“What I’m Reading” is a series that describes books I’m reading that I may or may not review later on this blog
What I’m reading: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (Random House, 368 pp., $16, paperback).
What it is: A gently satirical romantic comedy about the relationship between Ernest Pettigrew, a retired British Army officer, and Jasmina Ali, a shopkeeper of Pakistani ancestry in his English village. The two friends’ first names betoken their roles in the novel: Major Pettigrew is earnest and proper; Mrs. Ali is the exotic flower in town.
How much I’ve read: More than half.
Quote from the book: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand tweaks many kinds of prejudice, including the snobbery of a certain sort of Englishman toward Americans. An example occurs when the Major Pettigrew observes, on seeing an unfamiliar face at his golf club: “The fourth man was a stranger, and something in his broad shoulders and unfortunate pink golf shirt suggested to the Major that he might be another American. Two Americans in as many weeks was, he reflected, approaching a nasty epidemic.”
Furthermore: Janet Maslin reviewed Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand favorably in the New York Times.
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One-Minute Book Reviews 
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