is a paradox that mystifies the class-conscious Bruce whom Heavy brands as an intellectual snob. Heavy expounds on his soapbox that the arts have been kept away from the working class, that they and society at large need saving from rampant materialism and its attendant viciousness by a good dose of the spiritual values that only poetry, art, theatre and classical music can offer.Then follows two chapters that develop the character of Skunk and Benjamin.Skunk, a self-appointed sexual conqueror of women, has the tables turned on him when he encounters an educated, beautiful but unbalanced seductress when called to fix her washing machine that supposedly has electrocuted her dog. Benjamin is sent home sick from rehearsal, accompanied by fellow actor Sally Frinton-Jones. His malaise is psychological for he is disillusioned by the theatre and his performance in it. By this time, Heavy has Bruce believing in his ideas about the need to educate the common masses in the arts. Benjamin, also a convert to Heavy's "renaissance" through Bruce's dogmatism, cannot persuade Sally of the practicality of those ideas. Bruce goes into action by piping Beethoven's 5th Symphony into the motor assembly shop at General Turbines where 300 women work. The music is well received but when his report on allowing the foundryworkers time off to listen to writers, actors and poets is read by the crass managing director

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur

Bernard Lord was born and raised in England but for the last thirty-five years has resided in the USA. Although engineering has been his primary occupation, this is the second novel that he has written and he is presently busy with a third. He is married and lives with his wife in California. They have three children who are long grown and flown.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Xlibris
• Date d'édition: 2001
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1401023037
• ISBN 13: 9781401023034
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 266
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
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